I will confess it. I am in love with settings. When you start to pay attention to the quirkiness of a place, it will begin to show itself to you as if it's auditioning for a part in your story. That street where my parents had lived for over thirty years suddenly began to take on all kinds of possibilities, once young Yasmin came to inhabit it in my mind. The woman with the iron became the "istri lady." The silent man beating time in the air as if he were playing an invisible drum walked into the story. Even the pigeons seemed to start cooing purposefully. Tee shirts really did get folded on TV. Bus drivers sang--all right, that lament the bus driver sings came right out of my father's old cassette tape collection that I was converting into digital music files. And slowly, line by line, Book Uncle and Me came to be written. 

For expat Indian me, the ex-kid who read obsessively, this has been quite a journey.

[Note: This blog post can also be found on the Scholastic India blog]

Some time ago, I was privileged to host a conversation with my VCFA colleague and gifted writer Susan Fletcher and children's literature scholar Taraneh Matloob. Now it's my delight to invite Susan to write a guest post for me on WWBT--this time about her latest book, Falcon in the Glass.

Here's the trailer, with music and editing by that talented duo, Cooper Appelt and Laurel Kathleen. 

Here's what I asked Susan

Obsession and form dominate in this book--Renzo's obsession with the glass, the forms of birds and children that appear as if magically from the mist, and the glass and what it means. The interplay between these things does so much to help shape this beautiful story. Can you talk about that? What did obsession and form (structure if you will) mean to you in the making of this book?

Her answer is filled with all those internal contradictions that writers know so well--the fragile and the unbreakable, the fleeting and the enduring, the things that create the shifting, shadowy dance between vision and craft.

Susan Fletcher on Obsession, Form, and Falcon in the Glass

I guess I started with three obsessions from the get-go. First of all, Venice. Ever since seeing a video documentary on Venice about twenty years ago, I’ve been fascinated by that city and have wanted to explore it in person and in writing. Maybe it’s all those canals and bridges, or the reflections of water on stone and stone on water, which give the city a rippling feeling of evanescence. Maybe it’s the opulence, or the flamboyant history, or the fact that the city is sinking, which brings to mind the fragility of everything that’s beautiful. Maybe it’s the fact that when you walk through those old streets, you can almost imagine that the 21st century has dropped away and you’re living in some alternate Renaissance—with tourists.

In any case, my second obsession had to do with the shape of the story I wanted to tell. Years before, I had read The Kite Runner, and it had moved me deeply, and I’d gone back and asked myself why. Part of of it had to do with the book itself, which I still admire. But part of it, I decided, had to do with the type of story it is—a story of harm inflicted and later atonement. I can’t tell you why, but this kind of story pulls at me. And it has a particular shape: Someone hurts someone else, for human reasons that we can understand. And he then tries to go back and undo as much of the harm as he can—though undoing it entirely is impossible. So I knew the larger shape of the story very early in the process. A sort of forward movement with the hurting. And an echoing backward reflection with the attempt to undo. Stone on water. Water on stone.

My third obsession is longstanding. It has to do with creating things. Shaping things. The word “art” makes me skittish—but I spend the bulk of my days thinking about, teaching about, writing about, and in the act of attempting to create something original and harmonious: a story. I hadn’t really explored this territory yet in a novel, but I wanted to. So my protagonist, Renzo, aspires to become a glass artist. He is, as you say, obsessed. In this book I got to explore, through Renzo, some of the issues I have mulled over the years in my teaching and writing. How important is innovation in artmaking? What is the relationship between the hard work (and even drudgery) of developing the skills the artist needs on the one hand…and the flash of inspiration required for the art to break through to true originality? For me, finishing a novel requires a kind of dogged persistence. It’s a long process requiring a suite of hard-won skills. But when I approach a book with a sort of grit-your-teeth determination, I can crush all the life out of it. My best writing comes when I lighten up and approach my work in a spirit of play. For me, writing a novel is a delicate balancing act of craft, persistence, obsession, and joy. And I imagine that this is true of other art forms, too.

And finally, I found myself exploring the relationship between art and life. Some artists believe it’s necessary to sacrifice the fullness of their lives to their art. They believe that genuine art requires that level of sacrifice. And truly I have found that if you let it, life can shoulder aside your plans to make art. And if you want to create, you can’t allow that to happen. On the other hand, I think the most important thing I’ve done in my life isn’t writing my books—it’s raising my daughter. So in Falcon, Renzo finds himself caught between the demands of artmaking and life. I won’t say what happens, but I will tell where I come out on this issue: Life can disrupt your plans to make art, but it’s a full life that gives you something to make art about.

Thank you, Susan, for this sensitive post on a book as rich and beautiful as the history, art, and humanity it brings to the page. 

[Uma] Don, welcome to WWBT. Talk to me about what research was involved in illustrating Eve Bunting's text for The Cart That Carried Martin. What did you learn from this project? 

One of the e-books I received recently from Karadi is an interesting retelling of an Aesop fable, The Fox and the Crow, with text by Manasi Subramaniam and illustrations by German artist Culpeo Fox. 

The drama of the fox and crow, rivals in their quest for a piece of bread, plays out in deep, glowing spreads together with very spare text. The reader is pulled directly into the story from the beginning with an in medias res opening that is unusual in a picture book. Every action (even the moon "slithers" into the sky) slides the fable forward in its deliciously dangerous jungle setting. The book ends by circling subtly back to the notion that this is an age-old tale and will surely repeat itself. 

Writing is always shaped by its audience and purpose. It will be interesting to see how future books from Indian publishers might shift and change, now that more of them are available to young readers overseas. 

Look back. To look forward. Is that really all it takes?

First, a confession: If you know me, you know I’m a back story junkie. When I’m starting a new book, the character’s past is always the first thing that interests me. Sometimes, I find the backstory from a memory in my own life. Sometimes, it comes from an image or scene from the news—from the stories in our world that I can’t let go of. No matter what, the past gets me thinking. It speaks to character motivation. It reveals what Franny Billingsley calls “the default emotion,” or what a character will do when they are stressed out. When I know how my characters have behaved in the past, I can better anticipate their reactions to actions and situations in the plot.

This is what I do:

I start by asking the question, “Who are you?” I answer this question as many times as I can without making myself crazy (usually around fifty times). I start at the cliché level: sister, friend, and student. Then I go deeper. I think about who they are in terms of emotions: are they paranoid? Or superstitious? Are they angry? Or forgiving? And I don’t stop there. I try to think concretely. I try to find answers that the character would not want his friends to know. Is my character a chocolate lover, late sleeper, or obsessed with fashion? Is he loyal? Or does he blab at the first opportunity? Is he unhappy? Does she feel alone? All these traits help me anticipate and make the most of future conflict and themes. They reveal my characters’ controlling beliefs. Most important, they provide plot clues. By understanding how these traits have served my characters in the past shows me what they love and hate and where they draw a line in the sand—when enough is enough. It gives me clues about how they react to events in the plot.

Then I examine connectivity. I look at allies and enemies: who sticks up for each other and then I determine sources of conflict. I look first at their pasts. And then at the events of the story. Here is one connectivity chart from a draft of BELIEVE, a novel whose inciting incident happens ten years before page one. In this chart, you can see that there are a lot of tripods. Each one is fortified by conflicting emotions. Seeing them on the chart showed me how to raise the stakes in the plot; it made it easy to see where the conflict was brewing. Once I understand how every character is connected—not just to the main character, but to the other characters on the chart—I can better predict who needs to be in the big scenes. I can anticipate who needs to be on the page to move the plot forward.

It may seem simple, but it works for me. By looking back, through character and connectivity, I can envision the future. I can understand where the hot spots will form and the plot will turn. Only when I know what happened in the past can I begin to think about what will inevitably come next as well as what will surprise.

Looking back has another benefit, one that is more personal. By taking the time to look back at our own writing pasts, we feel more accomplished and are better able to set goals for the future. When we give ourselves recognition for work accomplished, we are motivated to work harder in the future. Every time I start a new class, I insist that my writers.com students celebrate each milestone. We have a special topic called “Chocolate and Flowers,” where we cheer each other on when we figure out something new, send out a manuscript, or even get a rejection. (That’s an important step!) This is what my rabbi was hoping we would all do. She was not just saying, “Look back at this story.” She was urging us, “Look back. Celebrate where you’ve been. Resolve to do better.” It’s not just good advice for this time of year. It is important to take a moment to thank ourselves, our husband or wife or partner, our children, and our friends for supporting us as we discover made-up worlds and people. When we look back, we can also see how far we’ve come. By thinking about the past year, we can look forward to the next one and set new goals for our writing lives.

I asked Kashmira to tell me what led her to write this book.

Tomorrow we take a brief hiatus, resuming Monday with a visit by Mini the elephant to Read Now Sleep Later. 

[Anushka] Oddly enough, I've never thought of my work as work. I wrote, I edited, I moved molehills ... I never thought I was taking risks, or doing anything special. None of it was carefully planned. I got tired of software, and wanted to do something in children's literature or theatre ... and I joined Tara Publishing. That sort of crystallised it for me. I realised I was doing something that was more than work; it was a way of living that I enjoyed and I remember thinking one day, at Tara, how fortunate I was not to have to differentiate my life from my work. But I get restless when I don't write, so I left Tara to write plays, and joined Scholastic because I wanted to get back to editing, then left again to write ... no planning, or invention or reinvention, I'm afraid.

[Uma] Thanks, Anushka! Much luck to you and Sayoni in this new venture, and to you with your plans for SCBWI-India. I have a feeling our paths will cross again. 

Divya Srinivasan's charming first picture book, Little Owl's Night, featured a wide-eyed young owl in a dark forest.

Her second, out recently from Viking, brings the same kind of gentle whimsy to an ocean setting. A contented octopus watches a whole lot of chasing going on, as she peers out of her safe and cozy cave. When the seahorses intrude, she ventures out, and we're off on a nicely paced adventure with just the right amount of mildly scary possibility mixed in. Lucky for Octopus, she has a secret weapon!

Deceptively simple and visually appealing, Octopus Alone carries subtext related to safety and comfort, and making your choices about them. The book should lend itself well to repeated readings. Just for starters, the end-papers alone deserve some dedicated perusing.

Watch the trailer here