Thank you, YA Critique

Writing is often a lonely business, yet I think one of the most heartening things about the children’s writing community is the overwhelming support which is shown to all. And the fact that it comes with friendship and camaraderie, which is offered unconditionally, makes it doubly worthy. I have said it before and will say it again, finding myself amongst the members of the British Isles chapter of the SCBWI (despite living on the opposite side of the planet) has been something of a homecoming. I find myself in a space where I am accepted, and amongst like-minded nutcases, I mean, people (oh and a few werewolves and crow collectors too). I love the way people encourage one another, the way they cheer for one another, participate in each others’ ups and downs. I think there must be a particular “thing” about children’s writers that makes them stand out from the crowd – perhaps it’s because children’s writers are still very connected to their own inner child and haven’t lost their sense of fun and wonder at the world. What I find fascinating is that this happens despite the fact that the world of children’s book publishing is tough and competitive. I think that being able to be competitors and friends at the same time shows a remarkable degree of emotional maturity – which I suspect many would believe children’s writers to be lacking. Not so at all. Some of the most insightful, aware and thinking people that I have met, come from the world of children’s writers – and I’m happy to call many of them my friends.



A particular case in point is my critique group who get a huge thumbs up for the support and encouragement they provide me and each other. (A note to all scribblers - if you are a writer or wannabe writer, get yourself into a critique group, make sure it’s the right critique group - and watch yourself and your work grow). My critique group, made up of outstanding writers, has an online existence, but we nonetheless get together to discuss work in progress, successes and even personal stories. We encourage, we nurture, we comment, we criticize (constructively, I hasten to add) in an environment of mutual respect and trust – and we all have one end goal, to write the best possible children’s fiction that we can.

I’m feeling particularly warm and fuzzy about my critique group at the moment. For the last few months they’ve trudged with me through the rewrite and edits of my current manuscript. They’ve told me what’s not working and what is. They’ve kept me going with constructive feedback given in the most positive and encouraging manner. With their help I’ve honed and polished - and then polished and honed some more. While I’m not naïve enough to think that the manuscript is perfect (is it ever that?), I know that with their input and support I’ve come away with something pretty decent. I know too, that because of them my writing has grown, as has my own ability to critique.

So, this isn’t really a blog post in the ordinary sense, this is really a thank you letter to my wonderful critique partners – for their insight, their good humour, their support, their caring and their sense of fun. Girls, may the journey long continue. Onward and upward - and economic circumstances and rhubarb-blah-fishpaste notwithstanding – here’s to publishing contracts, and maybe even awards!

My heartfelt thanks to Candy Gourlay, Ellen Renner, Kathy Evans, Jackie Marchant, Jeannie Waudby, Jeannette Towey and Carmel Waldron – and, until recently, Tracy Ann Baines and Beverley Johnson.

The Usual Suspects...

Oh, so you're a writer...

So, there was this discussion on the SCBWI-BI group a while ago – about how people respond when you say, “I’m a writer.” The responses are a study in psychology, with possibly enough material for an entire convention...of psychologists, not writers – we-ell, then again, maybe both.

There seem to be two distinct types when it comes to responses, and it depends on how well people think they know you. The better they think they know you, the tougher the experience.

Family members or family acquaintances either provide pitying looks, roll their eyes or pretend they have a gerbil stuck in their ear when I tell them I’m writing a novel. These responses appear to be based on one or more of the following thought processes:

a) she couldn’t string a coherent sentence together if she tried. Poor deluded dolt.
b) writing a book? Yeah, right - what a waster!
c) shame that she will eventually have to realise that she’s just not “famous” material. Her? The next JK Rowling? Ha!
d) she’s never got over being retrenched from “corporatedom”, poor thing.
e) she’s just trying to make out that she’s “different” and better than us. Always been a stuck up little beast. Why can’t she just go off and be a secretary.
f) oh crap, I hope she’s not going to want to tell me about it. I so don’t care.

Occasionally, I’ll get a vague, “Oh, that’s nice, dear.” At which point a jam doughnut is conveniently stuffed into their mouths and masticated with sticky gusto thus preventing further discussion. Very rarely, they may ask, “What’s your book about?” You can rest assured that in this instance their eyes will glaze over before I’ve uttered four words. (Note to self – work on 3 word pitch.) God forbid I should tell them I’m writing for children. Because that, really, is just proof that I:

a) can’t string a coherent adult sentence together,
b) really am just goofing off,
c) am a seriously deluded wannabe,
d) am incapable of holding down a proper job and,
e) am just pathetic and have never grown up,

In the almost unheard of instance when an aunt asked what I was writing, a conversation very nearly ensued. It went something like this:
“Oh, you know cousin X’s ex-girlfriend...?”
“No.” (I’m unsociable like that.)
“Well, she’s just published a picture book. It’s all about sharks. It’s very good, you know. When’s your book going to be published?”
When I muttered darkly about how tough it is to be published (especially somewhere other than my own country), the aunt in question gave me a look which indicated I may well have been some noxious substance on the sole of her shoe, and then stuffed a ham sandwich into her gob.

I have, however, learned to find the positives in these situations; relatives are magnificent fodder for stories. Remember this: everyone is fair game in a writer’s twisted mind. Piss me off, and you may end up as a villain in my next book – and you can be sure my hero will bring you down – hard.

The second type of response usually comes from strangers.

They are lovely – mostly. Strangers are infinitely more supportive and often wide-eyed with wonder that they’ve actually met a real writer (we’ll get to the unpublished bit later). They’re inclined to be interested, fascinated and seriously impressed. I have to tell you, it does a girl’s ego the power of good. Of course, the trade off is they do also want to tell you about this great idea they have for a book (doesn’t everyone) and maybe you could help them write it.

Sitting on the train a couple of months ago, having visited a dear writer pal in Wokingham, the bloke next to me kept trying to make conversation. Now, my mother always told me not to speak to strangers, and when it suits me, I heed her advice. Given that the guys in the next row of seats were as drunk as skunks after a day out at Ascot, I was keeping my head well down. But my fellow passenger was persistent and eventually he asked the inevitable, “Why are you in England and what do you do?”
So I told him.
“Wow… Wow… Wow!” Pause. “Wow… So you’re a writer? Wow!”
(This is the point where girl raises hand to hide smile.)
“So what do you write?”
"Ficion for young adults, you know, older teens."
“Oh wow… That’s…that’s just so amazing. I wish I’d started speaking to you earlier. This is my stop but, wow… I just met a real writer!”
He left the train in a cloud of wonder.

I couldn’t help but imagine what would have happened if I’d been a published author and could have offered him one of my books - which brings me to the point when strangers say, with tremendous earnestness, “So where can I buy a copy of your book?” or "Have I read your book?"

It’s at this point that I feel I’m letting them down terribly. I shuffle a bit, and mutter that thing about how hard it is to write for children, how competitive the market is, how tough it is to get published, how it’s even tougher in the current economic climate – and then we both look embarrassed and run out of words. I try to mumble about the encouraging editor and agent feedback I’ve had, but really, I feel like I must, after trying for so long, be totally rubbish, and I know they think they same. And they smile then, and it’s sort of pitying… and the moment is entirely ruined and I have to turn into the clown and dig us both out of the hole.




See, here’s the thing, the longer one is a writer-in-waiting, the tougher it becomes. People are less inclined to believe you’re doing a “proper job” and are more inclined to believe that you really can’t string those two coherent sentences together. (Because, really, that is all that writing’s about, isn’t it…? Just stringing sentences together…). And so the pitying looks increase, and ultimately, they stop asking you how the book is going. My non-writer friends stopped asking me years ago about my writing – I think they just find it too embarrassing. In some ways, this is a blessed relief - though, sadly, it limits my opportunity to bore them witless about the exploits of some or other make-believe person. Ultimately, it may all go a long way to explaining why I spend a lot of time hanging out in cyberspace with my writer pals and being increasingly reclusive in the real 3D world.

Oh no, wait, I’m not reclusive, I’m very busy working, doing my job - writing and writing and rewriting and rewriting… and then writing again!

Cue Stage Left: enter batty writing recluse

I am in grave danger, I realise, of becoming a Grade A batty recluse. Aside from two trips to the gym, one of which involved a quick dash for some grocery supplies, I have not left the house for the past eight days. I’m sure it’s not healthy.

Instead, each morning has seen me shuffling down the passage in my pyjamas and wrapped up in a manky old cardy, cashmere pashmina and what can only be described as increasingly rank slippers. A note on the slippers: I fear they are due for exorcism and burning on the pyre. Note to self: do not wear furry slippers day in and day out without socks. ‘Nuf zed.

Writing pyjamas and gardening wellies...

At the end of the passage is my writing cave in which I fear there may be a cranky old bear or two. Oh, no, wait, that’s me. Sorry.

But I’m getting sidetracked. Did I mention “batty”? Yes? Right.

So, enter the writing cave, switch on the computer. Shuffle from cave to kitchen to create rocket fuel brew of chocolate. Recipe here. Shuffle back to cave clutching brew.

Take quick trawl around Facebook. Play a couple of games of Wordscraper and Scrabble with Janey and Val. Direct attention to matters in hand.

And here, you see is the problem.

There’s a new manuscript in progress.

Or, rather, there’s a complete rewrite of a manuscript first drafted two years ago. And it’s dark and gritty. It’s deep and intense. It’s shot through with bolts of lyricism.

And it has consumed me.

The writing cave on a non-writing day...

Picture this: Writer, in pyjamas, swathed in blankets, in darkened cave. Note, the blinds are remain drawn and the protesting orchids have had to be moved out. The blankets, I should add, are frequently over the writer’s head. The heater is on full blast. The writer, it appears, has created some sort of bookwomb. No, not bookworm (though there might be some of them lurking between the covers too).

The writer stays like this until about 14h30 when she realises she’s forgotten to eat and she’s starting to smell something less pleasant that a camel’s armpit. (I have smelled a camel from up close. I know.) At this point she scuttles down the passage and throws herself under a steaming shower.

The trouble is, the shower acts like a psychic phone-booth, so the ideas start to flow again.

At this point, the writer flings on a mangy dressing gown and hurtles down the passage to capture the new ideas before they take wing into the stratosphere.

By now it’s 16h30 and the writer still hasn’t eaten.

However, it’s at approximately this point that a modicum of sanity prevails and the writer gets dressed. Usually in her “writing pyjamas”. In case you’re wondering, pyjamas are the fundamental element of a writer’s wardrobe. (I will be putting in several tax claims for pyjamas.)

A short break ensues while the writer nibbles on fruit and cheese and rice cakes and stares, somewhat blankly, at the television screen.

Inevitably something will trigger an idea or a solution to a problem in the plot.

And it’s off again.

The writer’s husband has realised it’s probably best to a) get his own dinner, b) accept starvation or c) hope like hell she’ll cook something that will last several days. It’s usually a or c which prevail. (I’m not such a bad wife.)

Where it all happens...

So. This blog post written, the washing in the machine and on the line, I will step back slowly from the computer and take the day off. I have flung open the doors and windows, despite it being only 12 degrees outside and I am going to sit in the sun and read some other mad writers’ ramblings/words of wisdom/lyrical prose/insane witterings/seering insights. I’ll decide just what after I’ve spent several minutes staring at the pile of books that have been breeding next to my bed. Tomorrow, I will no doubt enter from stage left, again, clad in my jammies and descend upon the cave. But that’s tomorrow and today the batty recluse needs to grasp at the straw of sanity drifting in the wintery breeze.

An interview with children’s author, Ellen Renner

Introducing children's author, Ellen Renner

I know many lament social networking and in particular the productivity sink that is Facebook. But for me, it has been a godsend - as aware as I am of its shortcomings. As you will have gathered from the various interviews with fellow writers, Facebook has been a fertile meeting ground, and I’m happy to introduce to you yet another of my writer pals found through the connectivity of social networking.

Ellen Renner was kind enough to send me a copy of her debut novel Castle of Shadows when it became blindingly obvious on someone’s Facebook wall that I hadn’t read the book. What a treat!

Castle of Shadows is shortlisted for the West Sussex Children’s Book Award and on the Times and Independent newspapers’ lists of suggested summer reading. For readers aged 9+, it’s a beautifully written story, full of political intrigue, derring-do, wit, imagination and has a plot that twists and turns through chapters filled with smoke and mirrors. It is a story which is filled with evocative imagery and has a feisty heroine whose life story pulls at the heartstrings. It is a thoroughly enjoyable romp of a read!

The blurb reads as follows: The day Charlie discovers a scrap of paper that could solve the dark mystery of her mother's disappearance, her world changes. Forever. Charlie and her friend, Toby, must race against time on a dangerous mission to uncover the sinister truth. But in this shadowy world of secrets and lies, there is more to fear than they can possibly imagine...

But without further ado, let me introduce to Ellen Renner.

Children's author, Ellen Renner

Ellen, the clarity of your descriptions gripped me from the start. You paint the most vivid images with words and without lapsing into rambling prose. You do that thing that writers are always admonished to do – you show rather than tell. Examples which spring to mind are: “His voice was soft and sharp, like a slice of lemon cake.” “The dress was made of silk the colour of cool water.” “The pain was too fierce for tears. It burnt them to ash.” Did you find it easy to show, was it something that came naturally to you or was it something you had to work on?

Hi Nicky,

First, thanks so much for interviewing me. There’s nothing writers like more than talking about their books!
Show-not-tell. That’s the mantra, isn’t it? But you have to know how to do both. Sometimes you need to tell. However, it’s certainly true that if you want to write for the children’s or YA market these days, you must be able to show. It’s partly a fashion for filmic writing. But for me it’s also the most effective way to accomplish what I want to do.
I want the reader to experience, as much as is possible, what it feels like to ‘be’ my character. If I keep jumping out of their point of view and into an authorial voice with loads of objective description, back-story or telling, I not only slow the pace, I yank the reader out of my character’s head.
I do tell in several places in Castle, just to get some information in there the reader has to have and which I can’t do any other way. But I keep those sections to an absolute minimum. I try to work them in as seamlessly as I can and I always know when I’m doing it.
I’ve been teaching creative writing for a few years and show-not-tell is the number one problem most beginning and intermediate writers have. It’s like maths, it just has to click and then you get it. You must always know when you are telling and why. After that, by all means break the rules if that’s what’s best for your story – form should follow function – as long as you’re in control of the technique and not the other way round. Editors and agents tend to immediately reject any manuscript that starts off with back-story or telling, especially if you’re a new writer, so use with caution.


Castle of Shadows is a very rich story, a layered tapestry of political intrigue, emotion, and the heartfelt quest of one girl to find her mother. How did the idea for the book develop and what came first – the character of Charlie (Princess Charlotte Augusta Joanna Hortense of Quale), the setting i.e. the castle, the political intrigue – or something else – and, what was your inspiration?

The characters came first, the mad king and his neglected daughter. The image of the king dangling from his scaffolding about to put the last card in place on his enormous card castle just popped into my head one day.
I started off by staying in my comfort zone. I was thinking fables, a short book for younger readers, nothing too big or ambitious. Then something happened and I realised that playing safe was not an option if I ever wanted to get anywhere with my writing. I had to try to write the sort of book I actually wanted to read. I knew I had the germ of a good idea and I didn’t want to waste it.
Castle, as you say, has layers. There are some pretty heavy themes going on in the background: bad parenting, the threat of war, political and scientific responsibility, and what happens to children when grownups do the wrong things for what they think are the right reasons. It has a complex plot set in an alternative world and the hardest thing of all was to juggle all of that and keep the narrative moving forward at a page-turning pace.
The book might never have been finished if Helen Corner hadn’t run the 2007 Cornerstones Wow Factor competition. A writing buddy encouraged me to enter and then I had to write to speed to keep up with the deadlines. Castle of Shadows won and I got my agent as a result.


The depiction of the Charlie’s father, the king, swinging from the scaffolding building his castles in the air, his castles of cards is a particularly powerful image, and in multiple ways. Can you tell us more about this and what it means to you?

It is the book. It was the genesis and yes, it’s loaded thematically. My original title was Castle of Cards. Worlds built on lies, crumbling castles, political intrigue, personal relationships, identity, the king’s own fragile emotional state – it all refers back to that first image. And then there’s the climactic scene …
I feel quite tenderly towards the king: he’s gentle, kind, well-intentioned – and a bad parent. Life has proved hard and he’s opted out, neglecting the kingdom and his child, leaving her to cope with the loss of her mother on her own. She’s lonely, isolated and abused by the housekeeper, although he doesn’t know about that – or to be more accurate, he hasn’t noticed.
There’s a bit of him that’s about parents who become obsessed with their work to the point that they neglect their children. My son suffered some benign neglect while I was writing the book and some of my guilt is in there, although he was probably very pleased that Mum had something else to worry about for a while.




There is a lot of detail in terms of cloth and clothing, the castle layout, the pneumatic railway in the story. Did you have to do a lot of research and could you see clearly in your mind’s eye what you wanted to describe?

I did a lot of research. I write visually so I want to be able to see a scene, like a film playing before my eyes. The book is set in an alternative Victorian kingdom, and as much as possible corresponds to 1840s England – a fascinating period of political, social and technological upheaval. A time of boom and bust, extremes of poverty and wealth, mass migrations to the cities. The French revolution still loomed large in the imagination of the English political class: they were terrified of mass unrest and the Whigs begin the process of political reform and extending the franchise as a way of addressing these fears. Pneumatic and atmospheric railways existed. Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the only working atmospheric railway in Britain in the 1830s between Teignmouth and Starcross in Devon. It only ran for a year because rats ate the waxed leather seals and the vacuum kept failing. Vulcanised rubber was invented 10 years later. If that timing had been different, we might still be riding on atmospheric trains. There’s a working one in South America somewhere.

You’re an American who has lived in the UK for many years and your story has a quintessentially English feel to it, is this because you are completely at ease with the language and literary style of your adopted country, or because you set out to create a particular style?

I’ve lived in the UK for twenty years now. I’m doubtless pretty anglicised, although I try to keep that detachment which is one of the great benefits of being an ex-pat. My vocabulary is a mixture and I forget these days whether a term is American or English. I grew up reading a lot of English fiction, which is one of the reasons I headed to the UK first when I started traveling. I come from the Ozark mountains of southern Missouri and live in Devon now, where the local accent and dialect remind me of the Ozarks (as does the countryside). I use a vernacular for Tobias; his words may be anglicised but his rhythms and tone have a bit of Ozarks in there, I think. And that’s the lovely thing about alternative worlds: anything goes as long as there’s an internal logic.


There were many aspects of Castle of Shadows the reminded me of the classics of English children’s literature. To what extent have you read and been influenced by those English classics?

Massively. I discovered I wanted to write for children after I moved to the UK. My husband and I are always buying books; our house has piles of them everywhere because there are never enough shelves. We spent a lot of our pre-parent days trawling through second-hand book shops. He’d disappear into history, biography and social sciences, and I’d head for fiction. I bought lots of lovely old Puffins and dug in. Sometimes I’ll revisit a favourite, like Tom’s Midnight Garden or The Way to Sattin Shore, by Philippa Pearce, or John Gordon’s The Giant Under the Snow, or Leon Garfield’s brilliant Smith. I’ve read everything by Joan Aiken, Margaret Mahy and Diana Wynne Jones many times over, and I’m kept busy these days reading people like Garth Nix, Jonathan Stroud, Charlie Fletcher and Sally Gardner. My current to-be-read pile is nearly as tall as the king’s card castle and contains Halo by Zizou Corder, Hootcat Hall by Lucy Coats, The Ogre of Oglefort by Eva Ibbotson and Amazing Grace by Mary Hooper, to name just a few. There are so many good books out there!


Castle of Shadows is the first book of a quartet. Did you know from the start there’d be more than one book or did the ideas evolve as you progressed through the Castle of Shadows?

I fully intended to write a stand-alone. The message was clear: publishers do not want trilogies or quartets. But the characters hadn’t finished with me. Castle does work as a stand-alone, but I wanted to write Tobias’ story before I’d finished the first draft of Castle and as soon as that was winging its way to the Cornerstones competition I set down and wrote the first draft of City of Thieves in about six weeks.
There are four books. Each has its own villain and contains a complete story which is resolved, but at the same time there’s is a larger villain and over-arching story for the entire quartet. That has been great fun to work out. I don’t like series where a book just stops with a ‘to be continued’. There can be a sense of the larger story continuing, but I want that specific story to have a finite shape and resolution.

Ellen signs books for fans

Castle of Shadows is rich with political intrigue; the entire story revolves against this backdrop of deceit, machinations and the lust for power. What prompted you to choose politics as your canvas for Charlie’s story? And do you think it’s the sort of scenario young readers can readily appreciate?

I don’t think any subject is out of bounds if handled appropriately. My readers are 9+, same age as Harry Potter and Dark Materials. Speaking of which, ‘deceit, machinations and the lust for power’ figure pretty largely in both of those. Politics is everywhere. It affects most aspects of children’s lives and kids are not stupid or unaware, especially these days.
But the book isn’t overtly about politics. Grownups reading it will see the political aspect; many kids will be reading it purely for the adventure. At that level it’s no different than any other book with a big villain. Most villains are after power in some form: Voldemort, Lord Asriel, The Wicked Witch of the West, Aladdin’s uncle. Castle of Shadows is enjoying a wide readership; because it has levels, kids and grownups both seem to like it. At the most basic, it’s a fairy tale: mad king, neglected daughter, evil advisor. Mostly, the kids are responding to the characters of Charlie and Tobias. They are living the adventure with them.


Were you, in choosing a political backdrop, deliberately intending to parody the machinations of government or a particular state or system of government?

No. The book started with the image of a king building a castle of cards. If you have mad king you have a kingdom in trouble. It begs the question of who’s running it. Enter a prime minister. It’s that simple.
But it’s certainly true that my own preoccupations determine the slant a story will take. I was around ten when I learnt about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with the question of whether or not scientists have moral responsibility for their discoveries.
So yes, the world of my book contains a weapon of mass destruction and impending war. During the Iraq war the news media in the UK reported on ‘collateral damage’. It was no surprise to learn that the majority of those killed and injured were women and children. It’s always been the weakest in society – women, children and the elderly – who suffer most in wars. So an obvious question is: Can you be an effective politician in an imperfect world and remain a moral being? Windlass does bad things for what he believes are good reasons. Is he right? Are there levels of morality where shades of grey slide into black and when does that happen?
Again, these were some issues I was thinking about as I wrote the book, but it’s part of that thing about levels. It’s background. Adults may see some of it, but I doubt many children are aware of these themes as they read. Page-turning adventure is what they want and what I was determined to provide.




Returning once again to your fabulously evocative descriptions, I laughed out loud at the image of the “fishy” Esceanian ambassador, I couldn’t help but love the loyal Mr Moleglass, the butler, and I bristled in indignation at the malevolent and scheming Mrs O’Dair in her bustling bombazine. You have a wealth of brilliantly depicted characters and I have to wonder, are any of your characters based on real people? And, how do you go about getting to know your characters?

I think the best fiction is character-led. My characters are the heart of my books, although I love plot twists and shamelessly manipulate my readers to keep them turning the pages. I don’t draw on real life for my characters. I don’t know where they come from and I don’t enquire too closely. They always seem to show up as needed, often fully formed. Only one of the minor characters in Castle is partially based on a real person, and he was added in the very last draft for plot reasons.


I was intrigued throughout the story by Charlie’s maturity. You’ve made her 11 but in many ways, despite her tomboy-ishness, she reads more like she’s 14 or 15 – both in her manners and her interactions with other characters. What made you settle on 11 as her age when the book could easily have been targeted at a Young Adult audience and might even be said to be a little too mature for a 9 – 12 year old market?

I see this rather differently. Charlie’s rising 12. Her mother’s a scientific genius and Charlie is no slouch in the brain stakes, but that’s really beside the point. Her circumstances have formed her: she’s had to raise herself since the age of six, living by her wits and facing a formidable enemy in Mrs O’Dair. She’s lost her mother and is emotionally abandoned by her father, who is a burden of care to her rather than a parent. I would be surprised if she didn’t seem older than her years. I’m sure that Elizabeth the First, who lived her childhood in traumatic and dangerous circumstances, was precocious as well. She would have had to be to survive. (btw, the red hair is not coincidental.)
Adults tend to forget what it was like to be ten or eleven or twelve. I remember that age vividly: what I was reading and thinking about, my moral and philosophical preoccupations, the conversations I had with friends. At 9+ brains are fully formed and functioning; it’s only experience and context which is lacking. I would always rather err on the side of over-estimating anyone, especially children, which is why I also don’t simplify language past a certain point. If the story is good enough, kids will skip over words they don’t know, getting enjoyment from the sound of them and meaning from context. It’s how you learn.
Also, I don’t think this is a teen idea: it’s classic adventure story territory, no more complicated than the setup in the Harry Potter or Dark Materials books. And quite frankly I didn’t want Charlie and Tobias snogging! There aren’t enough adventure books for 9+ with strong female leads. Girls are often ghettoised into pink and sparkly. Publishers are worried boys won’t read about female characters. Well, they do if you give them the right one. Pullman proved that with Lyra, and boys seem to be loving this book as much as the girls.


Castle of Shadows’ sequel, City of Thieves, in which Charlie’s friend, Tobias Petch plays a starring role is due out in August this year. What made you want to write about Toby in particular in the sequel?

Yes, the second book belongs to Tobias although Charlie is still a strong presence. She returns to the foreground in the last two books. I can’t say very much about my reasons without giving away a plot twist in Castle of Shadows, but Tobias is a boy with secrets. He has a pretty big problem as well as an unusual talent, and both those things were begging to be written about. It was also necessary for the overall narrative arc that his story be told next. I loved writing him. In some ways, he’s easier to write than Charlie, because his personality is simpler and more direct.




Castle of Shadows is your debut novel; what has the journey to publication been like for you and what advice would you give aspiring authors?

That’s a huge question; we could do an entire interview on that. My journey has been untypical. I’d only ever previously submitted one other thing to an agent, a short book for 7-9 year olds (which was rejected). But I had spent years learning to write and studying what was being published. I only started to submit once I felt I was writing at a professional level. Castle of Cards (as it was then) won the 2007 Cornerstones/Writer’s News Wow Factor competition for best unpublished children’s book, which brought me to the attention of my agent, Rosemary Canter. There was luck involved as I very nearly didn’t enter the competition. There’s been bad luck too, of course. Some debuts may have stress-free and magical journeys to publication, most of us do not.
As a pre-published writer I didn’t really look past the goal of getting an agent and then a book deal. It’s such a huge, difficult thing to achieve, especially these days. Things happened fast after the Cornerstones win, and I found that my journey had only just started. The learning curve is huge and no one has time to tell you anything, so you wing it. Possibly the worst thing is that it becomes increasingly difficult to find time to write, which is what you love doing and is the only reason you’re here in the first place.
Advice? First, make sure you know what you want out of your writing. There’s nothing wrong with writing for pleasure and if you want to share your stories with friends and family, internet self-publishing is much easier now. If your ambition is to be published traditionally, then make sure you want it badly enough, because unless you’re very very lucky, there’s little money in it and a great deal of stress. You will have to promote. You will have less time for writing and your family. The positive side is worth it for me: seeing your book in shops and libraries and meeting readers is all fabulous, as is a glowing review in a national paper. Best of all is the fact that people are reading your story and giving it life beyond you. The first time I saw a copy of my book in a public library was one of the most thrilling of my life!
But do be aware that the climate is very harsh right now. Publishers are forced by current market conditions and the power of retail monopolies to take a scatter-gun approach to writers. They throw a number out there every year and see who sticks. Unless they’ve paid mega-bucks for you in a huge auction (probably becoming a thing of the past as most of these advances fail to pay back), you’ll be doing most of the promotion yourself. And if you don’t sell well enough, you’ll find it very hard to get another publishing deal.
Still want to find an agent and get a book deal? Okay, write for yourself and write the best book you can. In order to do that, join SCBWI, find a good critique group, learn to re-write and develop a very thick skin for rejection.
And when you are getting close to publication – when you are getting personalised rejections – get a website up, start blogging, get on FB and Twitter and build relationships. Don’t just promote yourself: be interesting and supportive. You need to be doing that at least six months before the book comes out. I didn’t. I was too busy writing, the family was very busy, I’m shy and don’t like the idea of self-promotion. Well, six months on and I’m still struggling to catch up. You have to get yourself out there. On the positive side, I love school visits and working with the children almost as much as writing. It’s a rare privilege

Ellen on a school visit, with some of her readers

Tell us what it felt like when you landed an agent and then a publishing contract?

It was great, of course, but in hindsight I wasn’t ready for either. I’d been a member of SCBWI for five or six years and thought I was clued up, but I was dreadfully naive. Again, if I had been on Facebook talking to all you lovely people I would have been a whole lot wiser. When Rosemary Canter told me she wanted Castle to be a ‘big’ book, at first I thought she meant longer. Duh! What I hadn’t realised (although I thought I had) is how fast the industry is changing and will continue to change. We’re in uncharted waters.


And finally, where to from here for Ellen Renner?

City of Thieves is out in the UK August 2010 and has an amazing cover. I can’t wait to hold a copy in my hands! The autumn is already booking out with promotional events: school visits, festivals, library visits, book store signings. And I get to go to Sussex in November to visit schools taking part in the West Sussex Award process: 74 schools are studying the 9 shortlisted books over the autumn term. So it’s going to be very busy. I have to write a book as well. And it needs to be brilliant. So it’s all pretty fantastic, really.


Many thanks to Ellen for agreeing to be interviewed and here’s wishing her all the very best of luck and success in her ongoing authorial adventuring!


For more about Ellen Renner see her website

Order Ellen’s books from Amazon

Follow Ellen on Twitter

Or keep up with Ellen on her Facebook fanpage

All images courtesy of Ellen Renner

And you think you’re in control of your characters? Ha!

It’s getting out of hand. On two occasions in the past week I’ve been woken at stupid o’clock by characters clamouring to be heard. I mean, for heaven’s sake! Don’t they know a girl needs her beauty sleep?

The first one was Terry and those blasted gnomes. Terry is a character-

“I’m not a character!”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, I’m not a character!”
“Er, yes... you’re a character in one of my novels – you’re not really real.”
“I’m just as real as you!”
“No… You are a figment of my imagination.”
“I’m not!”

OUCH!

“What was that!?” My ankle is stinging something horrible.
“Serves you right, calling me a character. The gnomes just bit you!”
Muffled sniggering titters up from floor level.
“Yes, serveses you right, Missus.”
“Ssssh! Don’ts be upsetting her, you mugginpie, she’ll write you right out of the book.”
“She can’t. You’re real, whether she likes it or not.”

I ask you! Do you just see the things I have to put up with?

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, so, Terry, who is now REAL (really, really REAL!!!)…

“That’s better, thank you.”
“My pleasure…”

Terry first appeared in the second ever story I wrote about eight years ago. It’s a story for 9 – 12 year olds and it never saw the light of day because I was told it was “too Harry Potter” for the times. It wasn’t, but I know it’s not my opinion that counts. So Terry, those wretched, I mean, really, really real and lovely gnomes, a dragon and a whole world, where put away.

“And now we’ve stayed there for quite long enough!”
“You know what, Terry, I think you’re right.”

Guess what I’ll be working on next… That's what happens when characters, I mean, really, really real, er, people, start flexing their muscles.

So that was Terry, five days ago.

Then this morning Selena ripped the duvet off me at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. and babbled, “I’ve got an idea for a new opening to chapter one! Quick, get your pen!”
“But I only went to sleep four hours ago!”
“Not my problem that you were buggering around on Facebook! Quick!”

I now have three pages of what are most probably totally illegible notes to work through.

It’s not on, you know, really, it’s not.

“Oh stop whining,” mutters Selena and chews the end of a strand of hair.
“Don’t do that! And you’re not doing that in the book!”
“Whatever. Just because you think you can control me in the book, doesn’t mean you get to control my whole life! Now, I’m outta here, I’m meeting Chrissie at the mall.”
“Hey, wait, can I come with?”

WHA-' !?!?

“You can’t talk to her! You can’t, you know, talk across books!”
“Of course he can,” snaps Selena.
“Of course I can,” grins Terry. “So, can I?”
“No,” Selena says, “I don’t want some 12 year tagging along with me.”
Terry rolls his eyes. “I don’t want to tag along with you, d’you think I want to be seen with a bunch of GIRLS?! I just want a ride to the games arcade.”
“Oh, well that’s all right then. Come on. And oh,” she says, blowing me a kiss, “Good luck with that rewrite.”

Sigh.

Oh well, that’s that then, no more sleep. Again.

An interview with debut children's author, Jon Mayhew

I first “met" Jon Mayhew through this wonderful portal called blogosphere. It was about four years ago and we had both recently started blogging and, as is the way of the blogosphere, fell in with the same group of bloggers.

I recall, at the time, reading a short extract of his novel in progress, for children, Mortlock and I also remember Jon wondering how he was ever going to get the book right and get it published. I suggested to him that he join the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and I also mentioned that it seemed that several people were using a writing consultancy called Cornerstones.

Over the years, I looked on as Jon did indeed join the SCBWI, went on one of Cornerstones’ self-editing courses, wrote and rewrote and then rewrote some more and ultimately landed himself an agent – Sarah Davies of the Greenhouse Literary Agency. There was lots more rewriting but it wasn’t that long before Mortlock was snapped up in a three book deal by Bloomsbury. On 30th March 2010 Jon had his official book launch with Mortlock hitting the shelves on the 5th of April 2010.

The suitably atmospheric setting in Shoreditch, London, for Jon's book launch
(image courtesy of Candy Gourlay)

Jon with fellow members of the British chapter of the SCBWI at his launch
(image courtesy of Sue Eves and Candy Gourlay)

I was extremely worried that for some reason I wouldn’t like Mortlock, but it is a brilliant romp and I read it in one sitting. Aimed at children of 10 + years, Mortlock is the wonderfully atmospheric story of orphaned Josie and her twin brother Alfie. They’ve never met, but when they do, it’s to unravel the mystery of their shared legacy, the secret of the Amarant - a magical and powerful plant - and it all has them running for their lives, pursued by three extremely unpleasant aunts, who happen to be terrifying ghuls. Set in Victorian England, the story is darkly gothic, full of magic, thrills and chills. It will appeal to boys as much as girls and will, I’m sure, happily rival Darren Shan and J K Rowling!

There is, I have to tell you, very little better than watching a pal succeed, and so, ladies and gentlemen, ghuls, crows and children, it is with pleasure that I introduce you to Jon Mayhew!

Debut children's author, Jon Mayhew (image courtesy of Jon Mayhew)

With all sorts of shivery delight, I have to ask, as the pre-published to the newly published… What does it feel like to become a published author?

A little bewildering, to be honest. But rather good. You spend so much time handling rejection that it seems too good to be true. Once you accept it, it’s ace! I must admit that I have to remind myself that every copy of Mortlock I see does not belong to me!


When did you first conceive Mortlock and where did the idea spring from?

Mortlock came from a number of sources. Alfie Wiggins, the undertaker’s mute came to me when I was watching my son in a performance of Oliver. There is a scene in which Oliver is ‘sold’ to Mr Sowerberry the undertaker and this ‘what if’ idea sprang into my mind. What if an undertaker’s mute found that he could waken the dead? That was my starting point.


How did you learn about the Amaranth and its immortal powers and what made you choose this is as one of the pivotal elements around which the story is based?

The Amarant is mentioned in Paradise Lost which I studied at university many moons ago. I don’t think any reference is made in the poem to its lifegiving properties but a swift Google search established that some people saw the Amarant as an immortal flower! Originally, there was a character in the story, a sort of Lazarus character who could ressurect the dead but he just got in the way, so I turned him into a flower.


Is there any particular reason why Josie Chrimes, your main character, turned up as a girl?

It was strange really, I started writing from Alfie’s point of view and for various reasons, it wasn’t working. I switched viewpoint several times (which was a pain) but finally settled on Josie. In a way, she is the more decisive and action-focused character and so it was easier then to have Alfie as the calming, sometimes cynical voice.


The three aunts in the story are gloriously macabre, to some extent caricatures of every wicked aunt or stepmother that has ever existed. Where did you draw your inspiration from for them?

If I told you I’d have to kill you! In a sense, they are caricatures. They are an amalgam of every bringer of bad news, every bully and every person I’ve known who smiled so sweetly whilst drilling the pointed blade between my shoulder blades. I kind of know who they are. Paradoxically, I love the aunts to bits. I love the way they twitch and flutter in unison and the way they switch from sweetly smothering to ravenous beak and claw.

The wonderfully atmospheric Mortlock booktrailer

Mortlock is gloriously atmospheric, did you find yourself having to do a lot of research into Victorian London?

It just happened as I went along, really. There were key things that I needed to know such as dates and events in the year it was set, just to make sure I wasn’t missing any good possible plot points. I started out with the basic story and then added detail, checked that something was chronologically correct. There were numerous e-mail conversations about sofas, photographs between my agent and then the desk editor and myself. I enjoyed the research and even visited a nice Victorian hearse up in the North east.


The Jon I’ve come to know is a really nice bloke and a very funny one at that, so I have to ask, where did all this gothically dark stuff spring from!?

I suppose it’s all there… lurking in the recesses of my mind. I try to be a very positive person which doesn’t always work. I suppose I work out all the darkness onto the page, perhaps.

Jon clearly has a bit of a thing about graveyards...
(image courtesy of Jon Mayhew)

Mortlock, despite its horror elements is, at its most fundamental, a story of overcoming the odds, good overcoming evil and ultimately it’s a story of great hope. How important do you believe hope is in children’s stories?

Children spend their lives hoping, don’t they? Hoping good things will happen and bad things won’t, hoping boring things will pass quickly and exciting things will come soon. I think a children’s book bereft of all hope might be a bit miserable. I’d like to think that Josie and Alfie came out of the whole experience with each other and a notion that they love and were loved. That’s important for any child I think.


In many ways, Mortlock reads a lot like a traditional fairy tale. What were the key influencers in the creation of this story and your writing per se?

Traditional song influenced the writing in that the themes of death and mortality haunt all the characters. I love the line “I’ll pike out his bonny blue eye,” in the ballad the Twa Corbies. The word ‘pike’ has so many connotations and sounds so aggressive. I tried to match that in some of my writing. A lot of what I write, I tell myself as I run. I scribble it down and then recraft it. Music influences me too. All kinds, film scores set my mind on the right track.

I suppose one of the key influencers was the writing of MR James. I love those old English ghost stories. The telling of stories is fundamental too. As a youngest child, I was the audience for the goriest, most terrifying stories from my brothers and sister.


You landed a three book deal with Bloomsbury, so we know there is more to come – do you want to give us a glimpse of what else you’re working on and are the other books sequels to Mortlock?

The other books are set in the same time and era with some of the same background characters but the main protagonists change. They aren’t sequels. I rather agree with Geraldine McCaughrean when she says she likes a story to wrap up in one book. I’d love to get the ghuls out and play with them again sometime.

The next book is called The Demon Collector and involves a certain Edgy Taylor (have you heard that name before? Check back through Mortlock) as he becomes involved in the Royal Society of Daemonologie. He hunts demons, helps collect them and goes on an epic voyage to the frozen North to find the lost corpse of the arch demon Moloch. Finally, he finds out which is worse, men or demons.

Jon at his book launch, clutching a newly formed ghul...
(image courtesy of Candy Gourlay)

You not only write, but you’re also the father of four, you have a full time job, you run and you play in ceilidh bands. Do you have a clone or a special recipe for packing so much into your life? And do you perhaps have any plans to give up teaching and become a full-time writer?

I don’t watch much television: Dr Who, the news, Being Human and Have I got News For You. I rarely sit around twiddling my thumbs. My job has reduced to four days a week which is meant to help but in reality, I’ll be spending a lot of time promoting Mortlock. I have to admit that my family are very understanding and cover domestic roles for me a lot of the time. I don’t do all of the things all the time either so at the moment, I’m ramping up the running again and easing off the writing for a little bit… A Bloomsbury Time Turner helps too…

I would dearly love to write full time but I’m under no illusions about how hard this is to achieve. You have to sell a lot of books on a regular basis to do this and I have one title out. I do enjoy my day job too so I’m grateful for that but maybe one day…

Jon and his long suffering family...
(image courtesy of Candy Gourlay)

When we spoke a while ago, you suggested I consider blogging as part of the angle to this interview, so I have to ask, to what extent did blogging play a role in the development of Mortlock and how to you see blogging as being important for pre-published and published authors?

Blogging put me in touch with some wonderful people…yourself included. They gave me excellent advice. You put me onto SCBWI and that was one of the things that put me in front of editors and agents at the Winchester conference. There’s nothing like a bit of professional interest in your work to get other editors and agents peering over curiously to see what the fuss is about.

Blogging has also given me useful feedback on work and even one of my first author gigs when Mickmouse booked me earlier this year to run some workshops at their first ‘Word Explosion’ children’s literary festival down in Cornwall.

It’s just such a great community for support and friendship.

Jon and fellow Greenhouse author, Sarwat Chadda, at the launch of Mortlock. Let's not ask what Sarwat is about to do to that crow... (or what the crow's about to do to him!)
(image courtesy of Candy Gourlay)

Your road to publication, as is the case for most writers, is not something that happened overnight. In what way and how did the story change and evolve to what it is now? And how many rewrites did it take to get you to the final print version of Mortlock?

I have actually lost count of the number of rewrites Mortlock had. It started out very long and quite sprawling. I couldn’t write a synopsis for it because there were so many plot strands and points of view. Cornerstones helped to smooth it out and as with the changing of one character into a flower, it was a question of looking closely at each scene and challenging it to justify its own existence! The book changed quite fundamentally once Sarah Davies got hold of it and more characters were killed off, more scenes axed until it was ready to present to the publishing world.


Now that your first book has been published and you’ve learned a whole lot about writing, how many drafts are you into for The Demon Collector? Do you think the writing process gets easier?

Demon Collector is sitting pretty on the editor’s desk and she told me at the launch party that she loves it. Which is good for morale! Demon Collectors was floating about as I wrote Mortlock and went through about three false starts (upto 10,000 words that couldn’t be used) as I floundered around with characters. It was going to be a modern setting but I couldn’t get the tone right and the characters seemed wrong somehow. Once I set it in Mortlock’s world, it started to fall into place but I still struggled with a main character. Finally, I got it all straight in my head, planned it out (I had to present Bloomsbury with a synopsis by last July) and then I would say it just flowed. At one moment of self-doubt, I started hacking and rewriting but then stopped when I realized that the critical voice in my head was not a good one. It’s taken about two rewrites in all. A far cry from Mortlock.

Book 3? Who knows? Well, I do actually. I have a synopsis and a title and have written about 3,000 words…

Jon signs a copy of Mortlock
(image courtesy of Candy Gourlay)

What are the greatest lessons you’ve learned about writing along the way and what advice would you give to aspiring writers?

I try not to give advice as I’m conscious that I have had great good fortune with my writing. I’m also aware of how much talent there is out there. Just keep writing and reading and enjoying it. We all enjoy our writing, yes? If not, then stop right now and do something else instead.

I suppose if I were going to say anything about what I’ve learned it would be this: It isn’t easy, some of it is down to good luck (assuming you have the writing skills in place). Finding someone who loves your work is the best good fortune and you have to do it twice if you want to land an agent and then a publisher. So your story has to be different and the best it can be. It’s nothing new but it’s true.

If you love writing, then do it anyway. Write your best and never, never, never give up.



Many thanks to Jon for agreeing to this interview and here’s wishing loads of success with Mortlock and his writing career!


For more information on Jon Mayhew and Mortlock:

Jon's blog
Jon's website
The official Mortlock website by Bloomsbury
Jon's Facebook Fan Page
A wonderful article in The Guardian about Mortlock
And if you fancy reading an extract from Mortlock, try the Lovereading website

Who'd be a writer, eh?

It's getting a bit dire, isn't it - no blog post for two weeks. The trouble is, it's been so "nose to the grindstone" that I have blow-all to say for myself. However, lest we consider me lost for words... Oh perish the thought!

So, I will say this - if any of you who are not writers ask me if you should become a writer - seeking to be published - I will say "NO!!! Run for the hills and take up knitting instead!"

Seriously, I think if I'd known what was involved in trying to become a published author, I'd never have started. But it's from the innocence of not knowing that writers are indeed born. We have a dream, we feel a book within us that we feel must be shared and off we go. JK Rowling's billions may beckon us, as may the prospect of fame. Yes, well... Of such things are dreams made.

Here's the truth - it's a long hard slog and JKR was a phenomenon, not a usual occurence.
To become a published writer - and heaven knows, I'm not there yet - yet being the operative word - you need to have:
an awful lot of tenacity,
the ability to persevere, to rewrite and rewrite again,
the hide of a rhinocerous,
the patience of a saint,
the pushiness of a... well a pushmepullyou-thing,
and a determination that goes beyond the bounds of what is rational for Joe and Josephine Soap.

I'm quite convinced, at this stage, that becoming a rocket scientist is easier than becoming a published author.

But here's the thing - if this is what you want to do, if this is what you have to do - then you do it. You write, you edit, you rewrite, you ask for critiques from fellow writers, you support your fellow writers (okay, if you like you could go off and lurk in a lonely garret with a mangy mouse and some green cheese), but you work at it, you learn, you grow, you rewrite some more, you network, you enquire, you attend conferences and read books on writing and then you rewrite again. You may put aside one manuscript unfinished and start another. You may finish three manuscripts and realise they're all rubbish and move onto the fourth. But this is part of the journey and you just keep going, and going, and going.

And that, let me tell you, is just the start...

Those writers who are published or about to be published will tell you that getting the publishing deal doesn't mean it stops there - no, that's just the end of the beginning and still a long way from any sort of end.

So now, hands up all those who want to be writers? Hey?! Where'd you all go?!

I'm working on developing a thick hide...