DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery   by Toni Brisland (Sid Harta Publishers).

Launch ’speech’ by Jeni Mawter 25 July 2010

First, there was Nancy Drew (1930), a young female amateur detective, then came George, or Georgina as we came to know her, from the Famous Five (1942), closely followed by Trixie Belden (1948) and now we have DemiChat, with her trusty sidekick, Lord Flannery.

When Toni first asked me to launch her novel DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery I was extremely surprised but very flattered. To take a great idea, then hold a published book in your hands is a quantum leap. Only another author can fully appreciate that journey. Today we have several authors in the room who have come to celebrate the success of DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery. When I first met Toni, I did for her what some of these authors had done for me – offered the hand of friendship,  welcomed her into a group of like-minded souls, and encouraged her to follow her dreams. Two such authors were Wendy Blaxland and  Susanne Gervay. Susanne and I were talking one day and lamenting the fact that our writing journey had been hard – not just hard, gruelling in fact. We decided that a handful of writers started their writing careers with an elevator ride to the penthouse of publishing success. For the rest of us, we had to take the back stairs – blindfolded – and shackled. I’m sure there’s been many times along the way when Toni questioned the sanity of her back stairs journey. Well today Toni, finally, the blindfold and shackles have come off.

As one author to another I salute tenacity, ingenuity and courage that has gone into the publication of this first book in what will hopefully be as successful a series as that of that Sir Arthur bloke’s.

Toni tells us that this book and its characters were inspired from her own life, with her blue-point Himalayan cat assuming the role of DemiChat, and her niece’s beagles going by the name of Lord Flannery, the name borrowed from Toni’s other cat. But after reading this Sherlock Holmes spoof I realised that Toni has actually based this character on herself. Like DemiChat, Toni used her feminine intuition and wit in order to solve the publication problems placed before her. Like DemiChat she has the devotion of a Lord Flannery in her husband, Richard, and the devotion of a Jake in her daughter Deen, and like DemiChat she has a great penchant for mystery, although to all the members of the Diorio family I’m not sure why Toni put the Italians as the baddies!

Toni will say that the message behind DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery is about teamwork but to me, there is a much more powerful message in this story. Unlike most heroes of today who use magical powers to solve their problems, Toni’s characters do not. Her characters use skills that all of today’s children can relate and aspire to, those of acute observation and logical reasoning. In much of children’s literature today the message is that you can easily ‘magic’ your way to a solution and this has been of growing concern to me. I’m delighted that Toni has gone against this trend - there’s not a vampire or werewolf in sight! This courage to go with her own conviction is yet another DemiChat characteristic.

At this point I must applaud the exquisite black and white film noir-ish illustrations of Peter “Zane” Haywood. I can see why Toni fell instantly in love with the illustration that was to become the cover, and why Peter was chosen by the publisher, Kerry Collison of Sid Harta Publications. They certainly add a depth and quirkiness to the book.

And finally, to Sid Harta Publications. “Publishing is a competitive and difficult business. More people are writing and there is less room among the big publishers for consideration of newcomers. Opportunities for good writers and many good books are lost because of this. So what can replace the big publisher’s power and influence in selection of writers and success on the book shop shelf? The small team - dedicated to encouraging and supporting the development of fine writing.’ Recognition must be given to this publishing house of vision, and congratulations for helping to produce a truly beautiful book.

Before I finish up I would like to give Toni a small gift to help her with her school book launch and for what I hope will be the start of many public speaking engagements. Firstly, a Lord Flannery hat. I would have loved to be giving you a DemiChat hat but as I’ve discovered, Deerstalkers are a bit thin on the ground. There is also the obligatory, detective disguise kit as well as some modern-day weaponry which is great for ‘boy appeal’.

With its mysterious kidnapping, a missing secret formula, and the most delightful animal Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson partnering, it is elementary, my dear Toni, that this book can’t go wrong. Now Toni, there’s a few people you’d like to address so I’ll ask you to pretend this is a Champs Elysees catwalk, that you are a former jewellery model, and please come over here and speak to your adoring audience.

Congratulations.

Capturing a Sense of Adventure by Jeni Mawter

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Helen Keller.
When thinking of the action/adventure genre, most people think of a tale filled with excitement and danger, a tale that will keep them on the edge of their seat, turning pages until the very end. The adventure novel is essentially a quest story, where the primary complication is often physical danger to the protagonist. R.L. Stevenson said that if you’re confronted with great fear and danger all you need are imagination and courage.
In writing for children and young adults we’ve all been told that we need to use all five senses to bring fiction to life - sight, sound, smell, taste and touch - but for me, there’s two other senses that also need to be used: the sense of adventure and the sense of mischief.

Do you dream of being stranded on a desert island? Would you like to live in a tree, or experience adventures on the high seas? Battle mysterious creatures or stop a crime ring? Then adventure writing is for you.
Elements of the action/adventure genre.
* A likeable protagonist. Takes on some sort of heroic quest, where they must prove their own worthiness. If that protagonist should fail their task, there’s often dire consequences to them or to others.
The quest may be literal (survive hardship and terror to deliver this ring to an ancient wizard), or more abstract (finding a way to improve a relationship). The quest is a long and difficult search for something. The traditional quest involves: treasure, a mission, an exploration, or, at its simplest, survival. As a reader, the quest is something we can all identify with. Like the main character we’ve quested with, we all hope to find that certain something - or someone - that will change our lives. And this is the key to the power of the quest in story: it represents our innermost desires.
* An unlikable antagonist. Tries to do everything in their power to thwart the efforts of the protagonist.
* Obstacles. These can be 1) human (the enemy; savages; criminals; corrupt police); 2) elements (the ocean, the jungle, the ice, the desert); 3) institutional (the army, the CIA, the KGB, the political system) or: 4) obstacles the hero discovers within themself (pride, physical weakness, desire for luxury or comfort, greed, or fear).
* Physical action. Characters are often placed in extreme situations.
* Fast paced.
* Violence. Violence is not justified simply for personal gain. It’s justified in defense of others, in defense of oneself, or in defense of a wider moral order.
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* Setting. It underlines the danger and obstacles to be overcome. It is often exotic, or at least, in out-of-the-way corners or underworlds of areas closer to home.
* Danger. Anything can happen. It will be as extraordinary as possible.
* Not necessarily lawful. However, the goal of the action must meet society’s standards of acceptability.
Writing Adventure
Adventure stories are a thrill ride through landscapes of the mind. They’re not to be explained, they’re to be experienced. Adventure leads the reader to astonishing places they have never imagined, to places they would never normally go of their own accord. Genre doesn’t matter. It could be fantasy, mystery, horror, or anything. What matters is that the reader wants to take the trip along with you. So how do we do that? Factors to consider include:

1) Characters

Good character dynamics and relationships can propel a story as much as plot does. In Freewheelers I used a small group of friends: 1) some with a shared history; 2) minor characters who have no relation to the main characters and; 3) a mysterious ‘other’ character.

The readers must care about the characters, be willing to follow them to the ends of the earth, live through the adventure with them. Heroes and heroines are only as impressive as the forces arrayed against them. They are at their best when pitted against strong, resourceful and dedicated forces of darkness. A fully rounded baddie seduces us by their flagrant disregard for the rules, and their defeat satisfies a deep-rooted human need to see order reign within the universe. Coax your inner baddie onto the page!

2) Events

Your adventure story has to be propelled into action by some event or sequence of events. Throw in some jaw-dropping surprising events to keep characters (and readers) at the end of their seats. In the action scene, the mechanics of movement must be described believably and with precision. Dialogue is important but it can’t get in the way of narrative tension.

3) Setting

Put your characters in situations they aren’t familiar with.

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4) Plot

Each story will start with a quest. The hero, flawed in some way, will encounter obstacles. And more obstacles. They encounters risk. Don’t avoid the risks.
Always keep in mind: What happened before? What’s happening now? What will happen next? It is said that adventure writing embodies the literary equivalent of the Newtonian laws of motion - every action brings about a subsequent, though not necessarily equal or opposite, reaction. The writer must follow through from event to event in a believable and consistently defined manner. The action scene is like a string of dominoes in three dimensions - or multiple strings that interact in time, space and depth.
Seduce the reader while assaulting the reader - Build your adventure story so that each sentence introduces a new twist or turn, assaults the reader from a new direction, moves the narrative focal point around in unpredictable, though interconnected, ways. Keep the sentences terse and lean, the style stripped, and try opening your sentences with action verbs to put the reader directly into the frame of reference. And, last but not least, never pull your punches. When you get to the hard parts, when you’re tempted to take the easy way out and find the simple resolution, push through and go for the solution that feels like it’s tearing your soul out.

Thought Leaders

Yesterday I was described as a thought leader. Not knowing the term, I googled it and to my delight I found out the following. A thought leader is a futurist or person who is recognized for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights (thinklets).

Wow!

And what was this in reference to?

Kiss Kill. A young adult novel that has met with rejection from traditional publishers, but has been embraced by the world of digital publishing. In the coming weeks  this blog will explore my digital publishing journey, but for now I’ll include a brief snippet on the issue of copyright and intellectual property found at the Thought Leaders web site:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/tlstudio/videos/102/

Hi Everyone,

I went to a session at the SWF (21 May) on ‘Who Needs a Publisher Anyway?’ with speakers Mark Pesce and Marcus Westbury and will pass on the notes I made as I think you may be interested:

Mark Pesce

At the moment through the web we can make connections with other creative groups which will lead in the future to a shared creative production.

You can download this at markpesce.com/book/

In the future, resources, intelligence and capabilities will be shared.

Author’s can be defined as ‘thought leaders’ and the book is the author’s own brainwave.

The book as we know it is dissolving. We are heading for the digitised book which will be a hypertext, providing access to other texts. Linear reading will be replaced by centrifugal reading.

In 5 years time nearly all Non-Fiction will be digitised into a collective of human knowledge. Exceptions are the Cookbook!

Fiction in the future will take 3 major forms:

3)      Books that will be their own hyper-textuality ie ebooks.

In the future, authors will not be a ‘singular’ – authors will be a ‘zone’, that is, a place where things/people are connected by affinity.

There will be no beginning or end to the task of the author.

There will be no beginning or end to the creation of the book.

Thus, the boundary between the author and the reader has dissolved and traditional publishing roles for book, author, publisher are melting.

Marcus Westbury

Writing is an ongoing series of dialogues between author and reader.

The problems with traditional publishing are: 1) huge time lags and 2) closed system which excludes the author.

Taking a conversationalist approach means you open up dialogue with readers.

Traditional publishers still have a level of expertise that authors don’t have yet.

Traditional distribution methods are breaking down.

Traditional publication still gives the author validation but authors will slowly change their mindset over this and things will change.

Beware: What happened to the music industry will happen to traditional publishing. In the future there will be a major disruption to a publisher’s economic business model.

In the future authors will share knowledge and in return, develop expertise that can be marketed in public speaking, teaching etc which will make profits. It is expertise that will equate with today’s fascination with fame. Expertise will give you significance and thus, value.

Ideology: technologies of connection will raise communities who can pool knowledge for collective betterment.

In future we will see more Open Source Projects eg Wiki. These need to be taken up and pushed by 1-2 spearhead people in order to be taken up by others.

Our capacity to collaborate is transformative.

Opposite of Celebrity-driven publishing (driven by popular media) will be ‘Networks of Influence’ – people who connect and respect each other’s POV. You will become known by what you do online.

When publishing online trust that authentic voices will find their audience.

Traditional publishers will produce collectable books.

In the future authors must identify their market and work out how to let them know that your book is coming.

The future is not in the book, it’s in the sharing of ideas.

Love Jeni x

Verisimilitude
Recently, I joked with a publisher that I no longer fit the criteria to be publishable, failing in the following areas:
1) I could no longer be marketed as ‘First Book’ by …
2) I could not be marketed as a ‘Teenage Author’
3) I was not an Australian Prime Minister
4) I am not a celebrity
5) I am no longer an ‘Emerging Author’
After this, I encountered another reason – Verisimilitude. This refers to the prevailing attitude that a book based on a true story is inherently preferable to a book based on mere fiction.
Hmmmm …

As a writer whose career path is following a pattern of exponential decay I have decided to apply scientific principles to the process (it hurts less this way) and have come up with Jeni’s Theory of Inverse Proportion. Quite simply, this states that the time taken for a writer to get their work read by a publisher is inversely proportional to the number of editors reading the slush pile. Which begs the question: How many editors does it take to read a slush pile? 

And why the fascination. Because given my experience of exponential decay, this is where I find myself again. To all those authors wallowing in the complacency of success … Beware!

That slush pile is a slippery little sucker.

Since my last blog am still attempting to do a phoenix rising impersonation.  I’ve got the sprawling in the ashes bit down pat, even the wing flap is going nicely, but take-off eludes me. Not that I aspire to immortality. A small miracle will do nicely. Miraculous writing recovery that is. To all those fellow strugglers, take heart. You’re not alone. Maybe we could start a support group: The Code of the Phoenix. Pre-requisite is a tendency towards self-combustion.

Apart from feeling like a pile of carbon, life goes on. Not only survived but thrived at Tull’s 18 th birthday. Jived at Shevaughn’s 21st birthday. And spent K-Rudd’s money on a new pup! A little bundle of joy called Maddie. Part cocker spaniel, part poodle. Pitch black, eyes, nose, body and when lying on her back could easily be mistaken for a monkey. But gorgeous. AND, I’m the only woman swanning around Lane Cove with a black dog! Piles of white/caramel fluff everywhere, but nothing like my dog who looks like she works for a chimney sweep. More ashes … Hmmm. There’s a theme here.

To all those covered in soot, here’s cheers!

To all those who have left comments on this blog and I haven’t replied, am having cookies trouble.Really, really love getting your comments, and really frustrated with my level of technological illiteracy. Please keep commenting and I’ll keep trying to fix the problem.

I’ve always viewed my writing career as shooting arrows into the universe and seeing what I can hit. Early on I shot quiverful after quiverful with no success, then gradually I started hitting some targets. Over the years the targets stopped moving and my aim grew better until one day, every celestial body disappeared. So, it’s back to shooting arrows … For those aspiring to the writing life, here’s what I mean by shooting arrows. These are some of the steps I’ve taken in the past month:

Approached publishers in China and Vietnam to do co-editions of the ‘So’ series and ‘Freewheelers’ series.

Contacted Australian publishers to see what they are are looking for.

Updated web site, blog, wiki, etc etc 

Experimented and wrote a picture book text. 

Applied for several writing and non-writing jobs. 

Submitted  a YA manuscript and the picture book text.

Became a Skype-er.

Attended writer support meetings and offered writing support to others. 

If I keep this up I know that eventually something will happen. In the first phase of my writing career I was shooting arrows for nearly 5 years before I hit something. I have no idea how long it will take this time. I just know I have to keep trying …

There’s a moment between creating a work, months, years after the worrying and working of it through, when you have to put it out there. And you wait. For me it’s a breath-holding time, a waiting for the executioner time, a time when limbo seems kind. At least in limbo you know where you stand, you haven’t quite made it and you haven’t quite not, but being the eternal optimist that you are, the very fact that it’s not a NOT, gives hope. 

And that’s where I stand.

Correction, crouch.

This week I sent a YA manuscript to a publisher.

This week I placed my head on the chopping block.

Now in my heart, deep in my reason, I know it won’t matter either way. Whether well-received or rejected I know I’ve given my all. Seen the illusion and wrestled it onto a page. So deep down inside, if anyone asked, I’d say I was satisfied with my efforts.  Not the greatest of lifetime achievement: Occupation ‘Smoke Wrestler’, but an achievement just the same.

This year the State Library of NSW ran a series of evenings on “Writing for Laughs” which I was fortunate to be involved in. As a children’s author I have written a comedy series for reluctant readers called the ‘So’ series with titles such as So Gross!, So Feral!, So Sick!, So Festy!, So Grotty! and So Stinky! (HarperCollins Publishers).  Writing this genre is unusual for a female author. So unusual , the publisher recommended that I did not put the name ‘Jeni’ on the cover. Thus, J.A. Mawter was born. Unfortunately, I didn’t remain genderless for long and the repercussions of this surprised me. For any female intending to write ‘out of gender’ when writing for laughs I can recommend these two steps. One:  elongate neck. Two: place neck on chopping block.

Faced with buyer and seller censorship, school bans, vitriolic reviews and shunned by the literary fraternity I decided it was time to reply. But not as a woman. As an academic writer, I went on to publish three books on Critical Thinking, Humour and Text for Ages 5 – 8 years; 8 – 10 years; and 10+ years (Macmillan Education). These books were designed to explain the complexities of a humorous text and to pave the way for critical thought. The tragedy is universal, it is often predictable and thus clichéd. Humour is not predictable and herein lays its value. Funny texts require complex thought processes using imagination, creativity, flexibility to deal with paradox, the ability to compare, make inferences, speculate or suspend disbelief. Writing and reading for laughs is not a passive process. Unlike tragedy which is enduring, the comedy relies on surprise. Whilst the tragic crosses cultures, ages, gender or social group, the funny text does not. It is culture specific and social grouping specific.

So how does one write for laughs? If you write for adults the process is straightforward. You are an adult writer, published by an adult, then read by an adult. If you write for children, you are an adult writer, published by an adult, bought by adults, but read by a child. This notion of ‘child’ needs to be broken down further. There are distinctive groupings in children’s writing. What makes a 3 – 5 year old laugh, is different to an 8 year old. A 12 year old differs again to a 16+ year old. It is imperative that the writer has knowledge of these differences and targets their language, situation or character accordingly. Slapstick and scatological humour are appreciated by younger audiences, whilst self-deprecatory humour appeals to teenagers.

It has been said that where we find vulnerability, we find humour. Characters are vulnerable when they have fears or flaws; a policeman scared of loud noises or an absent-minded professor. Characters in conflict are funny, as are those who are unusual or extreme. Often, a character is funny without trying to be funny. A character’s dialogue is an invaluable tool for those who write for laughs. Young readers love puns, taboo language, knock-knock jokes or inversions (naughty daddy). As children get older they appreciate ambiguities, exaggeration and word plays. Older still, and readers will laugh at understatement, sarcasm or plain talk (Mum, I believe you need a divorce). 

Situations can also be funny - when something doesn’t go the way we expect, or there is a twist in the ending. When the impossible becomes possible, when we switch roles, or oppose authority figures we find humour. Topical humour can be funny, as can absurd situations or parodies. Saying and doing the opposite, taboos, and human predicaments are funny - it is always funnier when the other person has the pimple on the end of their nose. Timing is of the essence. Each funny moment requires a set-up.  Which brings us to the ‘rule of three’. It goes something like this: set-up, set-up, punch-line. We see this mainly in joke telling, but we can also see this in the pacing of a funny story: conflict, conflict, resolution.

One final point to consider. For those interested in writing for laughs, the area you gravitate to depends on your need for gratification. Stand-ups need instant gratification. Television writers can cope with a delay. And for writers of books? Gratification can be a long time coming, possibly not experienced in your lifetime.