Continuing on my current blog theme of 1) a tiny, real-life seed from which one of my stories
unfolded and 2) a writing tip that helped the seed grow into a
finished story.
The Seed: The book Gentle Ben, about a grizzly bear in Alaska, had totally enthralled my son. It reminded me how much kids love animal stories. I couldn't write a story about a grizzly bear...but there was another type of animal that I had all kinds of information about.
The Story: TJ and the Cats Orca Publishers, 2002
The Writing Tip: Sometimes a great subject is right under your nose. We'd always had cats. I had lots of great cat stories. Friends and family had cats. I knew lots about cats. It was perfect!
Except it wasn't perfect. Cats (unlike grizzly bears) are such common pets that lots of writers have written about them. A quick "google" of cat books gave me 80,000 results! I'd even been told by my own publisher "No more books about cats."
Did I give up? Of course not. But I was careful to find ways to help my book stand out.
Most cat books are for/about people who like cats. I did the opposite. My character announces in the very first paragraph "Cat's give me the creeps."
I didn't write about just one cat either. I wrote about four, all of them different. I also researched hard to find unique and intriguing "cat facts" to weave into the story as well some truthful but pretty far out adventures cats have had.
The final ingredient I added to the mix was a large dollop of humour. Of course that wasn't unique; lots of cat books have funny parts. But it still gave the story a bit of extra zip.
Do I recommend writing a story about a subject that's been done 80,000 times before? NO!!! But if you do find that you just can't resist - and if you truly feel it is a subject kids will enjoy - remember to think hard about ways, both large and small, to make your book truly have a life of its own.
(c) All Rights Reserved. All blog text(except comments by others) copyright Hazel Hutchins.
The Seed: The book Gentle Ben, about a grizzly bear in Alaska, had totally enthralled my son. It reminded me how much kids love animal stories. I couldn't write a story about a grizzly bear...but there was another type of animal that I had all kinds of information about.
The Story: TJ and the Cats Orca Publishers, 2002 The Writing Tip: Sometimes a great subject is right under your nose. We'd always had cats. I had lots of great cat stories. Friends and family had cats. I knew lots about cats. It was perfect!
Except it wasn't perfect. Cats (unlike grizzly bears) are such common pets that lots of writers have written about them. A quick "google" of cat books gave me 80,000 results! I'd even been told by my own publisher "No more books about cats."
Did I give up? Of course not. But I was careful to find ways to help my book stand out.
Most cat books are for/about people who like cats. I did the opposite. My character announces in the very first paragraph "Cat's give me the creeps."
I didn't write about just one cat either. I wrote about four, all of them different. I also researched hard to find unique and intriguing "cat facts" to weave into the story as well some truthful but pretty far out adventures cats have had.
The final ingredient I added to the mix was a large dollop of humour. Of course that wasn't unique; lots of cat books have funny parts. But it still gave the story a bit of extra zip.
Do I recommend writing a story about a subject that's been done 80,000 times before? NO!!! But if you do find that you just can't resist - and if you truly feel it is a subject kids will enjoy - remember to think hard about ways, both large and small, to make your book truly have a life of its own.
(c) All Rights Reserved. All blog text(except comments by others) copyright Hazel Hutchins.
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