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STEM Tuesday — Deep Space and Beyond — Writing Craft & Resources

Interesting Intros

If you are like me, by the time you’ve read the first page or two, you’ve already decided if you’ll finish a book. The beginning, the intro, the hook, those are crucial to a reading experience.

blank page, book, textbook, university, wisdom, writingSo crucial, in fact, that when a nonfiction author writes a book proposal (an overview, outline, comparable books, audience information, author platform, etc.) the writing sample that accompanies the proposal almost always includes the introduction. Editors don’t ask to see the chapter that will require the utmost skill in handling technical information – in the space books featured this month that could include trajectories, subsystems, eight letter acronyms, and numbers too large for the human brain to grasp. They don’t ask to see the conclusion chapter – the one that is likely to require the greatest artistic ability to tie up the loose ends of in-depth concepts, inspire the reader, and launch them into further inquiry. No, editors want to see the introduction. The one that requires both art and craft, wound together skillfully enough to hook a young reader.

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So, how do successful writers begin? Let’s take a look at the choices made by Mary Kay Carson, Elizabeth Rusch, and Catherine Thimmesh in Mission to Pluto: The First Visit to an Ice Dwarf and the Kuiper Belt, Impact: Asteroids and the Science of Saving the World, and Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon.

Setting the Mood

The first spread of Mission to Pluto is filled with a photo, a room packed with adults waving American flags and cheering. Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgThe text is all about setting the scene. Author Mary Kay Carson could have chosen just about any detail:

  • the phones clicking pictures
  • the type of stick the flags were attached to
  • the hair styles of the individuals

But instead she picked details that accentuated her subject matter:

  • a nine-sided mission patch
  • a robotic spacecraft
  • a dwarf planet

She selected characters such as Bill Nye, the Science Guy, whose inclusion emphasized the magnitude of the occasion. And, she chose a quote (“Now we’re finally going to find out what really…”) that focused a spotlight on the mood in the room – a mood of anticipation. Thanks to the author’s skill, the text oozes that mood and lures me into flipping that page.

Building Anticipation

When you open Impact, you’ll be gazing deep into the starry sky. Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgLike Carson, Rusch puts us right into a scene. From the text, we get concrete information like the date and location (a Russian city) but we get much more. People are “bundled up tightly;” they “crunched their way through the snow.” When I read “At 9:20 a.m.” – not “That morning” or “Sometime that day” – my readering radar goes off because that specificity is a clue that something is about to happen.

In the next bit, the words: “a strange bright point” followed by mysterious smoky trails tell us just enough to imply impending action. Not yet willing to give away the action, Rusch then artfully turns our attention to a class of fourth graders. Who’s the intended audience of this book? Fourth graders. Brilliant. Only then, when the scene is set, the anticipation built, and the relatable characters introduced, only then does the author unleash the action.  “Duck and cover!” Eager to know what happens to these kids, we flip the page.

Using the Unexpected

Team Moon begins with a full-page, labeled image of the flight path of Apollo 11. Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgBecause the path is not nearly as straight forward as I had anticipated, my finger immediately starts tracing the white and then the blue lines and purple arrows. That image is coupled with a simple intro “The Dream . . . ” and a teaser “And the Challenge . . .” which has me charging forward to learn more.

The next page is not at all what I had expected, either. There is no traditional introductory sentence, no watered down overview of the lesson we are about to receive, no generalizations what-so-ever. Instead there is an unexpected photograph (black and white, a crowd of men huddled around a tv set), lots of specific verbs (dominate, transmit, clicked), and language that gushes with enthusiasm (flat-out miracle, wonder of wonders, flush with anticipation).

Applying These Lessons

Close reading of these introductions has me reflecting on my own writing. Could I make use of more specific verbs? How can I build the anticipation? Which of the many characters in a science story will be the best hook for my target audience? I’m grateful for mentor texts such as these.

By Heather L. Montgomery

Heather L. Montgomery writes for kids who are WILD about animals. She reads and writes while high in a tree, standing in a stream, or perched on a mountaintop boulder. www.HeatherLMontgomery.com


 

O.O.L.F.

The Out Of Left Field files this month focus on nonfiction kidlit resources. Readers and teachers, if you have any interesting resources to share, please leave them in a comment below.

https://www.nonfictionminute.org/ The Nonfiction minute offers a searchable archive of 400-word essays written and read by nonfiction kidlit authors. Each is accompanied by lesson suggestions.

https://www.melissa-stewart.com/sciclubhouse/teachhome/teach_home.html Nonfiction author Melissa Stewart offers fabulous nonfiction reading resources, nonfiction writing resources, revision timelines and more. Don’t miss her blog!

https://www.geekwrapped.com/science-books-for-kids 100 great science books for kids!

The Real Scoop on Middle-Grade Interviews

For my first post I’d like to write about something I get very excited about while doing research for one of my science books—interviews! Interviews get you out of your head during the research process and out into the action of doing science. They help bring the soul into your science writing.

Interviews are important for any topic though—they reveal the story behind the data. Uncovering that story is your job as the writer, so how do you do it? And what does it bring to your book? I have a few ideas (KLK) and I asked fellow MUF bloggers Jennifer A. Swanson (JAS) and Heather Murphy Capps (HMC) for their thoughts too. Here’s what we all had to say about doing interviews for nonfiction books.

What do you think interviews add to a nonfiction book?

  • KLK: I think interviews add a voice and perspective that you cannot get from traditional research. By doing interviews, you can uncover dramatic and unusual details that suck middle grade readers right in and allow experts to speak directly to them.
  • JAS:  Interviews add authenticity. Unfortunately, I don’t get to experience the thrill of discovering new science, the excitement of going into space or diving deep in the ocean, or even the construction of new technology in person. I get to read about them. Interviews add a spice of life and reality to liven up the subject. They also ensure that I am accurate in my explanations.
  • HMC: What I like about the interview is that it adds texture and also interesting perspective from a subject matter expert. You can throw all the facts you want into a book, but without the anecdotes and personal relationships a SME has with a subject, it can – and often does – fall flat.

How do you find people to interview? How do you contact them?

  • HMC: I usually reach out to the thought leaders on the subject I’m working with. As a reporter, those thought leaders were often local, and usually were excited to be given an opportunity to talk about something they love. Sometimes it wasn’t so easy – if the subject was controversial. Also, sometimes if I was reaching out to a person with large national visibility, the time it took to get an interview was challenging.
  • KLK: I often look on science publications. I can usually find the authors’ contact information on the paper or online. I also try contacting the PR department at a university to ask them if any professors might be willing to be interviewed. Be persistent and patient (but never pushy) when trying to schedule an interview. One time it took me six months to get an interview scheduled, but it was so worth the wait!
  • JAS: I spend a lot of time searching for contacts online. I tend to look at universities and colleges first. Since that is where a lot of the cutting-edge research starts. When I find someone that I want to interview, I simply send them an email asking if they’d be willing to speak with me. Many of them are happy to do so. Others take a little more persistence to get them to respond, and some just never respond. That’s fine. They are busy people and I respect that.

Do you like to do recorded phone interviews, take notes while speaking, or email your questions? If you record interviews, how do you do so? And what do you do if you have technical difficulties?

  • JAS: For me, it’s up to what is best for the scientist or engineer. Phone interviews take more time than answering emails. Some experts have the time for a phone interview. If you do that, be sure to record it. But ask their permission first—on the record. You wouldn’t want to be accused of recording them without their permission. Others I will just send questions within the email. I’ve been surprised before, though. A few times when I just needed the answer to one or two quick questions, the expert wanted to have a phone call and it ended up lasting an hour. I learn so much from those interactions. There are many different apps that you can download. Be sure to test the app before the actual interview. For example, once I found out that a recording app I had used successfully before DID NOT record if I had my headphones plugged in. OOPS! Yeah, I didn’t find out until after the interview. UGH. So I do take notes as I go along, too. Yes, I’ve had technical difficulties, I mean it’s technology. You just do the best you can. But if you test and prepare in advance, you should do fine.
  • KLK: I prefer recorded phone interviews, because they result in more natural speaking language and I get more quotable material. Sometimes written answers can be very formal and highly technical, especially when coming from someone used to academic writing. I use an app to record, and have had some issues. I think it’s best to have a backup recording device available, like a handheld tape recorder. Sometimes recorded interviews aren’t convenient for the person you are interviewing, though, especially if you are in different time zones or don’t speak the same native languages. So email interviews work best in those cases.
  • HMC: As a TV reporter, all of my interviews were recorded. However, as an author I find most people prefer the flexibility of emailed interview questions, which they then have time to edit and research before hitting “send.” When I do the rare phone interview, I do it old-school—scribbling notes on a legal pad.

What are some of the most interesting details you’ve discovered through interviews?

  • HMC: I have discovered fascinating details about the search for genetic cures (CRISPR-Cas9) to diseases that plague us, like malaria and cystic fibrosis.
  • KLK: When doing research for my book Extreme Longevity: Discovering Earth’s Oldest Organisms, I was fascinated by the different coincidences and accidents that led to different discoveries. Like Italian biologist Ferdinando Boero and his team, who forgot to feed some jellyfish they were raising to document their life cycle, After two days, they realized their mistake and saw the jellyfish had regenerated into new ones. That’s how they discovered the immortal jellyfish! Another was when Danish biologist Julius Nielsen was in a college seminar and heard that the largest Greenland shark was caught more than 100 years ago. But he knew this was incorrect, because he had recently been on a research vessel that had caught an even larger shark. Hearing this, Nielsen decided to investigate Greenland shark size and age, and discovered that they may live longer than 500 years! I love hearing the connections like these between the events that made a scientist curious about something to the results of their investigations.
  • JAS: That’s a tough one. There are SO many! Some of the most notable such as Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, the first US female astronaut to walk in space and also at the time of theinterview who was the head of NOAA, were so profound, that I could have listened to her for hours. I mean what she has personally done to further women in the field of science and technology is awesome. That was for my Astronaut-Aquanaut Dr. Sullivan is both. I also got to speak and actually meet Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of Jacques Cousteau, my childhood hero. That was awesome! Fabien was very easy to talk to and we had a lot of fun. I spoke with a few of the top climate change scientists in the world about carbon capture and reforestation. For my Super Gear book, my expert is a material scientist who now has his own medical device company that is changing the face of medicine!

 

And here are a few extra tips from the three of us:

  • Be polite. Be professional. Be aware of their time. Remember that you are asking these people to give up a portion of their very valuable time to speak with you. So you should be prompt, prepared, and keep to your topic.
  • Plan your interview as carefully as you can by planning your book so that you iron out any questions about direction, detail, level of difficulty, etc.
  • Remind interview subjects that you are writing for a middle-grade audience, which means the language used to describe the topic has to be accessible to the 8-14 age range.
  • Be sure to listen and let them speak. But also listen to ensure that you get what you need for your book.  If you need them to talk about a specific topic, then make sure it’s covered.
  • See if your interviewees have any photos they might be willing to share with you for the book. Photos from the field are hard to come by on stock photo sites. Also ask if they can recommend any papers or books for your further research.
  • People sometimes get a little nervous when what they say appears in a book. Offer to send interviewees what you write about them for their review.
  • Add a “special thanks” section to the book and be sure to recognize the contributions of the people you interviewed.
  • Send your interview subjects a thank you and copy of the book. That is not required, but definitely a nice gesture. It sometimes works in your favor. I sent a copy of my climate change book to an expert and he did a huge shout out on Twitter about it. Went to a lot of his colleagues who all said they’d buy the book. You never know… 🙂

 

Thanks so much to Jennifer A. Swanson and Heather Murphy Capps for contributing to this post! Here’s a bit more about each of them.

Science Rocks! And so do Jennifer Swanson’s books. She is the award-winning author of over 30 nonfiction books for children. She has presented at numerous SCBWI conferences, BEA, ALA, NSTA conferences, the Highlights Foundation, and also the World Science Festival. You can find Jennifer through her website www.JenniferSwansonBooks.com.

 

Heather Murphy Capps writes middle grade novels that weave together all her favorite things: science, magic, baseball, and poetry. She is an #ownvoices author committed to increasing diversity in publishing.

 

 

 

Now it’s your turn! What do you like about doing interviews? And what are your tips? Tell us in comments what you like to do!

“More Deadly than War:” Interview with author Kenneth C. Davis

I am delighted to share my conversation with middle-grade and bestselling author Kenneth C. Davis. Kenneth is well known for his book of Don’t Know Much About® History and other books in the Don’t Know Much About® series, but on this occasion, we focused on his most recent book, More Deadly than the War, which was published in May 2018.

I wanted to talk with Kenneth about his book because it commemorates the 100 years of one of the most devastating historic events that have affected the entire population of the planet. More Deadly than the War turned out to be a fascinating story that is about much more than just how a deadly disease killed millions of people.

What is More Deadly than War about?

The book is about the Spanish flu, the worst disease outbreak in modern history, which happened 100 years ago. The stories and voices of the people caught in this chaotic period in history tell us about what it was like to live in a time much like a zombie apocalypse scenario. This worldwide epidemic coincided with the last year of World War I, and the consequences of this coincidence were so dramatic that the entire world almost stood still. Corpses were piling up in hospitals. Doctors had never seen anything like it and didn’t know what to do. Business and life in general slowed down to a crawl. People were terrified and blaming each other. I found most terrifying that it can happen again.

If the Spanish flu had so much influence on world history, why most people don’t know much about it?

 One hundred million people around the world didn’t make it. There were 675,000 Americans who did not survive the Spanish flu. To put it in perspective, more Americans died from the flu in about one year than all the U.S. soldiers who died fighting in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. One of the reasons this story was forgotten is because many people thought that it was so terrible, so awful and tragic that they didn’t want to think about it, or talk about it, or write about it. They just wanted to forget it.

You were not deterred to tell this story. What inspired you to write this book?

 In a way, writing this book was a lucky accident. My editor had a bad cold, and mentioned that her grandmother had died of the Spanish flu and that she knew very little about this worldwide epidemic. I began researching and found an amazing story that connected science – the flu – and history – World War I – in more ways than I had anticipated.

This was a detective story because I had so many questions I wanted to answer about it. Where did this flu come from? How did it affect so many people? How did it affect the war? How did the war influence the spread of the flu? I discovered that all these things were completely interconnected and for me it was very important to show those connections. When you look back in history, you find that disease has been incredibly important in every phase of civilization, but we tend to push it to the side. “That’s science, that’s not history,” some people say.

Without giving anything away, tell us, of all the things you learned when you were doing research for this book, what surprised you the most?

 It surprised me to learn the tremendous consequences the Spanish flu had on the war, and the influence the war had on the Spanish flu. As a historian, I understood the causes of World War I, how dreadful the fighting was, and why America eventually got involved. But, I really didn’t understand the enormous effect that this pandemic also had on the war and that the two of them went together.

What else will readers discover in More Deadly than War?

Readers will discover how a real, end-of-the-world scenario can happen when two major powerful events come together; in this case a serious, easily spread disease and a merciless war. These catastrophic events transformed the world and taught us important lessons. The real reason we study history is to make sense of the world and to learn from it both the mistakes we made and what we got right.

For instance, in 1918 there was a lot of propaganda, the ultimate form of fake news. In World War I, Germany was the enemy to the U.S. Propaganda made Americans think that the Germans were causing the flu pandemic by poisoning the water or medications, which was not true. So, the idea that fear, ignorance and propaganda can influence what we think and how we behave, is an important part of this story.

Kenneth C. Davis. Photo by Nina Subin

Let’s learn about you a little bit. How did you become an author?

For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed reading both fiction and nonfiction books. I have always been very interested in biographies and history because they are about what real people did.

In middle school, I was stronger in English and history, not surprisingly, than I was in math or science, and I always enjoyed writing. Even though I loved to read and write, I never had the idea that I could be a writer. Fortunately, I was put in a position later on where I realized that I could do what I loved, to do research and to write and to talk about it, and actually make a living from it.

Becoming a writer was more of a lucky accident than evolution of my part. I was half way through college where I was a liberal arts and English major. I thought that I was in a track to become a teacher because I have always enjoyed being in front of a classroom speaking to a group of people, sharing information. But, then, I took some time off from college to work in a bookstore. Someone I was working with read some of the articles I had written for the college newspaper and she said, “You should be writing books, not selling them.”

That woman was so smart I married her. True story. My wife and I have worked together very closely for more than 40 years. She is a journalist and editor, a publisher in her own right, and our careers have been built completely around the book business and our love of books and the impact that they can have on people. And that is such an important idea. It’s wonderful to read books for pleasure or to escape to another world, but books also can shape who we are as people, our attitudes, and our lives. They also can change the world. I think that the highest calling for a writer is to fulfill a mission to bring people very important messages, and I hope that in my own way my books have done that.

Well, More Deadly than War has certainly opened my eyes about how a deadly combination disease and war can be, and I hope this amazing story can help us all prevent such a thing from happening again. Thank you very much for your time!

 

Thank you!

Follow Kenneth on Twitter and YouTube