Episode 43: How much planning do you do ahead of time? -with Jaqueline Davies
Welcome back to another episode! Today we welcome author Jacqueline Davies and Grace Lin to answer the kid question, “How much planning do you do ahead of time?”
TRANSCRIPTS:
Hello, I'm Grace Lin, children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle grade novel When the Sea Turned to Silver and the picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star. Today, I'm here with Jacqueline Davies, the author of The Lemonade War series and the picture book, Panda Pants. Hi, Jackie.
Jacqueline Davies: Hi Grace, how are you?
Grace Lin: Good. Are you ready for today's question?
Jacqueline Davies: I am so ready.
Grace Lin: All right. Today's question is from a young girl named Ava. She asks...
Ava: How much planning do you do ahead of time?
Grace Lin: How much planning do you do ahead of time?
Jacqueline Davies: Oh, good question, Ava. Thanks for asking it. I so wish I had the right answer to that question. I wish I could say, "Oh, I do this every single time," but the truth is, I handle what I call pre-writing, which is planning, planning is pre-writing. I handle it differently for every single book, and part of that is because I write really different kinds of books. I write a lot of picture books, which are shorter, some of them require research, some of them don't, but I also write middle grade books and I also have a book for a young adult, so it's different for every different kind of book.
Jacqueline Davies: I'll talk a little bit about the book I'm working on right now, just because that process is in my head most clearly, and that is that I got an idea and like I always do, I sit on it for a while. I don't just start writing immediately, I wait and see if that idea... I don't know, still sparkles after a few weeks of thinking about it, because a lot of ideas, I get the idea and then a few weeks later I'm just not interested in it anymore. But, this idea stuck with me, it actually got stronger and stronger the more I thought about it. And so with this one, I just kind of dove in, I had thought about some of the elements that would be in it, but I didn't really know the story, and most importantly, I didn't know the tone, so I just dove in and started writing it, and then after writing about 20 pages, I realized it just wasn't working. I was doing it all wrong. So, then I stopped and that's when I did my planning.
Jacqueline Davies: That's when I went away on retreat with some friends and spent the entire weekend really just sort of thinking it out and I don't have the plot all figured out, but really mostly working on the characters and to get the tone right in the writing, and I spent four straight days doing what I would call pre-writing planning, reworking those first 20 pages. After that, now I feel ready to kind of leap off the cliff again and get back into a part of the story that I haven't planned out. But so for me, it's sort of like a back and forth dance. I think about it a little bit, that's planning, then I write a little bit until I get stuck, and then I stop and I backtrack and I plan and I write ahead a little bit more. This is how I expect the whole book is going to go for me, I think it's going to be a lot of this jumping in and just writing and then realizing, "Oh, I'm at a sticking point. I need to go back and plan."
Grace Lin: Hmm, that's really interesting because in some ways, the way I write my books is similar, but also different. I agree that for me, every book is different, so it's always a little bit of a different plan for each one. But I do find for me, I spend a lot of time just thinking and thinking and thinking, maybe thinking for years, and then I'll finally start putting all my ideas on little post-it notes or little pieces of paper and organizing it and organizing it and reorganizing it. I spend so much time planning, but once it's planned, usually I can go straight forward. There is revision and things like that, but it's not the kind of back and forth that you were talking about.
Jacqueline Davies: So you do all your planning in one chunk and then begin the writing.
Grace Lin: Mm-hmm, but that one chunk can be years and years, though.
Jacqueline Davies: Yeah, and to be honest, I've done that with some books too. And then other ones, I don't know if it's that I get impatient that I get so excited during the planning phase that I want to dive in, or I don't know if it's that I really do need to do the writing to understand if what I've planned is working.
Grace Lin: There's many times I go off the plan too.
Jacqueline Davies: Oh, totally, totally, totally, totally. But what I do after I've done the thinking in my head, which I do a lot of that when I walk or when I exercise or something like that, I just do kind of free-thinking. I do not rely on scraps of paper and post-it notes. That would never work for me. I dedicate a single spiral bound blank page book, and then I just use that to fill it with everything. Everything from research to me asking me questions like, "I don't know what this book is about." How I feel about the story, "Oh my gosh, I'm feeling like I can't do this," or, "I'm really excited about it," to I stick pictures, I get photographs off of the internet that I say, "Oh, that's going to be the house that they live in," or, "That's going to be the tree that's in the front yard," or, "That's what the fireplace looks like," and so I stick... That's planning too. I stick pictures and research material into this one book, because if I used post-it notes, that would be problematic.
Grace Lin: I probably should use notebooks and stuff. There are many a times where I look at the scrawl I wrote on the post-it note and said, "What am I saying here?"
Jacqueline Davies: What is that? Yeah, yeah. But it is funny because I do find that sometimes I'll do some planning in one of these books and then something happens, life happens, I get busy with a different project and I put it away on the shelf, and then sometimes months, maybe even a year later, I might say, "Wait a minute. I never actually wrote that book." And I'll pull out the book.,And it's interesting to me that, as long as I can read the writing, which is not always the case, how rereading all that sort of what felt like a mishmash of planning, by rereading it, I can get caught up again and remember, "Oh, that's what I loved about that story." So, that's why I think it really is useful in many ways to put things down on the page, even just in the messy, scrawly post-it note stage, because then you have something to go back to that will lead you and guide you back into the story.
Grace Lin: So, I guess the answer to your question, Ava, is we both do a lot of planning.
Jacqueline Davies: Yes, we do. Absolutely.
Grace Lin: And I think most authors do do a lot of planning before they write. So, thank you so much Ava for your question.
Jacqueline Davies: Thank you, Ava.
Grace Lin: It was great.
Today’s BOOK REVIEW comes from Summer:!
The book I would like to talk about is The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin. It's about a girl whose friend died at the beach and she wants to find out what happened to her. I thought it was sad and very well written. I liked to the different layers the book had.
Thank you Summer!
More about today’s authors:
Jaqueline Davies is the author of several novels and picture books, including The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, and The Lemonade War, the story of Evan and Jessie, a brother and sister who make a bet to see who can sell the most lemonade in five days. The Lemonade War is followed by The Lemonade Crime, The Bell Bandit, and The Candy Smash. The series has been praised for its “realistic depiction of the children’s emotions” (Booklist, starred review) and as “entertaining . . . good reading for young capitalists” (USA Today). The newest title in the series, The Candy Smash, explores the distinctive power of poetry and love—fourth grade style. Jacqueline’s books have won numerous designations and awards, including the NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K−12, the John Burroughs List of Nature Books for Young Readers, the New York Public Library’s Best Books list, the NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People, the IRA/CBC Children’s Award Notable Book for Fiction, and the CCBC Choices Award. She lives in Needham, Massachusetts, with her three children and their dog Harley. She enjoys reading, gardening, watching local sports teams (especially the Celtics and Patriots), running, and knitting. For more information visit www.jacquelinedavies.net.
Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook, instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.
Special thanks to the High Five Books & Art Always Bookstore, Ms. Carleton’s 2nd grade class at Jackson Street School for their help with our kid questions and reviews.
