Yearly archive for 2013

The Creature Department by Robert Paul Weston

By on November 19, 2013   /   Author Interviews, Giveaways  

Elliot Von Doppler and his friend Leslie think nothing ever happens in Bickleburgh, except inside the gleaming headquarters of DENKi-3000—the world’s eighth-largest electronics factory.    
   Beneath the glass towers and glittering skywalks, there’s a rambling old mansion from which all the company’s amazing inventions spring forth. And no one except Uncle Archie knows what’s behind the second-to-last door at the end of the hall.
   Until Elliot and Leslie are invited to take a glimpse inside.
   They find stooped, troll-like creatures with jutting jaws and broken teeth. Tiny winged things that sparkle as they fly. And huge, hulking, hairy nonhumans (with horns). It is unlike anything they’ve ever seen.
   But when Chuck Brickweather threatens to shut down the DENKi-3000 factory if a new product isn’t presented soon, the creatures know they are in danger. And when Uncle Archie vanishes, it’s up to Elliot, Leslie, and every one of the unusual, er, “employees” to create an invention so astonishing it will save the Creature Department.

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Amie: Welcome to the Files, Robert! Your book is so fun – kind of like a grown up Monster’s Inc! Which makes me wonder… if you could be any creature in the world, what would it be?

Robert: This question is much too easy. In the future, please ask a more difficult one. For example: Do human beings possess free will? Or perhaps: Does thought require language? This question, however, is a piece of cake. I would be a Snub-Snouted Danger Moose. The weight of their antlers puts pressure on the part of their brains governing fear—so they don’t feel any. That’s why they’re such daredevils. I think I would make a excellent daredevil (if I were a Snub-Snouted Danger Moose).

Amie: Well I was going to say Cookie Monster, then I could eat all the cookies I wanted and no one could say anything about it! When I was little there were scary little creatures that crawled out from under the bed when I was asleep. I swear they nibbled on my fingers and left boogers in my eyes.  What monster lurked under your bed as a child?

Robert:  A fuzzy purple one with yellow horns. His name was Rudy McQuillen and I still see him now and again, when he comes up to London. These days he works in the payroll office at Dover City Council.

Amie: Yellow horns? Too bad it wasn’t just one – then it could be a unicorn and they’re not scary at all! What is a monsters’ favorite food? 

Robert: Another easy one! Don’t you already know this? You should. Could be a matter of life and death. The answer is children, of course. Although in a pinch a hungry monster will settle for Bundt cake.

Amie: My worst fear has come true. It’s a miracle I survived my childhood!  I wish someone had warned me when I was little…maybe with a book…about monsters…Where were you Robert?? Where were you when I was seven and scared of those monsters? *Clears throat* Ahem. I mean, why did you chose to write for middle-grade readers? 

Robert: They’re the only ones who laugh at my Bundt cake jokes.

Amie: Probably true. Just kidding. I laughed. A little. Okay, but seriously, I have one very important last question, so pay attention.  Boogers or vomit? Vanilla pudding or green jello? Tootsie rolls or skittles? 

Robert: Boogers or vomit? Now that’s more like it. Now this is a difficult question. A true conundrum! Let me think. Okay, well, hmmm…while boogers represent a effective and time-honoured way of clearing the nasal passages, vomiting is just so rare! It’s like a special occasion! Come to think of it, why isn’t it a special occasion? If it were up to me, I’d change the second Tuesday of every month to “Spewsday.” We would all gather around the Great Community Bucket, join hands and barf our hearts out! (But not literally, of course. That would be silly.) Yes, definitely vomit.

Vanilla pudding or green jello? Yick. Neither. Let’s face it: Vanilla pudding looks like a bowl of popped zits. Who would eat that? And green jello? Green jello obviously fell from space disguised as a gelatinous dessert in order to lull us into a false sense of security before rising up to take over the world in an extremely wobbly revolution. My advice: Stay away. Death to Green Jello!

Tootsie rolls or Skittles? I prefer Maltesers.

Amie: Well, there you have it, folks! Maltesers. They are the answer to the age-old question – “What do you use to clean your windows?” You heard it here first! Malted balls to the rescue 🙂

Want to win a copy of The Creature Department? Celebrate spewsday? Clean your windows with malted balls? Then just fill out the rafflecopter form below and you’re sure to have a fuzzy purple cheeto-stealing Snub-Snouted Danger Moose with yellow horns visit you in your sleep. Perhaps his name is even Rudy McQuillen.

Robert Paul Weston 
is the author of Zorgamazoo, a novel entirely in rhyme, which was an E.B. White Read Aloud honoree and a “natural descendant of the works of Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl.” It was also a Booklist starred top ten debut of 2008 as well as a recipient of the California Young Reader’s Medal, the Silver Birch Award, and the Children’s Choice Award. 

 Weston’s second novel was the hardboiled fairy-tale Dust City, which was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery. Prince Puggly of Spud and the Kingdom of Spiff published in February 2013. 

Find Robert on Twitter, his Book Website, His Website and  Facebook

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Amie Borst is the co-author of Cinderskella. She guarantees there are no monsters by the name of Rudy in her book. But there is a skeleton named Cindy. Find her on Facebook and her blog.

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Great Beginnings

By on November 18, 2013   /   Book Lists  

Some authors struggle for days…weeks…months…even years to write the perfect opening line to a book. Finding the right words to start a story can definitely be a challenge. A short, powerful sentence? One word? Dialogue? Or something dramatic and unusual? Not like there’s any pressure, but the first line sort of, um, sets the tone for the entire book.

I thought it might be interesting to look at some opening lines in recent middle grade novels to get a sense of the different techniques employed by authors. Some start with a bold sentence, such as:

“You’ve never met anyone like me.” — Sure Signs of Crazy, by Karen Harrington

And:

“The sofa wasn’t there on Monday but it was there on Tuesday.” — What We Found in the Sofa and How it Saved the World, by Henry Clark

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These two openings are short, strong, and full of the promise of a good story. Don’t you want to find out about a character who is unlike anyone you’ve ever met before? And of course, the intrigue and questions surrounding the mysterious sofa — absent one day, there the next — is sure to pull the reader in immediately.

 

Short sentences can accomplish a great deal with just a few words, while also setting the stage for what’s to come. Three other first lines that are also short and hook the reader right away include:

“Going was easy.” — A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park

And:

“This is how Kyle Keeley got grounded for a week.” — Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, by Chris Grabenstein

And:

“There was only orange juice in the fridge.” — Fortunately, the Milk, by Neil Gaiman

Another technique is the use of dialogue, such as the opening line in Greetings From Nowhere, by Barbara O’Connor:

“Harold would have known what to do,” Aggie said to Ugly.

Notice that this isn’t just any old dialogue, but a line full of worry, and perhaps, lament. Plus, I’m curious right off the bat — what should Harold have known? Who’s Aggie? And who would be called Ugly?

The first line in Kate DiCamillo’s Flora & Ulysses is also dialogue:

“Flora,” her mother shouted, “what are you doing up there?”

I think any kid, anywhere, could relate to that opener.

I also love longer opening lines that give us a sense of the narrator’s voice immediately, such as in Twerp by Mark Goldblatt:

“My English teacher, Mr. Selkirk, says I have to write something, and it has to be long, on account of the thing that happened over winter recess–which, in my opinion, doesn’t amount to much.”

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Another powerful method is starting a book with just one word, such as Sharon M. Draper’s Out of My Mind, which begins with simply: “Words.”

Once you nail that first word, or words, it’s like knowing you’re heading in the right direction on a long, lovely journey. It’s the best feeling in the world.

 

On a personal note, I was so saddened to hear of Barbara Park’s passing. I will miss her wit, charm, and optimism. My children, like millions of others, loved Junie B. Jones. While Barbara is no longer with us, Junie B. will undoubtedly live on forever.

Michele Weber Hurwitz is the author of Calli Be Gold (Wendy Lamb Books 2011) and The Summer I Saved the World…in 65 Days (Wendy Lamb Books, coming April 2014). Visit her at micheleweberhurwitz.com,and at her author page on Facebook.

 

 

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“Page 5 Test”

By on November 15, 2013   /   Book Lists  
Stop twitching. This post is not a 5-page test, so I don’t care how scarred you are from childhood test-taking trauma. Build a bridge and get over it. Then keep reading in order to learn something that may help your writing.You okay now? Good. Here’s the scoop. . . . Thanks to a giveaway on Goodreads, I recently received a free copy of Darcy Pattison’s book Start Your Novel. When reading it, my interest was captured by one of her ideas for checking the characterization in a novel’s opening—she calls it the “Page 5 Test.” (See, I told you it wasn’t a 5-page test. You should have trusted me. I’m very reliable. Except when I’m lying.)  Start Your Novel
 Runaway Twin Not only did I decide to use the Page 5 Test to check my own work-in-progress, but as a bonus exercise, I decided to run a Page 5 Test on a children’s novel I’m currently reading—Runaway Twin by Peg Kehret. Based on Darcy Pattison’s idea, here’s what I did:

  • I read the beginning of Runaway Twin, only going as far as what would equal approximately five double-spaced pages of a typed manuscript.
  • After I finished reading, I listed everything I’d learned about the main character from those opening pages. Here’s my list:
  1. The main character lives with a foster mother named Rita.
  2. The main character’s name is Sunny.
  3. Sunny is 13 years old.
  4. She loves Twinkies and junk food, but Rita is a health nut.
  5. Sunny is opinionated. (As the first-person narrator, she states: “In my opinion it is cruel and unusual punishment to put a thirteen-year-old girl who was raised on junk food into a home that serves tofu and cauliflower.”)
  6. Sunny wears her hair in a ponytail (at least sometimes).
  7. She has switched foster homes frequently, running away from at least a couple of them. (This also tells me Sunny isn’t afraid to take action when she sees the need.)
  8. She seems to like Rita (despite all the tofu and cauliflower) and doesn’t plan to run away from her.
  9. Sunny doesn’t consider herself a “bad kid,” although she doesn’t do much school work because she knows she’ll just get moved to a new home and school again anyway.

Notice the variety of things Peg Kehret wove into those opening pages. There are basic things such as the main character’s name and age. There are bits about Sunny’s family situation (foster child) and a glimpse into her outlook on life (Why bother with school work if you’re going to get moved again?). And there’s the barest mention of her appearance.

In only a handful of pages, Peg Kehret effectively pulled me into caring about her main character by not skimping on the information about Sunny and by making sure the details she included provided depth, not an inundation of surface-level facts. (Hey, I’d rather know Sunny has the guts to run away from a bad foster family than know how tall she is and whether or not she has a dimple in her chin.)

So consider printing out the first five pages of your own WIP. Read ’em. Then make a list.

What details are revealed about your main character? What isn’t revealed? Are you building a strong character with a unique voice, or is your protagonist coming across as shallow and boring? By running Darcy Pattison’s Page 5 Test, you may be surprised at what you discover, and you may get ideas for strengthening your novel’s opening pages.

Besides, you’ve got to try this. Know why? There’s gonna be a test tomorrow.

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