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Did you know it takes warmth to make flowers bloom? This month's series is called Bloom. It should make you really toasty! Join me in welcoming the talented author Alexandra LaFaye as she takes over Seize the day! She is about heat up your mind with a huge dose of mixing magic and realism. Writers, get ready to bloom!
Bloom (in Frosting): Mixing Magic and Realism
credit: Bigstock
Many of the rules of fiction haunt us – like spirits of drafts past or critiques gone wrong—they loom over us chanting, “show don’t tell” and the like, but as a writer and a mentor of writers, I’m not a fan of “the rules.” In fact, I would suggest that rules, grammar, and all of the conscious mind clutter that occupies our thoughts in the editing phase should take a backseat in the creation stage. Writers are often more empowered, creative, and productive if they write from their subconscious and leave all of the rules for the revision, or better yet, the editing phase.
And my topic for today is about getting our readers to move closer to their subconscious and loosen their grip on the rules of reality as they’re reading so that they can buy into a fictional world that resembles their own, but is infused with elements of fantasy—young wizards living under the stairs, angels hidden away in the potting shed, and the like. I’m not talking about magic realism here. That’s a whole other approach to writing that is very culturally grounded and often misunderstood. For more information on magic realism, this article would be a great start: Magic Realism
What I am talking about it reality-based fantasy or stories so well-grounded in reality that a.readers are surprised to discover that the world they’re in contains elements of the fantastic and/or b. the fantastic is convincing enough to allow readers to “buy into” the otherworldly elements being portrayed.
Since I’m generally opposed to rules, I’ll have to say that for every guideline I give you here, you’ll no doubt know of at least half a dozen works that thwart the general rule and that’s the mark of great art—knowing the rules well enough to work around them or defy them all together—creating your own magic as you go. Still, these guidelines may be helpful in giving you a place to start.
And the starting line in reality-based fantasy is “A Voice in the Fog”
On a foggy night at sea a sound in the distance has a magical quality to it simply because we cannot explain it. The change in our environment puts us on edge just a little, piquing our interest, and leading us to question our surroundings—keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.
This “voice in the fog” in a story is the small element that tells us something is not quite normal in the world we’ve just entered.
To illustrate my points, I’m going to use my short story “Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3...” from the anthology Shelf Life edited by Gary Paulsen and filled with great genre-based stories by writers like Gregory Maguire, M.T. Anderson, and Jennifer Holm who are quite good at drawing readers into realistic worlds fused with fantasy and I hope my story holds its own among this talented crowd.
In “Testing,” the main character, Patrick Troy is struggling to pass standardized tests in eighth grade and in jeopardy of not being able to enter high school, so he’s only allowed to leave the house to attend school and keep up his lawn mowing job. His newest client, Mrs. Whitamore, has hired him through the mail.
As he explains, “That may seem odd, but I get a lot of weird stuff in the mail. When I hit second grade, I started getting a blank card each week. I didn't know who sent them. There was never a return address on the envelope. No postmark. Just my name. Each one was a different blind you bright color, but they never had one word on the card inside. Mrs. Whittamore's card was bright too. There was no return address. I even thought it was another blank card, but instead she asked me to mow her lawn for her every Saturday at noon.”
Here, we know something is out of the ordinary, but we’re not sure exactly what it means. This gets our “magic sense” tingling and moves us into the next element of combining fantasy and reality:
The Scully Factor (AKA Plausible Deniability)
When we’re given a fantastic premise, “being hired through the mail” it should be deniable at first or at least explainable. Here, we learn that Patrick has often gotten strange things in the mail. What we learn later is that the lawn mowing request and the cards that came before it are also a test of worth (an early stage of the hero quest plot pattern that appears in most fantastic stories). But when we first encounter them they are a foreshadowing of the magic to come and an undercutting explanation for why he’d get hired through the mail.
To draw readers into the fantasy within the realism of a story like this one, writers must
Incubate Their Dragon Eggs
Besides their size, dragon eggs aren’t that shocking. Why they could simply be housing a fetal emu for all we know. But when the dragon hatches, it’s no longer possible to deny that something fantastic is afoot or awing. And in reality-based fantasy, writers must raise the stakes, increasing the elements of fantasy, decreasing the elements of reality until the fantasy is no longer deniable—it is the new reality of the story.
When Patrick accepts the mail-delivered job offer, he is excited to see into Mrs. Whitamore’s yard because she has nine foot hedges and is suspected of being a witch—no one sees her, she has a hidden yard, and there are odd chimes emanating from her house. When he arrives, the wind opens her screen door and ushers him through the dark house to a backyard with rings of flowers that spin right up to her back porch—all increasingly unusual things that could be explained.
Mrs. Whitamore doesn’t speak, she delivers directions on cards that are, at first look, blank, but as Patrick describes the first one, “As I got up farther, the card seemed to have gray squiggly lines that moved around like curly hair caught in the wind. Standing right in front of her, squinting, the lines darkened and stiffened into letters. I thought I needed to get my eyes checked for new glasses. That happened every spring.
The card read, ‘The butterflies need exercise.’
She smiled, her misty eyes getting all shiny.
Here we get a sense that she may be writing them with her mind or he may have eye sight issues—plausible deniability (the Scully Factor at work), but we also learn that Mrs. Whitamore is a bit more than unusual because she wants him to mow her flowers to give her butterflies exercise.
His payment that first day is a blank book. He finds this odd, especially when his watch tells him the whole job took only five minutes—but he blames the time shift on a broken watch—he often makes them stop on account of his “magnetic personality,” so reality is still in the lead, but when he returns the next week and discovers that the flowers are as tall and in full bloom as they were the week before we know for certain that magic is definitely at play.
And when she tells him that the book she gave him is as blank as the card she’s holding, Patrick realizes that the magic in his life is undeniable and he has a enchanted book that eventually teaches him how to stop time and finish the standardized tests that have dogged him all year long.
At the base, you have a pretty ordinary plate that may be wrapped in foil, but alone it’s as ordinary as mowing the lawn, then comes the first layer which is mostly cake and homework and standardized tests, and then there’s a layer of mythical frosting where reputed witches can hire you to mow their lawn through the mail, then you mow rings of flowers as a host of butterflies take flight—the decorations on the layer of cake that’s all lawn clippings and tests looming.
Layer by layer, the elements of reality shrink like the layers of the cake and the frosting and decorations—the magic of fantasy—take center stage and we have a kid who can stop time to give himself the room he needs to learn what he wants to know and finish the blooming test. When you look at the story as a whole the glittering magic is what resonates with us, but the emotional satisfaction of a test passed is the cake in our belly.
So, I’ve either shown you how to mix fantasy and reality or simply made you hungry for cake. Either way, I’m so grateful that you joined me on this journey and I want to offer you the opportunity for seconds or at least “cake” decorating tips. AKA What questions do you have for me about blending fantasy and reality?
After all, I have this short story, a novel about a girl who discovers her adoptive parents are shape-shifting seals (Water Steps), a novel-in-verse about an Appalachian girl who can see the future (Pretty Omens), and a book about a girl whose widowed father is confidently waiting for his wife’s return (The Keening).
But don’t just take my word for it. Feel free to explore other approaches to the same fusion of reality and fantasy, here’s a good article from Fantasy Faction to get your started: "Reality Made Fantastic" If you have questions or comments, please share them here. You can also stop by and visit me on my own blog Wordy Wanderings Thank you once again, to you for reading, and to Molly Blaisdell for the opportunity to be a guest on her blog. Have a famtastic—hopefully, cake-filled day!
Thank you for sharing your genius, Alexandria! This whole post warmed me up. I'm about to bloom. Readers, thank you for dropping by and I hope that you come back next week for more of the bloom series.
Finally, we already had some doodles, but here is a quote for your pocket:
She told me about rolling hills covered with cornfields and treeless miles of land without water. I dreamt of cornfields dotted with yellow rosebushes A. LaFaye, The Year Of The Sawdust Man
0 Comments on Bloom (in Frosting): Mixing Magic and Realism, Guest Blogger - Alexandra LaFaye! as of 5/7/2016 12:01:00 PM
Hello again! A couple of weeks ago, I gave you the start to a worksheet I use for every new project to help fill out my premise, story world, and how I choose to tell your story. Now I’d like to elaborate further on that sheet and go into the beginnings of character.
Before you ever start outlining or even writing your draft, you have to know your characters. Some people do this by filling out a “twenty questions” for each character. Some start writing and discover their characters in the moment. I find that understanding the answers to the questions below (and questions I’ll highlight in the third part of this series in a couple weeks), helps me know what a character will do in any given situation. If I’m ever stumped over what a character might do in a moment, I consult my sheet.
So you’ve already determined your premise, story execution, story world, and story challenges. You probably already know who your main character is, but if you don’t, now is the time to decide who your best character is for telling the story. The girl who has lived for fifteen years in the kingdom dungeons? Or the prince who can’t get his life together? If there are multiple characters you want to tell the story through, now is the time to sort that out.
Once you’ve determined your best character, you’ll want to outline your basic action. This is the action that drives your main character throughout the entire story. Basic action is also informed by story execution – if you plan to use the Journey Principle (see last post), then chances are, your character’s basic action will involve moving toward a specific destination. Your character’s basic action for the entire book will be traveling toward the castle/the space ship/the other side of the US etc. Or, if the story takes place around a competition, then the basic action will be competing/preparing for competition. This might seem remedial, but in those moments when our stories get away from us, remembering what your character’s basic, primal action for this story is will make a world of difference.
Now, think about what taking that basic means for your character. Characters don’t just act without thought or reason – you have to give them motivation to take that action. And that involves weakness.
Character weakness can and should be an integral part of your actual story structure. It should propel your character’s personal journey, the basic action, and provide obstacles for him/her along the way. Weakness offers the potential for character change, which is a big part (maybe the biggest) of making a character and her story interesting.
So what is your character’s weakness? It could be that he or she is afraid to live their lives to the fullest because they lost a parent/friend/partner. Or, that he/she is sheltered and ignorant of the world around them – they have to overcome this fear or this lack of knowledge to actually begin the basic action.
Once you’ve identified the weakness and basic action, it’s important to consider who that character is at the end. What do they look like as a changed person? What does the basic action teach them about overcoming their weakness? Perhaps the sheltered person has taken a trip to a developing country and learned that there are lots of suffering people in the world. This character is now a changed person: he or she is no longer sheltered, and perhaps now they have a desire to help people.
The changed person is very satisfying for a reader. How many times have you seen a movie or watched a show and noticed that the character has little to no growth or change? And to be sure, change doesn’t have to translate into positive growth – change can mean someone becomes disillusioned, or cruel, or greedy. Take a look at Walter White in Breaking Bad – Everyone’s favorite teacher gets cancer and through genius and desperation becomes someone he always had the potential be – a virtual Scar Face.
All of this ties into the moral choice your character must make at the end, a choice that they can only make now that they are a changed person. The decision would have been easy to make (or non-existent) before they changed, but now that they have reached the end and learned so much and became a different person, the moral choice will be much harder to make. It’s a confluence of their old life and their new. For the sheltered person, it could mean going back to their country and living their life with a new perspective, and perhaps becoming a volunteer. Or, being offered a chance to stay in this new place and create more radical change. Neither is wrong – but do you think this character would have had a hard time making the choice before?
Okay, I think I’ve given you enough to chew on for this second part in the What Comes Before series – my next post will be going into more depth on character and structure, so be prepared! As always, I hope this was useful, and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with the last part in the series.
Elizabeth Bicknell is Executive Vice President, Executive Editorial Director & Associate Publisher at Candlewick Press. She edits picture books, fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Two recent picture book projects include Mac Barnett and John Klassen's Sam and Dave Dig a Hole
and Carole Boston Weatherford and Ekua Holmes' Voice of Freedom
Liz spoke about the different kinds of picture books, using examples of 12 books she's published to, well, illustrate her points. Story picture books, concept books, biography, poetry collections...
It's fascinating that she's able to break those twelve down into six that had an author/illustrator create them, and six books that had different authors and illustrators. (Additionally, eight of the eighteen people were not agented at the time she acquired their work.)
She tells us that she's "a sucker for dog stories," and jokes that now that she's said that, "everyone feverishly changes their main characters to dogs."
Some quotes:
"I am very fond of poetry."
"I like books that are a little bit wicked."
"There are no rules you can never break."
Liz tells us more about what she's looking for, breaks down the reasons she really doesn't like rhyme, and talks about those critical first (and last) lines.
There's lots more good stuff, some handouts, and so much wisdom. Here's one last bit of wisdom:
"If the ending isn't working, really the whole thing isn't working."
0 Comments on Elizabeth Bicknell: Writing Picture Book Text as of 1/1/1900
I'm so excited about this session! Rainbow Rowell is the New York Times bestselling author of the Young Adult novels Eleanor & Park and Fangirl and Carry On. She's even received a Printz Honor for Eleanor & Park!*
Martha Brockenbrough is our very own team blogger, author of the YA novels The Game of Love and Death and Devine Intervention.**
They're talking about Creating Teen Characters, and you'd think it would feel like this:
But it really felt like this:
Rainbow and Martha had great, in-depth discussion and we were right there. They spoke about the shift that happens for writing a teen's perspective, and the shift that happens for a teen reader (versus an adult.) Rainbow said,
"I don't think about audience... I can get stalled."
They both worked as journalists, and Rainbow spoke of the good training that was (like how it was great for dialog and made her not so precious about her writing) and the challenges that same background created (her voice got "slammed out.") Rainbow joked about her contemporary realistic novels,
"What I'm doing is journalism, but lying."
Martha played the song "Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod" by The Mountain Goats so we could all hear a bit of it. Rainbow then told us about how the song (and the whole album) inspired her novel Eleanor & Park, and "how it unlocked me." They spoke about different tools they use to get into the writing. Martha used period photos for The Game of Love and Death. Rainbow uses music as a "shortcut to get back to the emotion of that scene," describing a particular scene from Eleanor & Park and how it had a specific song.
They spoke about diversity of characters, aspirational characters versus real characters, and Rainbow's breakthrough in writing fantasy. It was a great story, about research and tropes (and playing with tropes) and how Rainbow ultimately realized that for fantasy, "I've read enough to find my own voice in it."
There was so much more, and Rainbow also answered questions from the rapt audience.
Two final bits of wisdom:
Speaking about today's teens versus the teens of the 1980s, Martha Brockenbrough said,
"We've been this age, we know what we need to know."
Telling us of a particular character she found challenging to write, (Agatha in Carry On), Rainbow said,
"As an author, you need to find your way in."
And then she explained how she found her way into Agatha... So fascinating!
I want to know your opinion for my next project. I'm designing and submitting a proposal for a new coloring book, but I can't decide which theme to go with. This would be for adults, and I know I want to include all things with wings, but how??
Halos I adore all things pattern, and placing the circles behind a lovely lady are representative of her personality and purpose. The halo is the radiating circles behind her. When I first heard this concept of patterned halos it was through a Mucha exhibit, where he himself called them halos. It forever changed how I saw them and the stories they tell.
Enchanted Gardens A narrative starting with the garden gate, entering into a world full of florals, landscapes, fairies, angels, and the songs of nature around them. A story unfolds as you wander through the pages, helping to create the mood through your choice of colors.
Will you help me? Vote!
Which theme would you prefer to color in my next coloring book?
A lot of people celebrated Jack Kirby's birthday on Friday by posting a lot of his art, and it is always pleasant to page through galleries of the King. One thing that I did notice on all this art was how stunning (to me anyway) the original limited coloring looks.
10 Comments on Kirby: to recolor or not, last added: 9/1/2015
It’s not just you, Heidi. I’m not really sure I can articulate it any better, but the color palette on the modeled coloring just doesn’t pop the way the original colors do. I think that the modeled coloring also changes some of the original storytelling choices, albeit in a subtle manner. For example, as I’m looking at the side-by-side you’ve posted from “The Meaning of Ragnarok,” the original colors make it pretty clear that Thor, Baldur, and… Fandrall? At any rate, the 3 figures on the left, stand apart and in front of the rest of the crowd, while the recolored version, by coloring EVERYONE, has them all sort of jumbled together. Anyway, that’s what struck me as I was looking at this. And after spending Saturday looking at so much of Jack’s original art at the CSU-Northridge exhibit, I’m struck by just how amazing his work looks in black & white…
Charlie Ryan said, on 8/31/2015 8:31:00 AM
I completely agree! What the original colorists understood was how to make things pop — to give the most important elements of the art separation in order for them to be emphasized and seen in a two-dimensional medium. You would think modeling would make objects seem more three-dimensional, but as your above illustrations have shown, it has instead reduced everything to a muddy mess.
In some cases, it’s simply understanding the composition and how best to give it clarity. For example, In the Tales of Asgard splash page, there are so many figures and so much lettering in the original art, the colorist understood that by leaving the background white, everything is easy to read. In the modern version, muddy colors on both the characters and the sky bleed together and emphasize nothing making it hard to read. *And* it makes the biggest mistake of most modern, modeled coloring like this — there is no main light source and corresponding back light.
If a colorist *is* to model the color for a greater sense of realism, then they must follow that process all the way. A light source must be decided on. In the Asgard panel it would be the cauldron, and it would hit the figures at appropriate angles for that source. (And for even more separation, edge lighting, from the sun or moon behind them would be added.) Instead, the foreground character is completely soft lit with no source, Odin is front lit and Thor and the other background characters are not lit and all (and at the same value as the sky to boot.) Even in ‘film noir’, which most people think of as being dark and shadowy, great cinematographers like James Wong Howe followed this source light/back light principle. In black and white darkness, their characters popped.
Now the bigger argument is, even if it is done correctly, should molded coloring be done at all. I think not. In the first place, the original art was designed for flat color. Black and white line drawing are not meant to be realistic, so laying realistic color on top of them creates a bizarre mash-up of two completely different styles. Back in the 50’s and 60’s, fine artists/thieves like Warhol and Litchinstein understood the graphic power of comics with line art and flat color. It’s a little amusing to think that colorists now, in an attempt to make old comics more sophisticated and arty, do so by dolling them up with fancy modeled coloring. Except that it’s usually done wrong.
A pox on this. It seems most people hate it when old work is messed with and ‘improved’ — be it colorized movies or George Lucas not being able to keep his hands off the original Star Wars. Let’s restore old comics for us and future generations in a condition as close to their original form as possible.
And give me the wonderful original coloring of the X-Men, New Gods and Thor covers any day of the week!
Oliver_C said, on 8/31/2015 8:41:00 AM
No offence to such talents as Steve Oliff et al, but the comics of Kirby’s era were never drawn with the expectation of finely-graduated colour or glossy paper.
(That said, I *did* enjoy the recoloured reprints of John Byrne’s original ‘Doomsday+1’ back in the day, if only because the pulpy printing of the Charlton series was woeful even by 70s standards.)
Lucas Perkins said, on 8/31/2015 8:54:00 AM
Recoloring old comics is not in itself a bad thing. It really depends on the original line art and how you redo the coloring. I agree that the modeled coloring above is pretty heinous. As Charlie Ryan says, part of that is lack of source light/back light, but part of it is also Kirby’s line art. It really does look best in black and white. Most comic art with a lot of weight to it does. The original Odin above looks like a child’s coloring book, and it’s part of why I have a hard time reading Golden Age books. But the modeled one destroys Kirby’s the pencil/ink work and I wouldn’t want to read that version either. I absolutely don’t mind if Marvel or anyone else wants to recolor old comics when reprinting them, but it needs to be done with care and attention. The first volume of recolored Gaiman’s Sandman was an improvement, but Kieth and Dringenberg are a far cry from Kirby. And I thought the giant hardcover of Simonson’s Thor looked mostly pretty good; there were some weird pages and bad choices, but mostly it made Simonson’s line pop more than before, instead of less.
Kate Willaert said, on 8/31/2015 10:54:00 AM
I have so many thoughts on this, but the short version is:
1) I prefer having the original colors available for historical purposes, so we can see how they actually colored back then.
One of Marvel’s biggest art crimes was having the old comics recolored for the early Masterworks in flat limited-palette manner that made them appear to be the original colors, but that were actually wildly different (and much more restrained and *boring*) than the originals. Even worse, early on they actually tried passing these new colors off as vintage — remember those single issue reprints with the silver borders that included the original ads? And yet the colors were nowhere close to authentic.
2) Modeled color can work on artists like Kirby, but it takes someone who knows how to do it right. Many of the early Marvel covers were printed from airbrushed art, the trick is that the airbrush artists weren’t over-modeling.
Likewise, non-modeled isn’t necessarily superior — again, those early Masterworks that were recolored flat with a limited palette were just terrible (and unfortunately, some of those versions are still the ones on Marvel Unlimited. The FF colors are accurate, but the X-Men issues are so beyond terrible I’ve been tempted to do an article comparing different recolorings).
Johnny Memeonic said, on 8/31/2015 12:49:00 PM
I consider re-color jobs to be disrespectful to the work of the original colorists. If publishers believe a “modern” (re: generally dull) color palette is what people who buy retro collections are looking for then they are mistaken.
It can also produce cut-rate work. I still remember that part of the Conan Dark Horse reprint where a river is colored green like the grassland around it so the art now shows a bridge just sitting in the middle of a field for no reason.
Jason A. Quest said, on 8/31/2015 12:55:00 PM
I’m a duffer at this illustration business, but I know that if I’m going to create inked art to be printed in black and white, I’m not going to do it the same as if I know it’s going to be flat-colored, and I’d do it still differently if I knew it was going to be colored-and-modeled. And I think it goes without saying that Kirby (and his cohort) understood this even better than I do. It’s like colorizing a black-and-white movie or 3D-izing a 2D movie: it might look more modern or exciting … but that means you’re changing it into something the original creator didn’t intend and didn’t envision.
Charlie Ryan said, on 8/31/2015 1:35:00 PM
Kate, I’d concur that the early Marvel Masterworks were garishly colored, but I wasn’t aware early Marvel covers were “printed from airbrushed art” (and by “early”, I’m assuming you mean the dawn of Marvel in the early 1960’s.) I always though they were colored with Doc Martin watercolors on production stats and the finished product was only used as a guide for mechanical separations.
The only experimenting with tonal work on covers that I know of was what DC’s Jack Adler did in the late 50’s and early 60’s with his tone wash covers. In those instances, the black and white artwork was shaded with ink wash (diluted indian ink) which was then combined with the standard color separations of the day. In other words, a tonal black and white base was overlaid with flat color. This achieved a much more modeled effect than the usual coloring on covers. It was also a bit muddy looking, but interesting and sometimes beautiful in its own way. Most important, the coloring was intended to be like that from the start of the process.
Larry Long said, on 8/31/2015 1:52:00 PM
The problem is that the new coloring isn’t trying as hard as Kirby was to be striking and surreal, but rather to do a serviceable job, adding a grounded sense of realism that does not belong. I would enjoy seeing Kirby’s stuff colored in the manner of JH Williams III Kirby Tribute pages from Seven Soldiers number 1. That stuff was insane. Kirby’s own painted work is similar. Kirby’s art should look like it’s on acid, not like the color grade from a modern motion picture.
Dave Elliott said, on 8/31/2015 8:06:00 PM
I liked quite a lot of the recolored Tales of Asgard Kirby stories, although I wished the browns were toned down a little.
I think the issue lies with who is doing the re/coloring. Coloring is truly an art form in to itself and I think it needs someone with a real affinity for Jack’s artwork as well as being a great colorist themselves.
Putting aside my own instincts to stay as true to Kirby’s own color choices, recoloring his, as well as other artists such as Steve Ditko, John Buscema, Jim Steranko, John Romita, and George Tuska would give fresh commercial life to Marvel’s back catalog. As long as they don’t overcharge for the material.
Stephen Fraser joined The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency as an agent in January 2005. He worked most recently at HarperCollins Children’s Books, where he edited such creative talents as Mary Engelbreit, Gregory Maguire, Michael Hague, Ann Rinaldi, Kathryn Lasky, Brent Hartinger, Stephen Mitchell, and Dan Gutman. He began his career at Highlights for Children and later worked at Scholastic and Simon & Schuster. A graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, he has a Master’s degree in Children’s Literature from Simmons College in Boston. He represents both children’s and adult books in a wide range of genres. Lin calls him a leading light in our field, and tells us he is very helpful, very concrete, and very specific. He also wears some very dapper bowties. Stephen says an agent is supposed to be impartial about the books he represents, but he does admit he loves middle-grade fiction the best, growing up he read everything, and his inner eleven-year-old is still an active connoisseur of MG manuscript submissions. "Some of the strongest books in the whole canon of children's literature rest in middle grade." What are some of the writing rules that 12 classic or beloved middle grade books teach us? Here are six of the books and their lessons: Every time an editor asks you to revise, see this as an opportunity to make a perfect book with carefully crafted writing like in Charlotte's Web.
Some of the best novels can be brief, like Stone Fox. It's a satisfying narrative with true drama. Books for middle grade readers can have real drama in them and be story-packed.
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, celebrity can get a book published, but it can't keep it in print for forty years. This book stays, Stephen says, the lesson here is to let imagination ride high in your story.
Louis Sachar, you may already know, takes about a year to write a book, but Holes took him two years. What he does so well here, Stephen says, is maintain the hilarious voice of hapless Stanley. Humor if done well can fuel an entire novel. As a side note, Stephen says, consider taking two years to refine your novel and you may just win the National Book Award and the Newbery. And an Emmy.
In Missing May, the setting is as much a character as the human main characters. Do yourself a favor and invoke a rich setting to help bring your story to life and set it concretely in the reader's mind.
Sarah, Plain and Tall, is Stephen's favorite book in the universe. This short novel, clocking in at a mere 58 pages, rewrote the tradition of middle grade fiction. Every word resonates so that you almost feel like the book is illustrated, but there are no pictures! It's the writing that is that good. Originally this book was planned as a picture book, but the author felt there was more story to tell. Every book, says Stephen, should have this level of imagery.
Stephen leaves us with a Henry James quote: "Remember that your first duty is to be as complete as possible. Remember that your first duty is to be as complete as possible—to make as perfect a work. Be generous and delicate and pursue the prize."
0 Comments on Stephen Fraser: Middle Grade Perfection: What We Can Learn From Classic and Best-Selling Books as of 8/2/2015 1:09:00 PM
Beach Lane editor Allyn Johnston and author Mem Fox are available for questions! Here are a few of their answers:
Someone asks about Mem's process, she tells us the manuscript can continue to change and be edited after Allyn's acquired it, and Mem is well known for having tremendously tiny word counts (powerful but tiny!) Mem says an easy trick for reducing your word count is to cover up the first paragraph of your story with your hand... You can probably live without it. Now do the same thing to the second paragraph, your story can probably live without that, too. She tells us we spend so much time setting up our stories and rarely do we (or the story) need that.
Someone asks Allyn whether or not an author should submit their manuscript with pagebreaks? And Allyn reiterates that your submission manuscript should not mark out pagination, but if you want to be a picturebook author, YOU do have to spend a lot of time figuring out pagination and building your own text-only dummies and understanding page breaks. Mem doesn't think about page breaks until after she's written a draft. And then she makes a dummy. The most important page turn, to Mem, is the page turn between 31 and 32. Mem says, therefore, you should start backwards when paginating.
Adam Rex is a ridiculously accomplished illustrator and author. His books range from PB to YA, and his illustration style is a bit like what Norman Rockwell might have produced after a Jolt Cola bender.
In this session, Adam talked about techniques for drawing memorable characters.
He showed us some of his early art, including a decent Rembrandt knock-off (though his Santa is definitely questionable, and arguably looks more like Krampus).
Some best quotes: "I think we can get you one butt." (From his editor regarding The Dirty Cowboy.) His reply: "I didn't even take the butt."
He talked about what it looked like to see his characters from The True Meaning of Smekday as they'd been translated by the Dreamworks team for the adaptation. (The movie Home and the forthcoming TV show were based on the book.) It was disappointing at first to see the changes, but he got used to it quickly and even liked some of the changes, especially the design of the Gorg.
His techniques are so cool—he often builds models of characters and sets he uses for reference.
Some tips:
Understand anatomy of character design (the human body is approximately seven heads high, but in character design, this varies);
Knowledge of real human and animal anatomy (which have strong similarities) can help you design fantastical creatures;
More stylized and simplistic characters, such as Charlie Brown, sometimes have more universal appeal; and
Letting a body sag into a shape or move somehow makes it seem more like a character and less like a doctor's office illustration.
Don't forget draw through. For example, if you have a character holding the shield, make sure the body behind the shield makes sense.
The room is packed tighter than even a polyamorous sardine would be comfortable with, but for good reason! We are soooooooooo lucky to have both Eric Rohmann and Candace Fleming here! They are sharing seven simple fixes for the picture book text, here are a few: 1. With picture books you are limited to 32 pages, so get to the problem of your story as soon as you can. You can have a few pages of set up, but if your story doesn't start by page 10, you're in trouble. As an example, go read Clever Jack, there are a few pages of set up, but the problem is introduce by fourth spread.
Whereas in Oh No! the problem is introduced on page 1.
Read your story draft and mark out page by page, which text goes on what page to help remind you of the structure of your story as you write. (Candace reminds: when you send your manuscript to the editor, don't paginate, send a clean, unpaginated version for submission)
2. Something that helps Eric and Candace in their writing of picture books is they think in terms of small scenes, not just sentences per page. Each scene should move your story forward, not just words and sentences. Eric and Candace recommend looking at your manuscript and marking off the scenes, where the beginning and end of them are. Then count them—if you only have 4 scenes and they are very similar in length, rethink your pacing. Clever Jack has about 9 scenes, Oh No! has about 12.
Finally, take a look at the first and last words of your scene, they should be really good and interesting words.
3. Eric does an exercise on his manuscripts, he takes out all the adjective and adverbs. Candace says then ask yourself, which ones do I miss? Because some do improve the language and rhythm of the book, but for many, you'll find those words will be taken care of by the illustrations.
0 Comments on Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann: Seven Simple Fixes for the Picturebook Text as of 8/1/2015 8:57:00 PM
Meg Wolitzer is a novelist whose books for adults include THE INTERESTING, THE TEN-YEAR NAP, THE POSITION, ADN THE WIFE. She is the author of a novel for middle grade readers, THE FINGERTIPS OF DUNCAN DORFMAN, and, most recently, the YA novel, BELZHAR.
A lot of workshops give writers micro-advice, but there’s a larger issue that hasn’t been addressed. Even if you fix a passage or sentence or beginning, you’re not taking care of what needs to be done. Punching up dialogue or adding a new scene gives you a good feeling, but it’s often cosmetic. Making those changes just makes your story marginally better.
Think of your work in a different way.
How did you lose that energy anyway? How do we let our books get that way?
"The middle is everything."
Meg thinks it’s often a foundational problem when you have a mushy middle.
All books start off with a grandiose fantasy. You know it’s good because it’s something preoccupies you. You want to write about it. You take it and start to push the story through an invisible funnel and you realize you can’t do everything and you have to make some choices. This is a moment when you getting serious about your novel. You can write about 80 pages of a book (without outlining), not worry about where it is, who’s going read it, if someone someone will buy it, etc. Once you have, print it, read it, and find out not what you hoped to do but what you really did.
If the writing is weak in a certain area it might be because the ideas in that section aren’t strong. Maybe it’s because you didn’t know what you wanted to express in that section.
Meg thinks flashbacks are a made up concept. In real life, we are always toggling back and forth from past to future and now. You don’t have a character stop and remember something. It should be fluid.
Ask yourself:
Is the voice strong?
Are you being faithful to a thought process that isn’t working? (why the 80 page rule works)-you can use ideas that don’t work
Did you get off on the wrong track tone wise?
Revision is the greatest tool in the writer’s arsenal.
0 Comments on Meg Wolitzer: Mushy Middles: Or, That Part of the Book Where Everything Gets Vague and Repetitive, and How to Avoid It as of 1/1/1900
Michelle Knudsen is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 40 books for young readers. She won the 2015 Sid Fleischman Award for Humor for her YA novel Evil Librarian, and she talked to us about world building.
She started with a definition: World building is the physical world and the cultural world your characters inhabit.
All kinds of novels require world building. Fantasy and speculative fiction have other kinds of requirements, because you can't pre-suppose knowledge on the part of your reader. "Nothing can be taken for granted. You need to tell your readers everything they need to know about the world in which it takes place."
"The world of your fantasy story is just as important as your characters are."
As a young reader, she loved the Xanth books by Piers Anthony. In this world, everyone was born with a magical talent—it could range from a tiny skill like projecting a color on a wall to the ability to transform people, animals, and plants into other things. "As a young reader, I wanted desperately to go there. Everything about the world was literally magical."
World building also helps readers believe the things that happen in your world. The belief in the viability of the plot if affected by the viability of the setting (an idea she learned from the poet Julie Larios). Here's a sampling of the craft tips she shared with us.
Effective world building requires consideration of these five interconnected areas:
Physical environment
Inhabitants
Social structure
History
Beliefs
Physical environment: Patricia Wrede has a huge list of world-building questions (available online). A few of them:
Are the laws of nature and physics the same in this world?
How does magic fit in?
How do magic beasts fit in?
Is it like an alternate earth?
These elements affect the way your characters live, what they wear, and how they travel.
Inhabitants: This includes main characters and all types of people and creatures who live in your world.
Social structure: This includes governments, relationships between individuals, neighboring discussions, languages. Who makes the laws? Can they move about freely?
History: The recent and long-term history of the world that may be relevant to your story. Michelle starts thinking about this once she knows her characters and what's going to happen, and she asks what happened in the past that might have made a character do something. It's possible that little of this history will appear in the story, but having the knowledge in the back of your head will enrich the story.
Beliefs: These include religious and supernatural (and possibly magic). Some decisions in this section depend on decisions made in other areas. So, if a religious figure rules, you need to know what the beliefs are and what happens to people who don't believe.
0 Comments on Michelle Knudsen: Other Words Than These - Building Your Fantasy Universe as of 8/1/2015 4:05:00 PM
Varian Johnson is the author of both middle grade and young adult novels, including THE GREAT GREEN HEIST, an ALA Notable Children's Selection.
Varian mentions that we often times don't even know we are using metaphor, it's ingrained into our psyche.
In writing, the tone of the metaphor must fit the style of the work. You can't use a metaphor that either the reader of the book or the character in the book couldn't understand. For example, a medieval character couldn't reference something contemporary.
Some rules for extended metaphor:
1. The metaphor should be established early.
2. The metaphor should build upon itself.
3. It should make sense in both tenor (the original idea of the metaphor) and vehicle (the borrowed idea of the metaphor).
4. It should carry through the entire piece.
Varian shared several examples of books that use extended metaphor.
In Marcus Zusak's GETTING THE GIRL, Zusak uses words to create an implied metaphor, comparing man to the sea, that he carries through the book.
In Laurie Halse Anderson's SPEAK, a tree metaphor is established and carried throughout. Varian also notes that nothing should be unintentional in a novel, including the names of the characters. The names in speak are a great example of this.
In EVERY TIME A RAINBOW DIES, Rita Williams Garcia uses a skirt to represent Ysa.
Advice: Don't feel so overwhelmed to get all the symbolism down in the first draft, even second and third.
0 Comments on Varian Johnson: Using Extended Metaphor to Layer Your Novel as of 7/31/2015 5:29:00 PM
About a month ago I started a project, a sewing project. I decided to create my own costume for the World of Faeries Festival, something I've always wanted to do, but never felt I had the know how or guts to do.
I decided it was time to just "do it".
Although each step took several deep breaths, I am very happy to say I know how to use my machine well enough to sew without a manual, and I am way more confident in using the foot and speed. :) The costume is coming along too. It'll be interesting to see it all come together in the end.
When designing, and as I continue to create this costume, I keep asking myself "What would one of my fairies wear?". I want to personify one of my own creations. When do we ever get that opportunity!? It's way fun!!
Here are some progress shots. :)
Pockets!
Took apart a beautiful skirt to make my own "artist" apron. It will also allow for no cashbox.
A crown of course!
My parents bought me a beautiful costume for the ren faires this past Christmas. I decided to modify the chemise to make it longer and more like my fairies' design.
Apron on the chemise. The idea is to have a half bodice in the future, but for now this will do. Also, HUGE shout out to my mom, who did all of the hemming and sewing for the apron!!
0 Comments on Fairy Sewing Project as of 7/24/2015 3:30:00 PM
If you’ve ever visited the DEPARTURES area of the airport, you probably know that it is not exactly an oasis of tranquility. There are cars trying to park; cars trying to double park, cars trying to squeeze out of where they’ve double-parked, orange cones, orange vests, whistles, and general chaos.
I was being dropped off at Burbank Bob Hope Airport by my mom and dad, 74 and 80 respectively, and wanted to debark as efficiently as possible so they could be on their way. Adjusting my new felt hat, I strapped my laptop bag across my chest, hauled out my suitcase, and hugged my parents a quick goodbye.
Approaching the Southwest counter, I reached for my purse.
And felt air.
My stomach dropped to my knees. I had made a big mistake. I left my purse in my parents’ car.
Stacey’s troublesome vessel of all things crucial, circa 2004, Anthropologie.
Frantically, I searched my laptop bag, hoping I had jammed it in without realizing. But, no. My purse was in the carpool lane of the Five freeway, headed down to the OC. How the heck was I getting on a plane without my ID?
I couldn’t make a phone call, as I didn’t have a cell phone. I couldn’t even use a pay phone, as I had no money. (And btw, the sudden absence of money tends to amplify one’s hunger pains).
I could ask someone to loan me change, but would they think I was a panhandler? And my hat, which I thought was stylish, suddenly cast a shadow of suspicion upon me. Suspicious people always wear hats.
I might have started to hyperventilate. My flight was leaving in an hour.
A petite Japanese security guard asked if everything was alright.
“I left my purse in my parents’ car!” I blubbered.
She tsked her tongue, but then fished out a dollar’s worth in coins so I could use a payphone. After profusely thanking her, I dropped two quarters into the first phone. A metallic crunching and gargling followed, which I believe was the sound of the phone eating my change.
Trying not to panic, I moved onto the next phone. This time, the call went through.
But no one picked up. Remember how I mentioned the age of my parents? Well, with old age comes certain …realities, such as, hearing loss. Mom’s voicemail answered, but that didn’t help me because even if she heard the ding of voicemail, she doesn’t know how to check it (another age-related reality). I tried calling my husband collect, like, a billion times. But it turns out, since his company pays for his cell phone, its collect call feature is disabled.
I explained my situation to Southwest. I must have looked honest, as they issued me the ticket, with the caution that security still might refuse me. Shame-faced, I stepped to the security counter and tried to explain why I wasn’t carrying my ID.
He frowned, and I grew smaller. “Where do you work?”
“At home. I mean, I’m self-employed.”
Another frown, another inch shorter. “Occupation?”
“Writer.”
Another frown, this one with an upward flick of his pupils that says, isn’t everyone?
If only I had one of my books on me. I could show him my author picture.
Then it occurred to me, I could show him my author website.
After perusing the site, then conducting a thorough search of myself and my luggage, security finally did let me through.
Stephanie: When Stacey first told me this story, I felt horrible. But since I’m a teacher, I also thought this would make an awesome writing lesson.
The thing I loved about this story (from a writing perspective, because obviously I felt terrible that my friend went through so much stress) was that everything that could go wrong did go wrong. As Stacey said, everyone knows you can’t get on a plane without an ID. And this situation was so much worse because on top of not having her ID:
The hat of suspicion and lawlessness.
Stacey did not have her phone.
Or money.
The only people who could help her (Stacey’s parents) were impaired, and therefore unable to come to her rescue.
She was hungry.
Her husband wasn’t answering the phone.
On top of not having an ID, she was also wearing a hat, which made her highly suspicious to airport personnel.
And the clock was rapidly ticking. Stacey only had one hour.
Now, imagine you’re writing a character and you’ve put them in this same situation. It could be really tempting to have another character (maybe the husband) make a miraculous appearance and save the day. Perhaps this husband calls in a favor with the head of security. And not only does your character get onto the plane, but they are upgraded to first class and handed a glass of champagne.
Unfortunately that did not happen to Stacey. But I believe what happened was even better. Stacey used her smarts to save herself, by directing the security to her author website, where her photo was able to confirm her identity.
Now if Stacey were a character, not only would readers think, wow this woman is smart! They would also know a little more about her character, because not only did this action save the day, it revealed more about her background, mainly, her profession.
People are always saying, put your characters in the worst situations possible, but then, too often, characters don’t use their intelligence to get out of those miserable scenarios. Because of this, writers often miss great opportunities to deepen their characters, and make their stories richer.
Think about whatever story you’re working on. Are there any scenes where you can pile on more conflicts? Are there scenes where you can show off your character’s strengths, instead of having someone else save the day?
Also, if any of you have stories similar to Stacey’s, we’d love to hear them:
There is always so much going on in the children's literature world in Utah, which is wonderful and fun. But you might look beyond your borders to see what's going on elsewhere. For example, Idaho. We're just up the road a ways. And we seem to become a fantastic venue for kid lit authors to visit. Just in the last few weeks, we've hosted Markus Zusak, Jennifer Neilsen, and next week will be Sherman Alexie plus Andrew Smith.
I'm most excited, of course, about our Boise SCBWI conference in April, which we co-sponsor with the Boise State University Dept. of Literary, Language, and Culture and the Idaho Chapter of the International Literacy Association (formerly the International Reading Association).
This year we have several amazing speakers, including Matt de la Pena, Suzanne Morgan Williams, Utah's own Kristyn Crow, agent Sean McCarthy, and a fantastic panel of local authors.
Our theme is diversity in children's literature, which is a super hot topic right now, and worthy of our attention and examination. This conference is for all who are interested in kit lit, whether teachers, librarians, students, parents, and, yes, authors and illustrators.
Have you ever dealt with the issue of “no more bookshelf space grief“? The Homemade Game Guru YouTube channel offers instructions for how to put together an “Avengers Age of Ultron Emblem/Logo Bookcase.” If you want to make this craft project, watch the video tutorial embedded above. What do you think?
Need a last minute Valentine’s Day gift idea? The Epic Reads team offers a DIY solution with the “How To Make a Heart Bookmark” tutorial. The video embedded above features all of the instructions to make this craft. For more literary gift options, check out this list of “16 Perfect Valentine’s Day Gifts For Book Nerds” from BuzzFeed.
A reminder: before you worry too much about a promo/marketing plan for your yet-to-be-published book, make sure your book is as polished as you can possibly make it. No matter what the format, how gorgeous the cover, how well-promoted....you need to have a good story and strong characters.
Take the time to hone your craft.
0 Comments on In the end, it comes down to having a good story. No amount of promo/networking can substitute. as of 1/8/2015 5:11:00 AM
One of the most useful tools to utilize during the revision phase of your first draft is the Find and Replace tool. The instructions here are for Word for Windows, but a similar function should be available for other word processing programs.
Within Word, you turn it on by simply clicking on [Control] and [F] at the same time (the letter F not the function key).
When revising, it is a good idea to save the draft as a new version each time in case you make a major mistake and need to go back to the previous version. You do this by selecting [Save As] and entering the Your Title Rev 1 (2,3,4,5,6,7, etc). When you have completely finished all editing and revising, save it as Your Title Final File.
1. If you do a quick rough draft you may have lots of blanks with placeholders **fill in here** or other placeholders (XXX) (#) for names, places, dates, locations, etc. Searching for ** or your placeholder cues will quickly take you from one placeholder to the next.
2. Develop a list of repetitive words. It may change and/or grow with every book you write.
3. Develop a list of adjectives. We all have personal favorites. You can use the starter list in Story Building Blocks III and add to it as you go.
4. Develop a list of adverbs or search for *.ly. This might take a while.
5. Develop a list of body language words and emotion words. Fill in your placeholders or make certain that your characters aren't yawning, grimacing, frowning, or sighing on every other page.
6. Search for passive language by looking for the word was. I guarantee this will take a long time. Make certain to enter a space before the word was followed by another space: [ was ], otherwise every word containing the letters was together (wash, swash, twas) will be highlighted.
7. Use [Find] and [Replace] to change the name of a place or character. Use [Find Next] rather than [Replace All]. Why? Here's an example.
Let's say you want to replace the word format with method. The program searches for all the places the combination of letters appears. It may change words you never intended: information becomes inmethodion.
If your character's name is May and you decide to change her name to Sally, you end up with, “I sally not want to,” instead of “I may not want to.” The word maybe becomes sallybe. You see the problem.
8. Don't mass delete.
A quick way of deleting a word is to use [Find], but never [Delete All] or you could end up with gibberish.Let's say you want to remove all the "could have"s. Go to each one individually. You may have to reword the sentence so it still makes sense.
9. If you make a mistake, [Control] [Z] or [Undo] is your best friend. It can, however, take you back further than intended. Which leads us to ...
10. Save frequently with [Control] [S].
Saving after every change slows you down too much, so I don't advise it. You should save the file frequently enough, perhaps at the end of each page, to mitigate heartache if your computer goes haywire, turns off in the middle, or you unintentionally select [Undo] and an entire paragraph disappears. Weird things happen.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 5/9/2016
By: Molly Blaisdell,
on 5/7/2016
By: Hannah,
on 3/14/2016
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By: Lee Wind, M.Ed.,
on 2/13/2016
By: Maryann Yin,
on 12/31/2015
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By: Sara Burrier,
on 10/15/2015
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/31/2015
Meg Wolitzer is a novelist whose books for adults include THE INTERESTING, THE TEN-YEAR NAP, THE POSITION, ADN THE WIFE. She is the author of a novel for middle grade readers, THE FINGERTIPS OF DUNCAN DORFMAN, and, most recently, the YA novel, BELZHAR.
Michelle Knudsen is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 40 books for young readers. She won the 2015 Sid Fleischman Award for Humor for her YA novel Evil Librarian, and she talked to us about world building.
By: Debbie Ridpath Ohi,
on 1/4/2015
By: Maral Sassouni,
on 1/1/2015
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By: Diana Hurwitz,
on 12/24/2014
It’s not just you, Heidi. I’m not really sure I can articulate it any better, but the color palette on the modeled coloring just doesn’t pop the way the original colors do. I think that the modeled coloring also changes some of the original storytelling choices, albeit in a subtle manner. For example, as I’m looking at the side-by-side you’ve posted from “The Meaning of Ragnarok,” the original colors make it pretty clear that Thor, Baldur, and… Fandrall? At any rate, the 3 figures on the left, stand apart and in front of the rest of the crowd, while the recolored version, by coloring EVERYONE, has them all sort of jumbled together. Anyway, that’s what struck me as I was looking at this. And after spending Saturday looking at so much of Jack’s original art at the CSU-Northridge exhibit, I’m struck by just how amazing his work looks in black & white…
I completely agree! What the original colorists understood was how to make things pop — to give the most important elements of the art separation in order for them to be emphasized and seen in a two-dimensional medium. You would think modeling would make objects seem more three-dimensional, but as your above illustrations have shown, it has instead reduced everything to a muddy mess.
In some cases, it’s simply understanding the composition and how best to give it clarity. For example, In the Tales of Asgard splash page, there are so many figures and so much lettering in the original art, the colorist understood that by leaving the background white, everything is easy to read. In the modern version, muddy colors on both the characters and the sky bleed together and emphasize nothing making it hard to read. *And* it makes the biggest mistake of most modern, modeled coloring like this — there is no main light source and corresponding back light.
If a colorist *is* to model the color for a greater sense of realism, then they must follow that process all the way. A light source must be decided on. In the Asgard panel it would be the cauldron, and it would hit the figures at appropriate angles for that source. (And for even more separation, edge lighting, from the sun or moon behind them would be added.) Instead, the foreground character is completely soft lit with no source, Odin is front lit and Thor and the other background characters are not lit and all (and at the same value as the sky to boot.) Even in ‘film noir’, which most people think of as being dark and shadowy, great cinematographers like James Wong Howe followed this source light/back light principle. In black and white darkness, their characters popped.
Now the bigger argument is, even if it is done correctly, should molded coloring be done at all. I think not. In the first place, the original art was designed for flat color. Black and white line drawing are not meant to be realistic, so laying realistic color on top of them creates a bizarre mash-up of two completely different styles. Back in the 50’s and 60’s, fine artists/thieves like Warhol and Litchinstein understood the graphic power of comics with line art and flat color. It’s a little amusing to think that colorists now, in an attempt to make old comics more sophisticated and arty, do so by dolling them up with fancy modeled coloring. Except that it’s usually done wrong.
A pox on this. It seems most people hate it when old work is messed with and ‘improved’ — be it colorized movies or George Lucas not being able to keep his hands off the original Star Wars. Let’s restore old comics for us and future generations in a condition as close to their original form as possible.
And give me the wonderful original coloring of the X-Men, New Gods and Thor covers any day of the week!
No offence to such talents as Steve Oliff et al, but the comics of Kirby’s era were never drawn with the expectation of finely-graduated colour or glossy paper.
(That said, I *did* enjoy the recoloured reprints of John Byrne’s original ‘Doomsday+1’ back in the day, if only because the pulpy printing of the Charlton series was woeful even by 70s standards.)
Recoloring old comics is not in itself a bad thing. It really depends on the original line art and how you redo the coloring. I agree that the modeled coloring above is pretty heinous. As Charlie Ryan says, part of that is lack of source light/back light, but part of it is also Kirby’s line art. It really does look best in black and white. Most comic art with a lot of weight to it does. The original Odin above looks like a child’s coloring book, and it’s part of why I have a hard time reading Golden Age books. But the modeled one destroys Kirby’s the pencil/ink work and I wouldn’t want to read that version either. I absolutely don’t mind if Marvel or anyone else wants to recolor old comics when reprinting them, but it needs to be done with care and attention. The first volume of recolored Gaiman’s Sandman was an improvement, but Kieth and Dringenberg are a far cry from Kirby. And I thought the giant hardcover of Simonson’s Thor looked mostly pretty good; there were some weird pages and bad choices, but mostly it made Simonson’s line pop more than before, instead of less.
I have so many thoughts on this, but the short version is:
1) I prefer having the original colors available for historical purposes, so we can see how they actually colored back then.
One of Marvel’s biggest art crimes was having the old comics recolored for the early Masterworks in flat limited-palette manner that made them appear to be the original colors, but that were actually wildly different (and much more restrained and *boring*) than the originals. Even worse, early on they actually tried passing these new colors off as vintage — remember those single issue reprints with the silver borders that included the original ads? And yet the colors were nowhere close to authentic.
2) Modeled color can work on artists like Kirby, but it takes someone who knows how to do it right. Many of the early Marvel covers were printed from airbrushed art, the trick is that the airbrush artists weren’t over-modeling.
Likewise, non-modeled isn’t necessarily superior — again, those early Masterworks that were recolored flat with a limited palette were just terrible (and unfortunately, some of those versions are still the ones on Marvel Unlimited. The FF colors are accurate, but the X-Men issues are so beyond terrible I’ve been tempted to do an article comparing different recolorings).
I consider re-color jobs to be disrespectful to the work of the original colorists. If publishers believe a “modern” (re: generally dull) color palette is what people who buy retro collections are looking for then they are mistaken.
It can also produce cut-rate work. I still remember that part of the Conan Dark Horse reprint where a river is colored green like the grassland around it so the art now shows a bridge just sitting in the middle of a field for no reason.
I’m a duffer at this illustration business, but I know that if I’m going to create inked art to be printed in black and white, I’m not going to do it the same as if I know it’s going to be flat-colored, and I’d do it still differently if I knew it was going to be colored-and-modeled. And I think it goes without saying that Kirby (and his cohort) understood this even better than I do. It’s like colorizing a black-and-white movie or 3D-izing a 2D movie: it might look more modern or exciting … but that means you’re changing it into something the original creator didn’t intend and didn’t envision.
Kate, I’d concur that the early Marvel Masterworks were garishly colored, but I wasn’t aware early Marvel covers were “printed from airbrushed art” (and by “early”, I’m assuming you mean the dawn of Marvel in the early 1960’s.) I always though they were colored with Doc Martin watercolors on production stats and the finished product was only used as a guide for mechanical separations.
The only experimenting with tonal work on covers that I know of was what DC’s Jack Adler did in the late 50’s and early 60’s with his tone wash covers. In those instances, the black and white artwork was shaded with ink wash (diluted indian ink) which was then combined with the standard color separations of the day. In other words, a tonal black and white base was overlaid with flat color. This achieved a much more modeled effect than the usual coloring on covers. It was also a bit muddy looking, but interesting and sometimes beautiful in its own way. Most important, the coloring was intended to be like that from the start of the process.
The problem is that the new coloring isn’t trying as hard as Kirby was to be striking and surreal, but rather to do a serviceable job, adding a grounded sense of realism that does not belong. I would enjoy seeing Kirby’s stuff colored in the manner of JH Williams III Kirby Tribute pages from Seven Soldiers number 1. That stuff was insane. Kirby’s own painted work is similar. Kirby’s art should look like it’s on acid, not like the color grade from a modern motion picture.
I liked quite a lot of the recolored Tales of Asgard Kirby stories, although I wished the browns were toned down a little.
I think the issue lies with who is doing the re/coloring. Coloring is truly an art form in to itself and I think it needs someone with a real affinity for Jack’s artwork as well as being a great colorist themselves.
Putting aside my own instincts to stay as true to Kirby’s own color choices, recoloring his, as well as other artists such as Steve Ditko, John Buscema, Jim Steranko, John Romita, and George Tuska would give fresh commercial life to Marvel’s back catalog. As long as they don’t overcharge for the material.