Image Credits:- Many thanks to Gill James for supplying author and book cover pictures. Other images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos or images supplied by Gill. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes.
It is with great pleasure I welcome Gill James back to Chandler’s Ford Today. Gill is an author, editor, and publisher, being the mastermind behind Bridge House Publishing, Chapeltown Books, CafeLit and other imprints within the Bridge House “family”, including Walela Books. The latter published Debz Hobbs-Wyatt’s If Crows Could Talk. Chapeltown Books have published many authors, including me.
Gill has written across many genres including historical fiction (check out her Schellberg series) and science fiction (see her Peace Child books, an excellent series I’m happy to recommend). But this time she is back with a children’s tale, Natascha’s Story, with an unusual viewpoint – that of a Russian doll!
BLURB FOR NATASCHA’S STORY
Natascha is forever falling off the piano and getting sucked up by the vacuum cleaner.
Natascha is the smallest of a set of Russian dolls and envies her bigger sisters as they have more detail on them.
The family acquire a new vacuum cleaner and this time it takes Natascha to another world where she has an amazing adventure. But is it all a dream and related to the story the mummy is reading to young Alfred?
It’s up to you to decide in Natascha’s intriguing story told by Gill and Ashleigh James.
BOOK TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugFyCUpVRqk
Many congratulations, Gill, on Natascha’s Story and now for the questions.
What led to Natascha’s Story, Gill? What inspired you to use the viewpoint of one of a set of Russian Dolls? What were the challenges of making that viewpoint convincing?
I write short stories in between edits of novels and I often use prompts to inform what I write. We’ve produced a book of prompts and one of our writers, Gail Aldwin, suggested making a frame with your two thumbs and index fingers and writing about what you saw. I did and my eyes rested on the Russian dolls on our grand piano.
What if one fell off and got sucked up the vacuum cleaner? And this has to be a story for children, right?
Anthropomorphism is often used for very young children. Animals take on human characteristics. Here, though, we have a doll and that is a step nearer to being human. And how might she feel about her bigger sisters?
Who is Natascha’s Story aimed at, age wise, and what do you find are the joys and challenges of writing for that age group?
I would label this as a book for infant school children. I could also label it as being for ‘emergent readers’ or ‘Key Stage 1’. It’s a short text – roughly 3500 words and spread across fifty-three pages. Someone who has just learned to read should manage to read the story because it’s short, we’ve used ragged right for the formatting, and we’ve used a font that doesn’t have a serif and has easy to read ‘a’s and ‘g’s which are what the child is used to in writing. (Ragged right is useful to new readers, academics and editors working in publishing – it helps the reader to remember where they are on the page.).
The pictures illustrate the story rather than adding to it. This helps the reader understand what is going on. In pre-school picture books you may have more details that aren’t in the text.
The book may also appeal to adults who are familiar with The Wizard of Oz. It is still suitable for adults to read to the child so this may help them to enjoy the text.
One of the tricky things about writing for children is you have to understand each separate stage of development. I hesitate to say age group as they all go through the stages at different ages, taking ages over some and going quickly through others.
Name three marketing tips you have found useful. Name three writing tips you’ve also found useful.
Three marketing tips:-
Build a mailing list. Invite people to subscribe if they like your writing. You will get more response from one carefully worded email sent to the right people than hours of work on social media.
Don’t make everything on social media about ‘buy my book’. Be interesting, 80% of what you post should not be about selling the book. For instance, I might talk about adventures with our grand piano or Russian dolls, how the weather has affected us and how we survived the storm.
Ask people to review and post on Amazon if they can: getting fifty reviews on Amazon is a very effective marketing strategy.
And writing tips:-
Don’t wait for inspiration. Turn up at the keyboard or notebook.
Writing is rewriting – learn to love editing.
Put your text away for a while after each rewrite. You’ll see it with fresh eyes later. Hence why I punctuate my novel writing with writing short stories.
Using a vacuum cleaner as a portal is intriguing. (I won’t tell my dog. She dislikes my machine!). Portals are often used in fantasy stories. What do you find makes them convincing? Also how do you arrange for your characters to return to where they should be?
Natascha is frequently sucked up by the vacuum cleaner but this time it is a new one and something different happens. Has she followed in the footsteps of Dorothy and gone to Oz? Did Dorothy go to Oz or did she dream it all? Is Natascha dreaming? There is an answer in the book but I’m not going to tell you. In a way aren’t books portals because they take us to another world and this often gives us some objectivity about our own world? To some extent the question is left open in both stories and readers like that; they can make up their own minds about what has happened.
Mixing up what you write is great for the writer. It keeps us on our creative toes, for one thing, but what are the joys and challenges of switching from writing for adults, including Young Adults, to writing for much younger children? What tips would you share for those thinking about writing for the younger end of the book market? (I admire anyone who can do this well as most adult writers, including me, know most of our audience comes from those who have always loved books and their love of the written word comes from well crafted tales from the children’s authors).
If you want to write for children it’s important to read children’s books. You need to become familiar with what suits each stage of development. It’s tricky because children develop in different ways and at different paces and they have several ages: reading age, emotional age, physical age, and sexual age. I first wrote for upper primary – my children were that age at the time. I then went on to write for teen and young adults.
That made sense as I was a secondary school teacher for a long time. I found my Peace Child series gradually became more for the older young adult. Again that made sense; I started working in Higher Education. My Schellberg series is more about strong women but they start out as young adults. My writing has grown up with me. But every now and then I go back to writing something for younger readers.
Will there be a follow up to Natascha’s Story? Which books for this age range were favourites of yours? What do you think a children’s book should aim to “do” for its readership? One thing I am aware of is the need for the story to be strong enough to stand up to repeated readings by the adults reading the book to the children and, later, when the children read it for themselves. What do you think is the biggest thing to draw readers into reading a book like this many times? (I lost count of how often I read The Gruffalo to my son when he was younger but did know the characters made us laugh, especially the mouse).
I do have another book planned for this readership but it’s an entirely different sort of story with no fantasy or anthropomorphism in it. Illustrations will only be line drawings. It is firmly set in this world.
The common ground is story. I think humans need story. It helps us to make sense of the world. Stories give us hope. Sometimes they show us people who are worse off than we are and we can then be thankful for what we do have. Other times they show us people with problems similar to our own and so we feel less alone. They also take us out of our own world for a while.
I think, I hope, both of these books will do all of the above.
You are right as well there must always be a little humour and if it’s a book an adult will read to a child the humour must appeal to both adult and child. No laughing at the child though.
If a story is good people will read it over and over. How many times have I read A Christmas Carol? I already have tickets booked for another adaptation of it for December 2025.
In Natascha’s Story Natascha grows just as the characters in the original Oz story do. In the next book – which as yet has no title – there is a great deal of kindness.
How do you balance the different demands of writing your books, Gill, and publishing books by other authors?
I work on my writing every other day and on publishing on the days in between. Wednesdays are left for more proactive work and also for some duller administrative work.
I read a lot. I edit and proof-read several texts a month. I’m exercising my editing muscles when I work on other people’s scripts and that makes me a better editor of my own work.
Some authors are more proactive than others in promoting their work and I often find them doing things I hadn’t thought of, so that’s another win as my portfolio of marketing tricks grows.
Million dollar question: which is more difficult to write for, adults or children, and why do you think this is?
Writing for children is definitely more difficult. There are more constraints and you have to get a story into a lower word count. However, as you become more skilled it can be quicker to produce a text for a child than it is to produce one for an adult.
Now I know you carry out author visits, Gill. Does this include schools and will you be taking Natascha’s Story “on tour” to schools? What do you think the benefits are for schools and authors with regard to such visits? One great thing about them is a good one will encourage children to read the visiting author’s book and then go on to read other books usually by that author (and possibly to branch out to others later). Have you any advice to share with authors thinking of carrying out school visits? Do you rehearse readings before any such visits? And with a book such as your latest one, how do you get the balance right between reading out enough to entertain the children without giving everything away?
I’m not doing so many author visits at the moment. I’m not writing so much for children; I’m busy with publishing and schools are getting strapped for cash.
Having said that, I’m still willing to do the quick ninety minute visit if the school is within twenty miles of where I live (I’m in North Manchester) and I’m even happy to do this as a free visit if I can sell books there and if it’s clear longer or subsequent visits must be paid for.
I have done a lot in the past and I know several children’s authors who earn more from author visits than they do from sales of their books.
It was disconcerting once to walk into a classroom and see every child was reading a copy of my book but they were all on a different page. Where should I start my reading?
With a short text like Natascha, I find it good to read for a few minutes up to a cliff-hanger point and get the children to work out what might come next. This can lead on to them building their own stories.
For longer texts I’ll do what I would do for an adult book event: read a few carefully chosen passages and take questions from the floor.
And yes I always rehearse what I’m going to read. It’s important to time it and to remember however long it takes at home it will take a little longer in the school.
I’ll often include a creative writing exercise for children – that’s the teacher in me coming out again.
Often teachers will ask us to do something that supports the curriculum but I think we like to subvert it or rebel against it. For instance, writers may discourage adjectives and adverbs while teachers will encourage them. The school curriculum tends to present fragmented pieces of writing and we want children to enjoy whole stories.
Last but not least, Gill, is there anything else you would like to share regarding Natascha’s Story?
It was good fun producing this text with my daughter. After all she grew up with the grand piano and the Russian dolls. And yes, once or twice the smallest one fell off and we didn’t notice but heard her clunk her way up through the vacuum cleaner!
I’m having a slightly unconventional launch of this book. I’ve invited just ten people to my home so they can see where the story came from. I’m targeting grandparents. I’m hoping they will review the book and pass it on to their children and grandchildren and I’ll get more reviews that way.
As I can only fit ten people in my home comfortably I’ve had to put all the names of people I can think of who might like to come into a biscuit tin and pull them out. If someone says they can’t come or has to drop out I pull out another name.
We are going to read the book aloud and ‘do voices’. It should be fun and so far we’ve got a good mix of people: from my choir, my neighbours, my colleagues at Talking About My Generation, and my various U3A groups. Some are ex primary-school teachers and they are usually very good at making such stories sound wonderful.
Conclusion
Many thanks, Gill, for a wonderful interview and good luck with Natascha’s Story. One thing I have welcomed since my younger days is there is a greater awareness of the importance of children’s books across the age ranges. I’ve also welcomed the development of Young Adult fiction and know I would’ve loved that category had it been around in my time. But to start with, to have any hope of encouraging youngsters into what will hopefully be a life-long reading habit, you must start at the youngest ends of the markets, which is why children’s fiction is so important.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Related Posts:-
Writing Historical Fiction – Interview with Gill James Part 1
The Joys and Woes of Writing Historical Fiction – Part 2 of Gill James Interview
Life as a Small Publisher: Allison Symes Talks to Gill James
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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