5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview 
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… 
Robyn Opie Parnell, author of Show Don’t Tell: The Ultimate Writers’ Guide
(R&R Books Film Music)

Show Don’t Tell: The Ultimate Writers’ Guide is a comprehensive guide that will show you how bestselling authors use the technique of “show, don’t tell” to create their masterpieces. You’ll learn how they instantly hook audiences into each novel and keep them breathlessly turning pages until the very end.

This Ultimate Writers’ Guide features ten in-depth chapters and exercise segments on show-don’t-tell: what it is and how it works, fiction genres, characters, dialogue, conflict, plot progression, short story writing and editing for maximum effect. Robyn Opie Parnell includes more than 60 examples, which she discusses in detail to assist you in mastering show, don’t tell. Each chapter ends with a set of simple exercises to help you hone your own writing skills.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the inspiration to write Show Don’t Tell: The Ultimate Writers’ Guide?

Robyn Opie Parnell: Mainly I write children’s books, but I also help and guide new writers. In my capacity as a writing teacher and mentor, it became obvious to me that many new writers struggle with the concept of showing instead of telling in their fiction manuscripts. Show Don’t Tell: The Ultimate Writers’ Guide was my way of helping new writers understand its importance to their careers. Continue reading

Christmas Gifts Writers Will Love For Less Than $3.00

The following covers show a selection of my non-fiction books available on Amazon Kindle. My books are great Christmas gifts at less than $3.00 each. You can buy them for a family member or a friend. Or you can treat yourself to one or more of my books. Please click on the book covers to purchase or find out more about each book.

            

             

Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

I've Been Tagged!

I remember playing tag when I was a kid. I remember trying to not get tagged. When someone's fingers reached out to tag me, I'd try to get away or try to bend my body so the tagger couldn't touch me. Times have changed. This time, I didn't mind being tagged at all. This time, the kind of tag I’m talking about involves authors sitting at their computers tagging each other to answer 4 questions.

Thank you, Sally Murphy, my lovely and talented writer friend who tagged me. Sally Murphy is an Australian children’s author and poet, who has had thirty books published, including verse novels, picture books and educational titles. You can read Sally's Tagged! post here. 

At the end of my post today, I'll tag two other authors who will answer the same four questions next Monday. Then they'll tag two or three more authors. And so on...

Thanks again, Sally, for tagging me. Good luck with your books and work in progress (historical novel for upper primary aged readers). See I read your post!

Now it's my turn to answer the questions. 

Q1: What am I working on?

This blog post. Seriously, I'm always working on something. Last Friday, I finished editing a chapter book for children aged 7+. As far as I'm concerned the story is ready for submission. But first I want to read the story through from start to finish to make sure it is really ready for submission. I want to check for any previously unnoticed typos or errors. Sometimes typos or errors sneak through from draft to draft because we have a tendency to read what we think is there, rather than what is actually there. I hope to spot any mistake. I also want to make sure I'm absolutely happy with the story. Then, I'll submit the manuscript to a publisher. 

I confess that this manuscript is my silliest story and one of my favorites. It's fun, humorous, action-packed... After all, the title is My Mum's An Apple. I will self-publish this story with illustrations through Amazon Kindle if a publisher doesn't bite. One way or another, Noah will declare to the world, My Mum's An Apple. 

After that, I'll probably submit a picture book to a publisher. Then... Who knows? 

Q2: How does my work differ from others in its genre?

Most people aren't mad enough to write a children's book called My Mum's An Apple.

My crazy sense of humor makes some of my work different. Best Book Ever and Best Joke Ever are both humorous stories. Firstly, I write for my own fun. I don't mean to sound selfish. I'm not. I believe if I write for my own fun, if I enjoy a story, my readers will enjoy the story too.

At other times, I can be quite serious in a book, like with Maya and the Crystal Skull. My Maya series includes many of my interests, such as spiritualism, quantum physics and the Ancient Maya.

All of my main characters are a bit like me. All of my main characters draw from my experience. Best Joke Ever is based on a true event, which involved my two brothers. Like all authors, what makes me different is me. I am what I bring to a story. I am what makes my stories different. There is no one else quite like me. 

Q3: Why do I write what I write?

I write to instil a love of reading in children. If children grow up to love reading, at any time during their lives, they will be able to escape into books and be happy. That's why I like to write humorous stories. I want to create fun, joy, happiness.

I also write to make the world a better place. My stories are always positive. At least with my books, I only add positive energy to the world. For example, in my books, I promote a love of animals and the environment, good always wins, and my characters learn and grow. Children can learn new things from my books. (So can adults too.) Most importantly, my stories are fun, entertaining, interesting. 

You'll have to read my books to find out more. If I keep explaining here, this could be a very long post. 

Q4: How does my writing process work?

Every story starts with an idea. So an idea pops into my head. I think about the idea for a while to see if the idea inspires a story. At this stage, I don't sit down to write. I let my mind mull over the idea until, like magic, my mind gives me skeletons of the characters and plot. 

With longer stories, like Maya and the Crystal Skull and Maya and the Daring Heist, I sat down and plotted the entire stories before I began to write the novels. Maya and the Crystal Skull was my first attempt at a long novel, around 40,000 words. I plotted first to make sure I would be able to complete a full length novel. Plotting first also meant that I wrote the first draft of Maya and the Crystal Skull in 6 weeks. I never got stuck. I always knew where I was going. 

Every morning, I have a cup of tea, then I meditate for 30 minutes. After meditation, I make another cup of tea and sit down to start writing. By this time, it's about 8.30 am. I usually write until lunch time. Some days, I continue until about 2 pm. The rest of my day is spent on emails, social media, promoting, marketing, housework and other chores. 

I hope you enjoyed my answers. I enjoyed being involved in this game of tag. Now I get to tag three other authors, who’ll answer the same four questions next Monday. I'm looking forward to reading their answers. I love to learn about other writers, how they come up with their ideas, how they work and so forth.      

Firstly, I'm tagging DC Green, who is the funny, brilliant author of Monster School. I had the privilege of assessing/editing Monster School and I loved it from the first word to the last. Thankfully, DC is currently writing the second book in the series, so the last word won't actually be the last. Okay, let's get back to DC.

Surf journalist DC Green has won multiple big awards, had thousands of articles published in over forty countries and roamed the world’s greatest surf spots with the likes of eleven-times world champion, Kelly Slater. Children’s author DC Green has won two very small awards, had six children’s novels published in one country and Kelly Slater no longer returns his calls. His latest novel, Monster School, has been described as ‘Hogwarts for monsters’, ‘gloriously grotesque’ and ‘hilarious’. It features a vampire with attitude, a socially-challenged zombie and a giant spider called Bruce! 

For more DC stuff, check out: www.dcgreenyarns.blogspot.com and www.facebook.com/DCGreenAuthor.

Secondly, but only because of alphabetical order, is Karen Tyrrell, the amazing, talented author of Bailey Beats the Blah. Karen is an inspiration. She turned a bad experience in her life into a golden opportunity to fulfill her dream of being an author. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade. So, with no further ado, I'm tagging Karen Tyrrell.

 

Karen Tyrrell, award-winning Brisbane author is passionate about mental health for kids and grown-ups. In a previous life Karen taught primary school both in Sydney and Brisbane including Gifted & Talented classes. Now Karen goes out to schools and libraries as an author-teacher delivering interactive pantomimes, story-telling sessions and creative writing workshops. Karen has appeared on TV and ABC radio.
 

Her picture book, Bailey Beats the Blah (2013) won ★★★★★ reviews from child psychologists, mental health CEOs and school counselors. Karen’s junior novel empowers kids with resilience skills, launches in May, 2014.
 

Download FREE kids activities and teacher notes from www.karentyrrell.com

Next Monday, DC and Karen will be answering the same four questions and tagging more authors. But, for now, I wish everyone a wonderful week. May your week be filled with much love and blessings.

Out now!
Robyn's #1 best-seller Show Don't Tell: The Ultimate Writers' Guide

Dee White's Tuesday Writing Tips Blog Tour

Welcome to Writing Children's Books with Robyn Opie. We have a special guest today. Oooh, I love special guests! Dee White is visiting on her Tuesday Writing Tips Blog Tour. She's here to talk to me about my book, Black Baron - and how to write bigger stories.

Robyn: Thanks, Dee.

Dee: Hi Robyn, I loved your book, Black Baron and my boys did too. We are so pleased to be here today to find out how you wrote it. Could you start by giving us a brief summary of what the book is about?

Robyn: Hi Dee. Thank you for including me in your Tuesday Writing Tips blog tour. I'm pleased to have you here. And thank you for your kind words about Black Baron. I'm glad you and your boys loved it. I decided I wouldn't re-invent the wheel and create a new summary. So here is the blurb from the Walker Books Australia website: "Black Baron, Jake's champion racing cockroach, hasn't lost a race and Jake is on top of the world. But then his mum decides to clean up his bedroom and discovers Black Baron in a shoebox under Jake’s bed. Mum is aghast -- how could Jake keep such a filthy pest? But Black Baron escapes and Jake's Mum calls the pest exterminator and a humorous slapstick tale ensues."

Dee: I understand that Black Baron was longer than any previous book you had written. Did you find that daunting when you started writing it – knowing it had to be a lot longer?

Robyn: I'd been writing short texts for school readers. When I started Black Baron, the longest story I'd written in recent years was probably around 1,200 words. I didn't think about it at the time. I knew Black Baron was going to be a novel and that the manuscript had to be longer than my recent works. I hadn't written a novel greater than 4,500 words at this point and not for several years. I can't say that I was daunted because I didn't know that I was going to find the task difficult or challenging. But when I started writing Black Baron, I discovered that years of writing short texts for school readers had taught me to write concisely. That is good, of course. But one can write too concisely. I realised that I left out a lot of information, like action and setting. In a way, I wrote skeletons and this skeleton, Black Baron, needed fleshing out.

Dee: Why did Black Baron have to be longer?

Robyn: The simple answer is to fit the market, so I had a chance of Black Baron being published by a trade publisher. There is a limited market for stories less than 1,200 words, which I was used to writing. Black Baron had to be novel-length, or at least somewhere in the vicinity. Several publishers had told me that they didn't publish children's books under 15,000 words - 15,000 was their minimum, though they preferred upwards of 20,000. These publishers publish shorter books now but that was what I was told several years ago. I guess I was ready for the challenge, too, to write a longer work and broaden my horizons.

Dee: Did you plot it all out and the book came out to be the ‘right’ length or did you have to add things along the way?

Robyn: I did a plot outline for Black Baron. I don't like to start writing unless I know the ending to a story. I feel as if I need something to aim for, or else I might get lost on the way and never reach the end. I hated cockroaches and thought of them as "stinking, rotten cockroaches", rather like Jake's parents feel in the book. As far as I was concerned Black Baron was going to die. But as I wrote the story, I fell in love with Black Baron. He's my character, after all, and I brought him to life, and pretty soon he had a place in my heart. Needless to say, I decided on a new ending to my story. Long live the champ! The story was too short, nowhere near the right length. As I mentioned above, I realised that I wrote too concisely and left information out, about the characters, the action and the setting. I had to keep going back and inserting that extra information. I needed to add muscles and flesh to the skeleton's bones. I probably ended up going through the manuscript four or five times (at least!), adding more and more layers. That's the way I feel about Black Baron, as if I wrote it in layers. All of my previous books, the school readers, were illustrated so the pictures told a lot of the story and they were also limited in terms of characterisation, action and setting. Black Baron needed more to be explained or experienced through the text.

Dee: When you added layers to your story, did this involve developing characters, adding more description or creating more action? Or a combination of all three? Can you tell us how you did it?

Robyn: It involved all three. In the school readers, I'd been writing in recent years, I didn't need any characterisation at all. No details about the characters or their relationships. So I had to focus on the extra bits that would make Jake, his parents and Black Baron seem real. I also had to add more thoughts and feelings from Jake, my point of view main character. I had to work on adding more description and action, but only what seemed necessary. Each time I went through the manuscript, at least four or five times (maybe more), I added more to make the story seem realistic and believable. I thought about the descriptions, settings and action. Initially, I'd left a lot out and could expand on these areas. And I should also mention that I initially wrote Black Baron in third person point of view. I changed the manuscript to first person, to see what would happen. I managed to connect with Jake, as if I was him. In fact, I probably became Jake because I was writing from the "I" point of view. Black Baron helped me learn how to "show, don't tell". I often suggest to people who are having trouble with "show, don't tell" to write from the "I" point of view and pretend that they are the main character. You're not a writer, you're the main character. That way, it's easier to "show" everything from the main character's point of view by imagining you're that character and including what you can see, hear, think and feel.

Dee: Did you have to go back and re-plot parts of the story to make it longer?

Robyn: As I mentioned above, I went back and re-plotted the ending, after falling in love with my character Black Baron. I also had to add extra scenes or events to the story. I guess it's a bit like going straight from A to E. I can go straight there, A to E, or I can include B, C, and D on the way. I hope that makes sense. My first draft of Black Baron involved the plot I wanted to write. Start to finish, getting there as easily and as simply - or concisely - as possible. But the manuscript was too short, around 4,000 to 5,000 words. Knowing I needed to make it longer, I returned to the manuscript and thought about the existing scenes. Then I thought about what these existing scenes meant in regards to cause and effect. You know the idea of cause and effect - one event causes something to happen which causes something to happen and so forth. What else could happen? I realised that there were more opportunities with the story. I didn't have to get to the end so quickly. I could enjoy the journey on the way, draw it out, as long as everything seemed to be in the story because of cause and effect. Plus, I was now Jake, the main character, and not a writer. I could imagine what "I" did and how "I" reacted, thus making it easier to create new cause and effort scenes.

Dee: So, Robyn, can you give us a tip for fellow writers who are trying to increase their word count to meet a publisher or competition requirement?

Robyn: Please visit Dee White's blog - http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com - for my final answer and tip of the day.


For more information about Black Baron, please check out:
http://www.walkerbooks.com.au/Books/Lightning-Strikes-Black-Baron-9781921150586

http://www.walker.co.uk/Black-Baron-9781406322163.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Baron-Robyn-Opie/dp/1406322164

And for more of Dee White's Tuesday Writing Tips Blog Tour, here are the dates:

2nd February 2010
Claire Saxby’s blog
http://letshavewords.blogspot.com
Writing Picture Books - Leaving room for the illustrator.

9th February 2010
Dee White’s blog
http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com
Reviewing ‘There Was an Old Sailor’ - Reviewing vs Editing skills.

16th February 2010
Sandy Fussell’s blog
http://www.sandyfussell.blogspot.com
Writers Need to be avid free range readers

23rd February 2010
Robyn Opie’s blog
http://www.robynopie.blogspot.com
How to make your story longer – adding layers

2nd March 2010
Angela Sunde’s blog
http://www.angelasunde.blogspot.com
More about Point of View – head hopping