Layering Powerful Voice to Create Memorable Characters - A Margot Finke "Musing" from Harold Underdown's Online Archives

This article, Layering Powerful Voice to Create Memorable Characters, while written back in 2005, remains evergreen.

"...how do you give several assorted characters, plus your main POV, powerful voices? Think of an onion. I'm serious! There are layers of skin to peel before you get to the good stuff in the middle of that onion. Building your character's voice uses the same technique; only this time you layer from the inside out. And the layers need to come in snippets – a fact here, a whisper or an overheard phone conversation there. Please, no dumping large chunks of informational text. Focus on blending in, little by little, the many physical and emotional layers that reveal each character's voice. Memorable characters are steeped in complexity and detail. Their layers are many and varied. Begin the layering process on the first page."

And then Margot lists a dozen "how-to" suggestions, including

"Use comments from other characters to describe or praise or criticize your main POV character" 

and

"Allow your main character some weakness he can either outgrow or overcome as the story progresses. No one is perfect. Kids know this - they sure aren't. Your reader wants to root for a character they can identify with."

It's an excellent piece, and well-worth reading.

I found this at Harold Underdown's Writing, Illustrating, and Publishing Children's Books: The Purple Crayon website. It's packed with resources and great information.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Editor Harold Underdown Explains How To Use a Revision Grid

It's a powerful tool. You may have seen the legendary one created by J.K. Rowling for the entire Harry Potter series, on one piece of paper!

In this blog post over at the Highlights Foundation, Using a Revision Grid to Break a Story Down Into Elements, there are two videos with Harold walking us through, first, the revision grid concept, and second, how he used a customized grid to look at the first two chapters of Gail Carson Levine's Dave at Night.

A still-frame from the video where Harold walks us through what a Revision Grid is, and how it works.

The post even includes downloadable templates for creating your own Revision Grid for your story.

I'll add that making a revision grid works for picture book manuscripts as well—especially as a way for writers to track if there are enough different locations/visuals for an illustrator to explore with the 15 or 16 page turns.

The Highlights Foundation post is a generous teaser for their upcoming revision retreat (co-facilitated by Harold Underdown and Eileen Robinson), and is well-worth checking out. Read the full post and watch the videos here.

Illustrate and Write—and Revise—On!
Lee

Continuity of Subject: A Portfolio Checklist from Rosanne Kakos-Main courtesy of Harold Underdown's

Getting out of the Art File over at Harold Underdown's The Purple Crayon website has lots of great advice for illustrators.

Harold's amazing resource, Writing, Illustrating, and Publishing Children's Books: The Purple Crayon website

What struck me most was the list of tips from designer Rosanne Kakos-Main for illustrators to consider when putting together their portfolios, that included:

Continuity of Subject: Can you illustrate the same subject from different points of view, in different situations, showing different feelings?

It's a point well-worth considering, because it can prove to an editor and art director that you're ready to handle a project where we visually follow the same character in different circumstances.

Read the full article here.

Thanks, Rosanne and Harold!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Tips for Illustrators from Rosanne Kakos-Main, courtesy of Harold Underdown

In Harold's article, Getting Out of the Art File, designer Rosanne Kakos-Main offered seven tips for illustrators to consider when putting together their portfolio.

Here are three:

Composition: interesting points of view, above, below, foreshortening, distortions, what is in the foreground and background. Consider what you do when you have your camera in hand, how you choose the contents, edges, and positioning of what enters the frame, how different lenses affect how much is included.

Subject Matter: What is (are) your subject(s) doing? Who are they? Do they have unusual expressions or clothing? Are they in an unusual predicament? Do they evoke an emotion? Are they up close or far away?

Lighting: Where is your light source? Dramatic lighting can often catch the eye... a candle lighting a dark room, the late afternoon sun casting huge shadow

Though it's not mentioned in Harold's article, Brian Selznick's The Marvels offers many examples of these three tips... often in a single image, like here:

The full article is worth checking out. Okay, one more tip that was really good:

Continuity of Subject: Can you illustrate the same subject from different points of view, in different situations, showing different feelings?

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee