Writing Advice from Kate DiCamillo

Had the good fortune to meet the lovely and ultra smart Kate DiCamillo on Saturday. She gave a rousing reading and q and a session at the Mountains to Sea Festival. She gave 3 writing tips during her talk:

1/ Read 2/ Show up on the page - write every day - doesn't matter if it's short, just write daily. 3/ Be stubborn and stand up for yourself - if you want to be a writer, don't let anyone or anything stand in your way.

Good advice!

Everyone fell in love with Kate during the day - she's amazing and so funny. I do hope she comes back to Dublin soon.

I do love the questions young readers ask authors. They asked Kate - 'Are you a cat or a dog person?' (Dog!) Did you have a doll when you were little? (Yes, Victoria - and Kate still has her in a cedar chest at the end of her bed as she can't bear to give her away.) Do you like mice? (Yes!)

Far more interesting than the questions adults ask - 'where do you get your ideas?' We should all look at things through children's eyes at least once a day. Are you a cat or a dog person? Such a great question!

Yours in writing, SarahX

What's in a name?

A quick post today on picking names. I was giving a writing workshop over the weekend and one of the things we talked about was choosing the right names for your characters. Sometimes I read books and some of the names just doesn't suit the characters. Other times they are just perfect. For eg last night I finished The Perfect Proposal by Katie Fforde, a charming, compelling romantic comedy. The main character is sweet, funny, and put upon by her family who think she's an idiot (she proves them wrong!). Her name is Sophie Appley. It suits her down to the ground.

I try to take great care picking my own characters' names. In the Amy Green books one of my favourite characters is Clover Wildgust. Wildgust is a real name, I found it on a gravestone (sorry, bit morbid I know, but I do love graveyards!). Clover is 'Wild' by name, wild by nature. I could have gone for just Wilde, but I liked the gust bit as it's different. And Clover - well she just is a Clover. Amy is Amy because it's one of my favourite names - my daughter is Amy - and it's also a name lots of girls can identify with - she's my everygirl character in the book. And Green - again is a common enough surname and sounds friendly I think. And Amy is above all, a good friend, to MIlls and Clover, and also to my readers too I hope.

Seth Stone is emotionally strong and together - even though he has to cope with a lot a home - hence Stone. Bailey Otis, who will appear in book 3 is a mysterious boy with a strange past - Otis, after a song I like and Bailey as again it's a little bit unusual, just like him.

The adult book I am currently writing - The Shoestring Club - well, lots of names I really like in there. Arietty Pilgrim is my favourite name I think - an eccentric girl who communicates better with animals than people but has great inner strength. She's an elephant keeper. And I also love Julia Schuster - always Jules or Julia Boolia to her family, or Boolie for short. She's a mess sometimes, and does daft things, but she has a good heart.

I even took great care naming my elephants - Beatrix is the matriarch, and her sister is Enid - and yes they are named after Beatrix Potter and Enid Blyton!

So there you go - think carefully about naming your characters and have fun with it. Make it mean something, to both you and your readers. Names count.

Yours in writing,

SarahX

Be Careful Not to Show Your Age

Remember the days of gr8 and l8r? Thinking of using them in your YA novel to make your teens ‘cool’ and ‘hip’. Think again! These days a lot of teens have iphones, along with predictive text, and they’ve gone back to using complete sentences. Using l8r will date your writing. Other things date writing too – brand names that are popular at a particular moment in time, bands, magazines, radio shows, movies.

Looking back through my first Amy Green, I realise now that I should have used a fictional social networking site instead of Bebo. Most teens have shifted to Facebook these days, and in the US Bebo is practically unknown.

I also included Irish band, The Script, mainly because it’s one of my teen editor’s favourite bands (and she’s fab!). And luckily three years on The Script and still going strong. Along with the X Factor and other ‘brands’ I mentioned.

But in the latest book, Ask Amy Green: Bridesmaid Blitz (out in Oct), I took care not to mention any brands at all unless they were ones with ‘sticking power’, or are widely recognised, like Coke or X Factor. In the books I now have made up telly shows instead of real ones, and fictional bands like The Golden Lions and The Colts (these were also in books 1 and 2).

However I continued with the D4s (who are the mean girls in Amy Green), the Crombies (boys who wear designer gear and play rugby), the Emos and the Goths, as these all play an integral part in Amy Green’s life and hopefully will be around for a while to come.

In the adult book I’m currently writing, set in a second hand designer shop, I have lots of fictional labels – Faith Farenze, Maeve Fabien – and I’m delighted to report that my agent thought they actually existed, which means they must seem authentic. I have also used some real labels with sticking power – Gucci, Prada, Chanel.

So, are you dating your work? Have a look and see.

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX