There were  lovely reviews of 3 very different DFB titles in the papers this weekend - with Magic Beans and This Dark Endeavour featured in The Times’ best children’s books of 2011!  See more here.

‘One of the best value books for 6 plus is Magic Beans an entrancing collection of classic fairytales retold by leading storytellers such as Philip Pullman, Adele Geras and Malorie Blackman. Elegant line drawings by Ian Beck, Debi Gliori, Peter Bailey and others add to the magic.’

‘It’s a beautifully balanced novel with the darkness of the central crime never forgotten or over-sweetened by the love story….. readers wanting to discover if the relationship overcomes all the odds are sure to find themselves provoked, moved and rewarded in equal measure.’  Click here to read the full Guardian review of You Against Me by Jenny Downham. 

‘Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavour a captivating Gothic novel for 13 plus about the future Dr Frankenstein and his competitive love for his twin brother. Books this good are for life, not just Christmas.’

It’s been suggested before on this blog that writers are like magpies, stealing shiny things and adapting them to line the nests of their stories. So this month I’d like to tell you about how I took one particularly shiny thing I’ve experienced and brought it into the imaginary world of my book, The Demon’s Watch.

The shiny thing is an incredible building in East London called Wilton’s, a genuine 19th century music hall (and the oldest surviving in the world). Wilton’s puts on a huge variety of music and theatre; to give you an idea, I have been there to see a Christmas farce, a dramatised recital of the Wasteland and my uncle’s rock and roll band. It’s worth a visit just for the place itself though, and you’ll see why if you click on this link and take a quick virtual tour:

http://www.sphericalimages.com/wiltonsmusichall/index.html

I wanted to set a scene in a theatre like Wilton’s. But since I was writing a fantasy story, it wouldn’t be quite the same. For starters, I needed a larger auditorium, with dilapidated galleries stretching up four or five storeys high. And instead of people, these galleries would be filled with trolls, elves and goblins, dressed in jackets and tricorne hats - all shouting out, stamping their feet and shoving each other to get a better view of the action taking place below. In the highest galleries would be the wealthiest audience members – crooked merchants and crime lords – sitting in a haze of smoke, puffing on pipes and sipping wine from crystal goblets.

Instead of a stage, the entire ground floor would be filled with a deep pool of water. And in the water would be the show itself. A fight to the death… And that’s all I can say without giving away too much.

All that was left was for my hero, half-goblin boy Joseph Grubb, to visit my new creation. I would like to tell you that he enjoys the show. But unfortunately that would be very far from the truth.

http://www.wiltons.org.uk

Conrad Mason’s first children’s novel, The Demon’s Watch,will be out in March 2012 and features goblins, pirates, magic and skulduggery. You can follow him on twitter – @conradwrites – and you can find him on facebook here!

I know we’ve been asked to blog about something we’ve experienced in order to write about or draw it. But I’m going to be cheeky and write about something I DIDN’T experience, and was hugely aware of not experiencing.

It was Dagenham. 1973.

Remember England in the ’70s? …Well, I don’t. I’m American and I was only born in 1975. But just while I was in the middle of a crazy deadline for a picture book, a bunch of friends from The DFC days (remember that fine comic? I DO!) decided to undertake a huge comics project, involving more than 50 creators. And my task was to draw a day in the life of the book’s main character, with that day set in 1973 Dagenham. I knew I’d be tapping into a lot of nostalgia British people had for that era, and since I couldn’t time travel, and didn’t have a lot of time to research it, I was a bit nervous. But the project was too fabulous to say no. And the proceeds would all be going to support Shelter charity.

So I tapped into my experience from my DFC days, when I was writing Vern and Lettuce. Whenever I got stuck with that comic, I would ‘phone a friend’ on the team for help. And often that friend was Woodrow Phoenix (creator of the DFC’s Donny Digits, Horse of a Different Colour). And as luck would have it, my two editors on the project were none other than two DFC buddies, Woodrow and Rob Davis, who’d come up with the concept while chatting on Twitter. They’d both lived in Britain in the ’70s and are generally good at period detail. Read the rest of this entry »

Hooray!!

Sarah McIntyre’s lovable duo, Vern & Lettuce, have won the hearts of teenagers in Leeds - who voted for the DFC Library book to win the Leeds Graphic Novel Award 2011!  Last year we were thrilled  when Dave Shelton’s Good Dog, Bad Dog won the  award,  and we’re over the moon that Sarah’s charming work has been recognised this year.  The award was created in 2010, so we DFBers are pleased as punch that two DFC Library titles have won so far. The prize is for titles suitable for 11-14 year olds, with the winner chosen by pupils at selected schools around Leeds. You can read more about the award  here, but keep an eye on Sarah’s blog and twitter(@jabberworks) for more news of Thoughtbubble festival..

Congratulations Sarah!

You can find out more about Magic Beans here,  and go to Jacqueline’s site here!

A man rides out of the muddy forests of Germany. Before him is a house, the country retreat of a gentle-born family where mother and daughter sit in the decorous idleness of a dying empire.

Our hero dismounts below the blank windows. He strides purposefully up the steps and hammers at the door. It opens, revealing a surprised and self-important little servant. And…

…Is the hero expected to produce a card?

This is the eighteenth century. Jane Austen and all that. We know that calling cards were part of the ritual in Jane Austen’s Bath. But this is not Bath. We’re not in any spa town, or any town of any kind. We’re on the ancestral estate, which consists of about three peasants and a pig. Callers are rare. Well, we think they are. Suddenly we’re not too sure about that either. Anyway, there’s a war on.

Research? By all means try, if you think that you’re going to find anything that will help. Googling ‘eighteenth-century calling card’ will probably tell you something about Bath and Jane Austen, but it won’t help your mud-bespattered young hussaur in the Franconian forest. At least, not in English it won’t. What’s the German? Achtzehnjahundertebesuchskarte? Maybe, but will you understand the answer even if you find one? No? So why did we start writing this novel in the first place?

And that’s the point. In just seconds you’ve gone from doubting one small detail to doubting your right to produce this novel at all. Doubt is fatal. If you write in doubt, readers will sense your disbelief. They won’t believe your world either. You can have all the research in the world in there, but if you’ve put it in because you were afraid of getting something wrong, it will not convince.

This is why most writers say they don’t do research, or don’t do it until afterwards anyway. The story is what matters – the momentum with which it unfolds. Leap those steps two at a time, with your spurs jingling spitefully at your heels. Snarl at the pompous little servant who tries to block your way. [Square brackets around the card, if you must – we’ll think about that later.] Now stalk down the unlit corridor to where the heroine and her mother wait. And there say to them the things that will change their world.

That’s how you tell a story.

 John Dickinson worked for 17 years in Whitehall and Brussels before becoming an author. He has published five novels: The Cup of the World, The Widow and the King, The Fatal Child, The Lightstep and WE.

After reading the topic for this round of blogs, I was at a bit of a loss because i was sure that everyone would come out with loads of really interesting stories about real world experiences they’ve had which inspired them to write something that is extraordinarily brilliant.

I usually come up with ideas by drawing out a character or landscape, and then thinking about why they are there and what they are doing…and this can develop into a happy story, a sad story, a complicated story etc.

Most of what influences me is subliminal, and predominately from film or television, as the worlds i like to create contain things that I haven’t had the chance to see first hand, or they just don’t exist at all.

Occasionally, however i see something that influences me to the point that I notice it, and notice the change in my work that it creates.

One such example was the series ‘Planet Earth’ by the BBC. (image below)

From the first time I saw the wide shots of the Earth’s largest waterfall,  the slow panning of the peaks of the Himalayas,  to the solitary polar bear navigating its way through the great expanse of the Arctic; I was hooked. I thought, ‘this looks amazing I want to draw it!’. I even made a book at university which was set in the Arctic (illustration below).

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve read any of the blurb about Mistress of the Storm, or its follow-up, Heart of Stone, (out in January book fans) then you’ll know the mysterious town of Wellow is a fictional version of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. I actually grew up in Cowes which is on the north side of the Island but I always loved Ventnor which is very remote and all the more magical for it.

To my often-voiced disappointment I don’t live on the Island any more. And what with small children, work, life etc. I realised that I hadn’t spent any proper time walking around the places I was describing for too long.

So earlier this year I decided to fit in some time on my own between school visits to remind myself what my lovely homeland looks like. It was wonderful I’m ashamed to report (it all felt horribly indulgent). After I’d visited Somerton and Solent Middle Schools in Cowes I drove straight to Ventnor to take in the view. You can just about make out the real Spyglass Inn in the distance here:

Read the rest of this entry »

 It may seem odd to do your research after you’ve finished the book. In this case, it was five years after the novel was published. But everything is useful to a writer, and I’m sure that somehow or other I’ll make use of the stone-carving I did this summer.

It’s not that I did no research at all for SET IN STONE. I talked to stone-carvers, handled stone, studied the work of Eric Gill, learned about Jurassic limestone. But this summer several things fell into place and I found myself chip-chip-chipping away.

Shortly after SET IN STONE was published, I met a local stonecarver, Bernard Johnson, who was exhibiting during Artweeks in Oxford. I loved his work, and could see at once that he was influenced by Eric Gill. I’d decided that if DFB gave me a commission to write LOB, I would find a stone-carver to make me a Green Man for my garden, and was hoping to find someone suitable; as soon as I saw Bernard’s work, the search was over. He made me a calm and wise Green Man, in Portland stone, which is now in my garden.

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It is, as everyone knows, very important to Write What You Know, and that is why my first book was about being a 12-year old girl with a magical giant robot.

Alright, I don’t technically “know” very much about those things, but I do know what it was like to go to school, and in creating Mo-Bot High I really wanted to make something that actually felt – apart from the aforementioned magical giant robots – quite real, and quite true to that experience. Read the rest of this entry »