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Answering Megan's questions
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From: melissa_at_melissa-stewart.com
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 06:34:58 -0400 (EDT)
Thanks for inviting me to participate in this conversation, Megan. You have posed some thoughtful questions. No Monkeys, No Chocolate was a labor of love that took 10 years to create. I developed a video timeline that chronicles the process here: [ http://www.melissa-stewart.com/timeline/10yr_timeline.html ]( http://www.melissa-stewart.com/timeline/10yr_timeline.html ) It includes downloads of rejected manuscripts, so students can get a true sense of how authors revise. It also includes a video from my editor and sample sketches for the illustrations. It’s important for kids to know that illustrators have their own revision process.
Getting back to your question, I faced a lot of obstacles in gathering the information for this book. I read every scientific paper that had ever been written about cocoa trees, but the details I needed just weren’t there. I needed someone who had spent huge amounts of time working with the trees and observing the creatures that lived on and around them. Allen Young eventually became a co-author because he is the world’s leading expert on cocoa tree growth and pollination. The information I needed was locked in his head and I couldn’t have written the book if he hadn’t shared his tremendous knowledge with me.
By the time I found Dr. Young, I knew exactly what kinds of information I needed—creatures that destroyed on the tree’s stems, leaves, fruit, and the creatures that ate them. So for this book, there was never a process of information elimination. And I think that’s true for most of the books I’ve written. By the time I start writing, I already have a fairly good idea of what will go in and what will stay out. Sometimes problems crop up as I’m writing and I have to do more research to fill in gaps, but I don’t think I’ve ever struggled with having too much information.
I always read my manuscripts aloud while I’m standing up. I find that by standing up, I somehow pay more attention. I usually have someone in my critique group read the manuscript back to me, too. If that reader stumbles over a word or a phrase, I know I need to rework it.
When writing books with layered text (a term invented by April Pulley Sayre), the challenge is to make the main text stand on its own AND to allow room for readers to interrupt the main text with the secondary text (and in this case the tertiary text, too). I’ve discovered that students are really passionate about hearing all three layers of text in No Monkeys, No Chocolate. Here’s a conversation I recorded on Facebook after a school visit in Maine:
Third grader: I'm so mad at my teacher. When she read No Monkeys, No Chocolate, she skipped over the bookworm parts. Don't you think they're CRITICAL?
Me: Yes, I do.
Third grader: That's what I think, too.
I love that kid.
Melissa
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Received on Fri 20 Jun 2014 05:35:25 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 06:34:58 -0400 (EDT)
Thanks for inviting me to participate in this conversation, Megan. You have posed some thoughtful questions. No Monkeys, No Chocolate was a labor of love that took 10 years to create. I developed a video timeline that chronicles the process here: [ http://www.melissa-stewart.com/timeline/10yr_timeline.html ]( http://www.melissa-stewart.com/timeline/10yr_timeline.html ) It includes downloads of rejected manuscripts, so students can get a true sense of how authors revise. It also includes a video from my editor and sample sketches for the illustrations. It’s important for kids to know that illustrators have their own revision process.
Getting back to your question, I faced a lot of obstacles in gathering the information for this book. I read every scientific paper that had ever been written about cocoa trees, but the details I needed just weren’t there. I needed someone who had spent huge amounts of time working with the trees and observing the creatures that lived on and around them. Allen Young eventually became a co-author because he is the world’s leading expert on cocoa tree growth and pollination. The information I needed was locked in his head and I couldn’t have written the book if he hadn’t shared his tremendous knowledge with me.
By the time I found Dr. Young, I knew exactly what kinds of information I needed—creatures that destroyed on the tree’s stems, leaves, fruit, and the creatures that ate them. So for this book, there was never a process of information elimination. And I think that’s true for most of the books I’ve written. By the time I start writing, I already have a fairly good idea of what will go in and what will stay out. Sometimes problems crop up as I’m writing and I have to do more research to fill in gaps, but I don’t think I’ve ever struggled with having too much information.
I always read my manuscripts aloud while I’m standing up. I find that by standing up, I somehow pay more attention. I usually have someone in my critique group read the manuscript back to me, too. If that reader stumbles over a word or a phrase, I know I need to rework it.
When writing books with layered text (a term invented by April Pulley Sayre), the challenge is to make the main text stand on its own AND to allow room for readers to interrupt the main text with the secondary text (and in this case the tertiary text, too). I’ve discovered that students are really passionate about hearing all three layers of text in No Monkeys, No Chocolate. Here’s a conversation I recorded on Facebook after a school visit in Maine:
Third grader: I'm so mad at my teacher. When she read No Monkeys, No Chocolate, she skipped over the bookworm parts. Don't you think they're CRITICAL?
Me: Yes, I do.
Third grader: That's what I think, too.
I love that kid.
Melissa
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Received on Fri 20 Jun 2014 05:35:25 AM CDT
