Author Masterclass: Writing Picture Books with Pippa Goodhart

Pippa worked as a bookseller, as a publisher’s reader, and as a teacher of young children before starting to write books for children. Over the last twenty years she has had over ninety books published, ranging from picture books, through early readers, to novels for junior school age. Perhaps best known are her award winning picture book ‘You Choose’, and the Winnie the Witch storybooks which she writes under a pen name. See her website: www.pippagoodhart.co.uk for more about her and her books.

She has taught Writing for Children at evening classes and on university courses, as well as critiquing and mentoring writers for the Arts Council and various other agencies. She’s currently the teacher of an online course on writing picture books, run through Writers’ Workshop.

Pippa does a lot of school visits, working with all ages within primary schools.

Alison Smith interviewed Pippa in advance of her upcoming London Masterclass Workshop on Writing Picture Books on 11 October 2014 to find out more about her thoughts on picture book writing.

Picture books show and tell simple stories, often written simply. So they should be simple to write, shouldn’t they? No! 

It’s that very simplicity that makes picture books hard to do well. Your story is laid bare. Even though you, as author, are producing text, you have much more than words to think about. You are story creator, script writer, casting director, and producer for what is an almost filmic production.

I’m not an artist, and these are PICTURE books. Does that matter? 

I’m not an artist either, and nor are many picture book authors. Of course some of the very best picture books are created by people who illustrate AND write the story, but publishers long for really good picture book texts which they can match with illustrators of their own choice. What you, as author, DO need to develop are the skills to think a little about picture content, design and consideration of the book format so that you can use the potential for play between words and pictures which brings the best books to life.

Who are picture books for? 

The vast majority of picture books are aimed at a very young child audience … but it’s not as simple as just needing to appeal to those young children. Small children don’t buy their own picture books, or read them out loud. So the books must appeal to parents and teachers, librarians and more. And they need to appeal internationally in order for a British publisher to gain the co-editions that make the expensive large format full-colour production of those books possible. Some understanding of what sells where, and why, will help you to create a book that publishers will want to publish because it will sell.

So, if writing picture books is so hard, why do it? 

Because the resulting books are big and beautiful, and there are few better treats than having your story turned into wonderful pictures showing your story developing and resolving over the page turns. Because a picture book that clicks with a child will be read and re-read over and over again until it becomes a part of that child, to be remembered forever in a way that novels read as an adult rarely are. Put layers of interest into a picture book and they will be discovered with delight on those re-readings. You are addressing an audience at a point in their lives where they are developing and learning faster than they ever will again. Your story can be influential as well as fun. The best picture books often deal with important matters of fairness and kindness and fear and more, giving young children a huge range experiences of, albeit fictional, life from which they will learn. They teach children the power and fun of playing with story; and that’s a skill and a joy that will stand them in good stead through life.

Masterclass details:

When: Saturday 11 October 2014: 12:00pm start with break for lunch from 1pm until 1:30pm. Class resumes until 3:30pm. Possible Q and A until 4pm.
Venue: The Theodore Bullfrog Pub, First floor meeting room, 26-30 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6HL
Cost: £30 per class for SCBWI members, £37 for non members (prices include a pre-ordered light lunch and a beverage).
Booking: https://britishisles.scbwi.org/events/
More information: masterclasses@britishscbwi.org 

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Alison Smith works as a freelance PR and communications professional for part of her week. For the rest of it she is to be found clamped to her computer trying to find a home for her middle grade historical novel and getting down the first draft of a new canine caper set in Victorian London. She has just managed to break her publishing duck with the acceptance of a short story by The Caterpillar Magazine and hopes this will help her brave the slings and arrows of future rejections.

Author Masterclass: Successful primary school visits with Jane Clarke

Jane Clarke has been an archaeologist, a teacher, and a library assistant, but is now a full time children’s writer with over seventy published books and hundreds of poems in children's anthologies. Her picture books include the award-winning Gilbert the Great series, Stuck in the Mud, and Knight Time. She writes for reading schemes and ghost writes for several series for the Key Stage 2 age group with Working Partners, Random House and OUP. 

Jane does around 30 author visits to nursery and primary schools a year and counts them as an important part of her income as a writer.

Alison Smith caught up with Jane in advance of her upcoming London Masterclass Workshop on Successful Primary School Visits on 13 September 2014 to find out more.

When did you start doing author visits to primary schools? 

When my first book was published (2001), I was a library assistant at Antwerp International School – so I invited myself into different classes in the Elementary School and tried out talks and writing workshops with different age groups.

How did you go about getting school visits when you returned to the UK? 

By then, I had five books published and felt confident enough to introduce myself to my local primary school as a writer. I went in once a week to listen to children read, and did some unpaid creative writing workshops for them. This gave me UK references and local school contacts. A local independent bookshop was helpful in passing on my details, and I also joined Contact an Author.

What do you like about school visits? 

It's a joy to work with imaginative and creative children, and inspire them to write and/or draw their own stories and poems. My primary purpose for doing the visits is for income rather than to promote my books, but I often use one of my books as the focus of a workshop and promote them in that way. My agent is convinced the visits help book sales – and they keep me in touch with my target audience, too.

So who is your Masterclass aimed at?

Anyone who writes and illustrates for the under 11s and who is making - or thinking of making - visits to schools.

And what will you be covering? 

I’ll be sharing hints and tips about getting, organising and accomplishing fun and inspiring school visits. The practical session in the afternoon will focus on sharing writing workshop/ fun creative activities that can be used to inspire and enthuse specific ages/year/Key Stage groups (from nursery through to Year 6).

Anything people need to do in advance? 

Please come prepared to share a workshop or creative activity - and/or a book you'd like to make the focus of a workshop.

For more information about Jane and her work visit www.jane-clarke.co.uk

Masterclass details:

Successful Primary School Visits 
When: Saturday 13 September 2014 – 12 noon – 4pm
Where: The Theodore Bullfrog Pub, First floor meeting room, 26-30 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6HL
Cost: £30 per class for SCBWI members, £37 for non members. (Prices include a pre-ordered light lunch and a beverage.)
Booking: https://britishisles.scbwi.org/events/
More information: masterclasses@britishscbwi.org 

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Alison Smith works as a freelance PR and communications professional for part of her week. For the rest of it she is to be found clamped to her computer trying to find a home for her middle grade historical novel and getting down the first draft of a new canine caper set in Victorian London. She has just managed to break her publishing duck with the acceptance of a short story by The Caterpillar Magazine and hopes this will help her brave the slings and arrows of future rejections.

Judy Waite's London Masterclass - Growing Pains: Writing for Young Adults

©John Shelley

What lengths are you prepared to go to in order to tap into your teenage protagonist’s mind and find their voice? Would you:-

• Run away up to London dressed as a teenage boy?
• Audition for a part in a boy band?
• Get locked up in a police cell?

All of these have been tried and tested by award-winning author Judy Waite!

With a confession like that, her SCBWI London Masterclass: ‘Growing Pains: Writing for Young Adults.’ promised to be an interesting and entertaining ride.

And that’s exactly how it turned out.

She took us through a series of fun and thought-provoking exercises in a bid to master the dark art of creating a credible and compelling teenage voice.

An interesting and entertaining ride!

Connecting With Your Own Inner Teenager

Working in small groups, we were set the task of remembering what it was like to be a teenager in ‘our day’. For some of us that meant beaming back to the late seventies/early eighties when Punk Rock and fears of being nuked by the Russians ruled. For others it was more about friends, boys and getting hold of alcohol.

But there was a strong consensus that it had also been about isolation and not fitting in. Or, as one member of the group reflected, is it that writers are just a pathologically insecure bunch?

What Matters to Teenagers Now?

Next, we considered today. Are there things that matter more to teenagers now than when we were growing up? No surprises for guessing that social media in all its many guises topped the list. Then followed material goods, self-image and employment.

...is it that writers are just a pathologically insecure bunch?

In essence though, we concluded that the young adults of today are not so hugely different in their passions and fears, hopes and dreams. The trick, as Judy pointed out, is to get into their heads and understand how they live their lives.

Reinvent Yourself

To try and help with this, Judy encouraged us to reinvent ourselves as teenagers today. So we wrote a couple of paragraphs to bring ourselves bang up to date. This proved a challenge. And some of us weren’t quite sure how to transform ourselves into a new, updated version.

Perhaps we're too much like Peter Pan, never wanting to be teenagers in the first place!

Getting All Cut Up

This exercise is based on a tried and tested approach to writing adopted by the likes of William Burroughs and David Bowie. Judy got us experimenting with a new and creative way into the teenage mind.

Perhaps we're too much like Peter Pan

We picked a selection of short phrases and sentences drawn from Facebook messages posted by real-life teenagers and from published teenage novels – including Judy’s own favourite, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – and used them to conjure up a teenage voice and a setting.

We had a little help from a special extra – a bit of meditative candle contemplation.

The results of this time spent ‘in the zone’ and focussing on our character’s needs and wants, proved both powerful and compelling and gave many of us the ingredients for a new and exciting teenage voice to go away and explore.

And we hadn’t even had to get locked up to do it! (By the way, Judy was quick to confess that the audition and the time spent in jail had been with the collusion of the organisations concerned – phew, that’s a relief!)

Thanks again Judy for a stimulating, creative and fun session – and to Wendy Allen for the pictures.

There are still a few places left on the next Masterclass: Fantasy Writing for Young Readers lead by Robert Paul Weston – Saturday 17 May 2014. For bookings and more information visit https://britishisles.scbwi.org/events/author-masterclass-fantasy-writing-for-young-readers-with-robert-paul-weston/ or email masterclasses@britishscbwi.org

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Alison Smith works as a freelance PR and communications professional for part of her week.

For the rest of it she is to be found clamped to her computer – when she’s not busy pursuing the usual writerly diversions of blog-reading, net-surfing and gazing out of the window – wrestling with her middle grade historical novel set in early Jacobean London..

Judy Waite: 'Growing Pains, Writing for Young Adults' Masterclass, 8 March 2014

Alison Smith

@judywaite2

Judy Waite is an award-winning author of over forty novels for children and young adults. Her work ranges through picture books for the very young, up to gritty young adult and ‘crossover’ fiction, which include Forbidden and Game Girls.


Judy also teaches Creative Writing at the University of Winchester, working with undergraduates, MA supervisions and PhD consultancy.

She runs workshops for all age groups, works regularly in schools at all Key Stage levels, as well as speaking at conferences and key creative/educational events.

Her areas of specialism are fiction for children, creativity, creative writing techniques and educational consultancy for both writing and creative practice. Judy has also developed a creative writing website www.wordtamer.co.uk which connects creativity with ICT and interactive technology.

Cutting edge ideas for a cutting edge generation: YA fiction is a thriving and exciting market, but how, as authors, do we keep our writing current and contemporary? 

Alison Smith caught up with award-winning author, academic and educational consultant Judy Waite in advance of her upcoming London Masterclass: Growing Pains - Writing for Young Adults.

How do we get inside the teenage brain?
In some ways young adults should be perfect as authors for their own age group because of course they already 'talk the talk', but in my experience (twenty years teaching creative writing in schools and at universities) the ideas are there but the basic 'writerly' skills aren't embedded - so for this market we need to apply all our craft-type knowledge but also find our 'inner teenager' - to try and write (regardless of our individual ages) as if we were a young adult now. The masterclass I’ll be giving in March will tap into techniques and short exercise that will get those ‘teenage brains’ buzzing.

So does it need to be all about the 'lingo'?
Definitely not. Things date so fast that as soon as we've got the hang of the latest slang, it's morphed again. Innit! One of my own favourite ever novels is Catcher in the Rye - how does Salinger still appeal to teen readers with a book published in 1951? We need to know what matters to teenagers. What's universal? What stands the test of time?

Part of the session will be facing up to that blank page dilemma with techniques and tips for creating a first paragraph that dances off the page. 

Do teen novels need to be 'dark'?
A lot of them are, but we need light too. And humour, if we lean that way. Melvyn Burgess' novel Junk was very influential for me when I first started writing - multiple voice - urban settings - gritty subjects - (plus it was banned everywhere, which is always a great selling point) but writing for young adults doesn't HAVE to be urban and gritty. In the masterclass we'll discuss options – taking characters to a range of ‘places’ and seeing just how and where ideas can grow.

Do you find it hard to get started, even once you have an idea? 
Of course. The blank page is a plunge into an icy pool. Part of the session will be facing up to that blank page dilemma with techniques and tips for creating a first paragraph that dances off the page. (Or maybe, as it's YA, it's more likely to saunter off with its hands thrust firmly in its pockets...)

What do you hope the session will have achieved by the end?

• Everyone will have created a new YA character
• They'll know where their story takes place
• And how to get it started.
• There will be nods to publishers too - info about what's happening now, and who is looking for what. 

I'm really looking forward to working with other writers – whatever level they are at (and it won’t matter – everyone will evolve at their own pace) – in a genre that I love. PLUS the venue is amazing. A pub called The Theodore Bullfrog. Awesome name. How could we fail to get inspired in somewhere with a name as cool as that!

Growing Pains:Writing for Young Adults

Saturday 8th March 2014

The Theodore and Bullfrog Pub

(first floor meeting room)

26-30 John Adam Street

WC2N6HL

Cost: £30 per class for SCBWI members, £37 for non members, £108 special SCBWI member discount when you book for 4 classes. (All prices include a pre-ordered light lunch and a beverage.)

To book or for more information:  masterclasses@britishscbwi.org

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Alison never wanted to become a teenager - which means she is probably not best qualified to be the interviewer for this masterclass! A graduate of the Writing for Children MA at the University of Winchester, her first (as yet unpublished) story was a futuristic middle grade eco-fantasy about two children saving the last seed bank on earth. Just to be contrary - and because she is really an old-fashioned girl at heart - she is now working on a middle grade story set in early Jacobean London.