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July 28th 2022
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Guest blogger: Elys Dolan Elys is an author and illustrator of books for children, writing about everything from seagull detectives, capitalist bunny rabbits and marauding soughnuts to weasels plotting world domination. She’s a lecturer on the MA in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art and has a PhD in humour in picture books. |
Think writing a children's book is easy? Think again! Luckily the popular writer - and former Lollies winner - is on hand to give some tips to any budding writers out there. Here's her step-by-step guide to creating her new book, Rex: Dinosaur in Disguise.
I used to spend far too many hours watching 'documentaries' (I use the word loosely) with titles like UFO Hunters, Loch Ness Monster: Is it down there?, The Bigfoot Files, Mysteries of the Pyramids, Dinosaur Disaster: XL Predators and Very Haunted. I could not get enough of them, and they left me desperate to meet the ghost of Bigfoot inside a pyramid that was built by aliens.
It can take a while for all those hours spent watching TV to pay off. Also, I find that I don’t often have ideas for books when I’m looking for them. I need some natural space in my brain for them to pop into which comes from being bored. So, nearly 15 years after watching all those documentaries, in a less than interesting moment I start to wonder how the creatures in those documentaries world cope with living a mundane human life in a city. And so, a book was born!
OK, so sometimes I’ll have the idea but not actually do anything about it for a while. It can be because I’m busy working on other things, or sometimes it’s because the book in my head is always better than the one that eventually comes out. I can be a little afraid of ruining that perfect fantasy of what the book could be.
Once I take the plunge and decide to make the book, I begin the process by drawing in my sketchbook. I’ve never been able to sit down at a computer and write out a story, I have to get to know the characters and their situation by drawing them. If once I start doing this and I feel it’s going well, I have a decision to make. Is this a book that someone else might like or is this weird madness that’s only fun for you Elys? Often, I don’t get a clear answer to this.
In the case of Rex I decided it might not be madness, so it was time to take the idea to a publisher. Fortunately, I’d been talking to the rather wonderful Walker Books about the possibility of doing a series with them. I put together a sample chapter and some art to share and miraculously they seemed as into the idea of a dinosaur striving to be human as I was. Hurrah!
Got a publishing deal for your book? It’s party time!
But party time was over pretty quickly because a publishing deal means you actually have to finish the book. I wrote Rex and did most of the rough illustrations simultaneously, so I told myself I’d do a complete chapter a day and then I’d have a first draft in no time. Did it work out that way? Nope!
Once I finally finished that first draft, it was time to face the fact that it wasn’t yet as good as the book in my head. It had funny bits, but it was missing a bit of heart. I couldn’t see that at the time though. I find it very frustrating when I can’t make a book work, which inevitably happens at some point in every project, so I entered a period of lying face down on the sofa while whimpering.
Thank god for editors. I have an excellent team helping me on Rex and my editor sent me back to write a second draft, while pointing out tactfully the things that weren’t working. I did at least four drafts of Rex overall. I get the feeling you never write a book just once; it needs about 3-4 goes.
Once I had that manuscript nailed down, it was time to do the artwork. I use a lightbox to trace my pencil roughs in fountain pen. I then scan them and add the tone in photoshop. I originally tried the outlines in black but the images didn’t have the life that I wanted, they seemed too heavy. On a whim I used dark blue instead and they just came to life, while contrasting the orange perfectly. Because of the way chapter books are printed this meant that the text would have to be in blue too. I’m quite pleased with tha because it makes this book a little more unusual.
Actually, I think one of the strengths of the book is that the pictures tell so much of the story, but it didn’t half take a while to do them.
Finally, after the best part of a year, I’d written the book about four times and finished every illustration, so it was time to send the finished article off to the publisher. I find that I put so much into making a book, not just time and energy but also emotionally, that when it’s over I have a few days where I melt like an ice cream. It was no different when I finished Rex, I had to spend a day in bed.
Then it’s time to move on, the next book is always calling. Months later, a finished copy of Rex dropped through my letterbox. It’s always a great moment but there tends to be the odd bit that I’d look at and think I could have done it better. But I couldn’t pick any holes in Rex. I’m proud of the book and it was well worth going through these 13 steps to make it happen. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed making it.
