Besty Red Hoodie Blog Event Day Four - A Writing Contest from Gail Carson Levine

I have a treat for all you writers out there today. Gail Carson Levine, who has written an excellent book about writing for children called Writing Magic, has kindly created a little writing exercise contest for you. This is her challenge:

When I talk to children about “Little Red Riding Hood,” I suggest they picture themselves in the place of Little Red.  Then I ask if they would listen to the wolf and leave the path.  They all say they wouldn’t.  I challenge them.  “What if the wolf was as clever as the smartest person you know?  Might he trick you into doing what he wants?”  They start weighing the possibilities.  I go on.  “What if the grandmother was your real grandma?  Would she let herself and you be eaten?”

This happens to be an excellent exercise in character development for writers of any age or experience, to replace fairy tale characters with real ones.  The real people by their natures force old stories to change and become more complex.  After all, even in a story you can’t make your brilliant best friend say something stupid or your stubborn cousin suddenly turn compliant.

The most important task in expanding fairy tales is to slow the action way down.  Imagine that the heroine just flung a cloak of invisibility around her shoulders.  What does the cloak feel like?  What’s the fabric?  Is there a label?  Wait!  Back up!  Can she even see the label, or does the cloak vanish the moment it’s touched?  What are her sensations as it envelops her?  Does invisibility happen instantly or creep up?  Can she continue to see herself even though others can’t?  And so on.

So here’s the challenge: In “Little Red Riding Hood,” Little Red meets a talking wolf.  Talking animals appear in many fairy tales, and they’re a source of wonder that you’re about to explore.  You’re Little Red approached by the wolf, who wants to delay her so he (or she) can get to Grandma’s first.  Write his opening line.  You can continue and write the whole scene, a short story, a novel.  Go for it.  But for the contest, his first statement is all that counts.

Please email your response to this challenge to me at editor@lookingglassreview.com. Five of you will be chosen to receive autographed copes of Writing Magic and Betsy Red Hoodie.

Besty Red Hoodie Blog Event Day Three - An interview with Gail Carson Levine

For this third day in the Betsy Red Hoodie blog event I have an interview with Gail Carson Levine. 

Marya: The story of Little Red Riding Hood has been told dozens of times in dozens of different ways. Why did you decide to tell this story? 

Gail: I was looking for another story for Betsy the shepherd girl and Zimmo the shepherd wolf.  Their first book, Betsy Who Cried Wolf! was based on The Boy Who Cried Wolf, so I thought the second should also have folklore roots.  There’s tension in the original tale of Little Red Riding Hood, which is always a plus, and the story features three distinct characters, two separated by many years, and one by species.  And then I knew I’d bring in the sheep for a fourth contrast and for the mayhem they add to every moment.

 

Marya: Most of the versions of this story that I have read have been quite grim. In your tale, no one is eaten or is cut open with an ax. What made you decide to make this story an altogether happier tale? 

Gail: I knew Little Red Riding Hood when I was a child, and I was glad that the hunter pulled Little Red and her grandmother out of the wolf’s belly, but I wasn’t particularly troubled by their descent down his throat.  My parents never kept me from reading the story; they may even have read it to me themselves with an assurance that it was ‘just a story.’ Seems to me parents are more vigilant today, and I may have been especially hard to rattle.  Nowadays, told in all its gory detail, the story would succeed only as parody, so I took a softer approach, easier on the stomachs of all concerned!

Marya: One of the things that I liked in the book was the role the sheep play in it. They are wonderfully chatty and silly. Were they your creation?
Gail: In this book, yes, but not in Betsy Who Cried Wolf.  In that book, I didn’t expect the speech bubbles, but Scott Nash made them up, and I filled them in, a felicitous collaboration.  In Betsy Red Hoodie, I knew what to expect, so I wrote sheep speech from the get-go, and Scott obligingly made room for them.

Marya: This book is presented in a very unique way with full page illustrations, multiple panel spreads, and pages that look much like a cell in a comic book strip. How did this format come about?
Gail: All the credit goes to illustrator Scott Nash.  Going back to the first book again, I didn’t anticipate the look or expect either a contemporary setting or sheep and wolves who stand on two legs.  I was astonished!  But I loved the innovations.  Scott has outdone himself in Betsy Red Hoodie by dressing Zimmo so nattily and giving the sheep stout shoes, hats, backpacks, and in the case of one sheep, a guitar.

Marya: You clearly have a fondness for fairy tales. Where did this fondness come from?
Gail: As a child I adored fairy tales.  I loved the exoticism - the seven-league boots, the maidens and princes becoming toads, the fairies, the magic wands, the genies in old lamps (I could go on and on), the nonstop action, and, I think without realizing, the deep themes - love, danger, transformation, courage, and much more.  Today I’m still drawn to the magic and the deep themes.  I love to stretch the tales out, add detail, and tell myself a story.

Marya: You have written a book called Writing Magic for people who are interested in writing for young readers. Tell us a little about the book. Do you enjoy helping people explore the world of writing for children?
Gail: I love to think, write, talk, dream about writing. Writing Magic can be used by adults to write for children or by adults to write for adults, but its target audience is children who’ve been bitten by the writing bug.  I’ve been volunteering locally for about twelve years, teaching creative writing to kids ten and up.  After six years I decided to put what I’d learned in teaching into a book that is full of the exercises I’d developed.  Writing is both hard and marvelous, the best road to self-knowledge I know of.  I want to hold the reader’s hand and set off together down the uneven, bumpy, exhilarating writing road.

Thank you so much Gail for this wonderful interview. 

Betsy Red Hoodie Blog Event Day Two - A profile of Gail Carson Levine

Gail Carson Levine is convinced she’s been touched by a fairy’s wand or has roamed accidentally into a fairy tale.  After working as a mid-level bureaucrat in New York State government for twenty-seven years, Levine’s first children’s book, Ella Enchanted, won a Newbery honor in 1998 and became a major motion picture in 2004.

The magic continues.  Levine now has eighteen books under her belt.  They’ve been published globally and translated into thirty-five languages.  She’s won reader choice awards - the most gratifying for a kids’ book writer because children do the choosing - in six states.  Her novels have been named annual Best Books by School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Times, and the American Library Association.  Levine’s historical novel, Dave at Night, was selected by the New York Public Library as among the Best Children’s Books of the 20^th Century.  Her “Snow White” fairy tale, Fairest, was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Los Angeles Times Favorite Book of the Year, and a Boston Globe Top 5 Young Adult Novels in New England.  The nonfiction Writing Magic was named a Bank Street College Children’s Book of the Year.  The excellence of Levine’s prose has been hailed with starred reviews in Booklist, School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, and Kirkus.  Her books’ popularity shows on the bestseller lists: New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Indie Bound, Amazon, and Book Sense.

Levine’s passion for writing has extended into teaching writing to children and young adults.  Every summer she teaches a free fiction-and-poetry writing workshop for kids ten and up in cooperation with her local public library.  Children return year after year, and Levine is always delighted at their growth as writers.  She’s expanded her teaching range with her blog and by visiting schools across the country and around the world; she has spoken to school children in Canada, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, Bangkok, Germany, and Italy.

Levine grew up in New York City.  Today, she and her husband David Levine and their Airedale Baxter live in a 220-year-old farmhouse in New York's Hudson Valley.  Over the living-room fireplace hangs a gargoyle-like carved wooden lion’s head from an early Barnum and Bailey circus wagon.  The lion may be the keeper of the enchantment.


To find out more about Gail please visit her blog and her website.