Case Study: Part 3, PLOT DEVELOPMENT

This is the third post about the children's book I am creating titled 'Catch that Fly.' I will be writing about every step of the process and all the resources I use along the way so you too can create your own book.

In my previous post I created a draft and sent it to a manuscript assessor. I have taken the constructive feedback on board and had another attempt at developing the story.

The first problem was that there was no real reason for mum wanting the dinner to be perfect. So I decided a good reason would be if someone is coming to dinner. I introduced another character 'Grandma.' There are plenty of reasons a mum gets stressed about a grandmother coming to dinner and she’s a great character that every child can relate to.

Next was figuring out a way to make the scenes more interesting and animated throughout the story. I have now created more descriptive text about each family member trying to catch the fly. I have also written more about the fly’s direction and objective.

The story was still feeling a little dull so I have tried a few more things to bring it to life. I have added rhyme which is not recommended for beginner writers however I had some help from a talented song writer. Here is a sample of one of the spreads.

The fly keeps buzzing against everyone’s wishes

Under the table and over the dishes

Into the lounge past the television

Avoiding everyone with great precision

After figuring out the problems with the narration I started to think of interesting visual ways of telling the story. One of the things I through would work well is if when the fly finally buzzes out the window we can see grandmas car pulling into the drive way.

I will continue working on the story development and post about my progress very soon. Feel free to give feedback and comments.

Preparing a Manuscript for Illustrations

Your story should be 100% complete before you even think about getting an illustrator or starting to illustrate it yourself. In my experience as an illustrator this is one of the most frustrating mistakes authors make and it ends up adding hours of the illustrator’s valuable time to the project. The illustrator is illustrating the book as a whole so the entire story needs to be complete and edited. A book is not something that can be created in bits as it is designed to be read from start to finish.

When you have had your story assessed and edited and you are happy to proceed then start to prepare your manuscript for an illustrator. If you haven’t written your book with page breaks in mind go through the story and figure out the appropriate breaks for the flow of the story. Make sure this is clear to the illustrator in your document. Either label each page break or even separate into different pages of the document. This stops any confusion and allows the illustrator to design each page with the flow of the story.

For example:

Page 4-5
Jack and Jill ran up the hill,
to fetch a pale of water.

Page 6-7
Jack fell down
and broke his crown

Next make sure you make it clear what your expectation is on each spread. If you imagine your characters to be dressed in fancy dress then make sure you tell the illustrator. As you are the one who has written the story you need to be clear of what you had in mind when you wrote it. A good thing to communicate to your illustrator is the target market of your book. They are designing everything to fit a specific audience so you don’t want your characters to be 3 year old Caucasian if your target market is 6 year old African Americans. You can do this by writing short illustration notes on each spread. This is not always needed if you have no specifications and are happy to leave the creative freedom to the illustrator that fine too.

Illustration notes
When writing illustration notes make sure you are clear and precise. You are purely letting the illustrator know what you would like communicated in each image. Sometimes it is obvious from the text in the story however if not be sure to point it out.

For example:

Jack and Jill ran up the hill
To fetch a pale of water

Note: Jack and Jill half way up the hill with empty pale

Be sure not to give too much detail as to the organisation and composition of the scene as this is best decided by the illustrator. A professional illustrator knows more about composition, viewpoint, colour, design and visual story telling than you as a professional writer so let them do their job. The more you trust them and respect their creative input the better result you will get.

Make sure you don’t forget about the cover illustration and any other design elements you might need from the illustrator in the brief. For example you might want some of the illustrators work on the end pages or title page.

Size and format
An illustrator cannot start the job without a clear and precise specification of how the book will be published. Make sure you have done your research and know what size you will be printing your book and where. Once the illustrator has completed the artwork you cannot change the size of your book very easily and it often involves a lot of redrawing and cropping. I have heard of authors who have just chosen a generic size then once they got to the printers found out it will cost them twice as much to print that a specific book format. This is still important with digital books for iPad and Kindle etc. The illustrator still needs to work to a specific size or sizes. If you're creating a book on CreateSpace or Lulu make sure you look through their standard book formats.

Quote
Before the illustrator starts the job they should have supplied you with a full quote of the exact time it will take them to do the job. It is also good to have a terms of agreement figured out so you are both clear about what is being supplied for the amount quoted and the time it will take. Make sure you have a full understanding of how much it will cost per hour if any extra work is needed over the time specified in the brief.

Communication is the key to a successful working relationship with an illustrator. The clearer you are about your expectations the better and faster your job will be completed.

Case Study: Part 1, IDEA

I have decided to create my own children’s book and publish it online using all the tools and skills I write about in my blog. This is the first article where I will explain my idea and how it came about.

'Catch that Fly' is the name of the story I have written. I grew up on a dairy farm and anyone from a farm will know about the frustration of having a fly inside. My mum would constantly be chasing them around the house trying to either catch them or shoe them out the window. I recently moved home for a while and realised how appropriate this idea was for a children's book.

The idea seemed to work on a comical level, however I need to transform into an interesting meaningful story as well. I drew inspirations from books like 'The Cat in the Hat' where the story revolves around trying to get rid of something. It forms an interesting plot with the ending a celebration because they finally succeed.
 

This seemed to work well for my story. I decided to theme it around a family sitting down to dinner only to discover there is a fly inside. Every member of the family try something different to get rid of the fly then in the end one of them just lets it out the window.

This seemed pretty basic and I felt it needed more layers. I then thought it would be more interesting if as each person tried to catch the fly they broke or ruined part of the dinner. So by the end when the tiny fly finally escapes they are left with a great big mess. This idea that one little fly can cause so much ciaos is quite funny.

I wanted to create a story that was fun to read. As an illustrator I have images in my mind of the scenes as I write them. This story has a lot of action and sets me up to create some very energetic, dynamic illustrations.

I was worried about not having a strong moral within the plot. However I feel that the little fly winning in the end gives the message that the small can win against the big sometimes. I also tied in a line at the end where the family sit down in the mess they have made and still enjoy their dinner. Sending the message that it doesn’t matter if everything is not perfect the dinner still tastes great.