SCBWI LA faculty interview: Gail Carson Levine

There's something so magical about Gail Carson Levine's stories. Her first, Ella Enchanted, reimagined Cinderella; in it, Ella is cursed to be obedient--an absolutely genius touch. That book won a Newbery Honor Book in 1998, and eventually became a movie starring Anne Hathaway.

You could call Gail Carson Levine the queen of fairy and princess stories. Later works include Fairest, a beautiful twist on Snow White, as well as several works in the Disney Fairies series. 

But she often ventures beyond the world of fairies and princesses. Her seventeen books for children (see her full list at LibraryThing) include the historical Dave at Night, set in an orphanage for Jewish boys in Harlem. The Wish is a contemporary story about popularity in the eighth grade. She's  written a picture book, Betsy Who Cried Wolf. And then there's one of my favorite writing guides: Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly.

She's prolific, too. Last week, her third novel from the Disney Fairies series came out. It's called Fairies and the Quest for Never Land, and was illustrated by David Christiana. And this fall, Betsy Red Hoodie will be published by HarperCollins.

Gail is one of the rare writers who can do it all, which is why we're especially lucky she'll be keynote speaker at the conference. In an interview on Bookbrowse.com, she gave some great advice to aspiring writers: 

Save everything you write.

I think kids abandon stories all the time. They start stories and get frustrated or get a different, better idea. I think that it is more worthwhile to stick with a story and revise it and try to finish it than abandon ship. Revisions, for any writer, are the name of the game.

I want to write a book. In fact, that's kind of getting high on my list of things I want to do-- I want to write a writing book for kids.

I asked Gail a few questions to further whet our appetite for her keynote:


It took you nine years to get published and you faced rejection along the way. I read that you sometimes share a bit of your worst rejection letter with kids you visit. Could you share a bit with us?

Paraphrasing, the letter said that the manuscripts I’d submitted to this editor – all picture books at that point – lacked strong plots, developed characters, emotional resonance, and that a child wouldn’t be engaged enough to sit through a reading! Those are the highlights. The editor misspelled the title of my submission in the final paragraph.

It hurt, but now the letter is one of my most prized possessions.

What are some of the best writing lessons you’ve learned over the years?

When something is wrong I can’t paper over it. I have to fix, even if that means rewriting 300 pages. That every book is a new problem. I learn as I go along, but the mastery I thought I’d gained on the last book may do me no good at all on the next one.

Do you have a favorite character you’ve created? How did you create him or her?

Solly in Dave at Night, who is based on my friend Nedda, who’s since died. I wanted a salt-of-the-earth character, a mensch, and she provided the model.

Your stories have a timeless quality to them—even when you’re writing in a contemporary setting. How do you achieve that? Are there pitfalls to avoid?

Alas, there are telephone conversations in The Wish that probably wouldn’t happen in that way today. In general I stick to standard English and hope my word choices will take a while to get dated.

You have so much good advice on your blog. Does it help you to write it? Or are you just an insanely generous soul?

Depending on the question I’m answering, writing the blog can be very helpful. I also like reading the comments, and some of the questions have been great, and I’ve heard from people outside the states, which is fun. And I like to write about writing. And my publisher wanted me to do some social networking. And I’m insanely generous.

You’ve written one book with great advice in it for writers. Are you planning to turn your blog into another?

Yes. There will be a Writing Magic 2 based on the blog, and who knows, maybe there will be a 3.

For more from Gail Carson Levine, stop by her outstanding writing blog. Here are a couple of entries I particularly enjoyed:

Everything mattering
Getting funny
Dialogue and plot

You can also read another interview with Gail on the HarperCollins site.

Register here for the summer conference in Los Angeles.

More wisdom from Gail Carson Levine

I just love her blog. Check out the latest:

Two posts ago Kim asked: One question: Do you find it difficult to make everything matter in a story, if you know what I mean? It seems like there's a lot of pressure on a writer to make everything in a story contribute to the story's progression through plot, character, etc.

There is more to Kim’s question below, but I'll talk about this part first. I don’t think every sentence in a story has to pay its dues toward plot or character or setting. Most should, but not all.

For example, you’re introducing a new character who is going to play a minor but noticeable role and is important enough to deserve a name and a description. When you describe him, he needs to fit the story’s environment. If you’re writing a Victorian novel, for example, you wouldn’t give him a Mohawk. Beyond that, feel free. If you want him to resemble your Uncle Bobby, go ahead.

If you’re writing something funny and your reader is laughing her head off, she won’t mind that you’ve wandered a city block from your plot.

When your story problem is established and your reader is worried for the main character, you can take a little time to embroider and have fun. Chances are, you’ll charm your reader. In Ella Enchanted, Ella’s visit with the elves isn’t strictly necessary, but she’s in so much trouble that I could get away with giving her and the reader a break - and for my own pleasure, I could imagine elf society.

We are writers not merely to slave and suffer. Occasionally, we are allowed to enjoy ourselves.

Yes, most of what you write should serve plot or character or setting or mood, and a lot of it should serve more than one. But there are acres of leeway in there. For example, in the mystery that I’m revising one of the main characters is a dragon. Aside from the Komodo dragon in Indonesia and in zoos, I suppose, there are no dragons in real life, but there are many in fiction, and I was free to make up my own. I got to decide how big it is, how hot its fire, what its wings look like, how many teeth it has, even the shape of the teeth. I won't say what I did, but I could have gone any of dozens of ways. This is the freedom within the rigors of plot and character and so on.

I write plot-driven books, so I always have an eye on plot. I define my characters based on the role I have in mind for them. When they talk I want them to say things that will subtly move the plot along. But I also want them to sound like themselves, in the fashion that I, using my authorial free will and glee, make them sound.

Read the rest.

Wisdom from Gail Carson Levine

My happiest writing moments are when I’m writing something funny. I’m happy reading, too, when what I’m reading is funny, although maybe not happiest. I adore a good book in all its aspects.

Writing funny means keeping an eye out for opportunities. We writers make our characters miserable, and one of misery’s faces is humor. After our mother died, my sister and I flew to Florida to sell Mom’s condominium. We rented a car, and I backed into a police car. That was pretty funny.

So was the time I smashed up a coworker’s brand-new car in the office parking lot on my first day on the job. (And confessed, naturally.)

One of my earliest dates, when I was about fifteen, was with a boy who stood about six foot three. I’ve never made it to five feet. We went to a museum, and afterward, on Fifth Avenue in New York City, he held my hand, which I had to reach up to grasp. For blocks, people pointed and laughed. I didn’t laugh along, but we were funny.

When I was even younger I loved the verse about Ooey Gooey. I used to repeat it to myself over and over with a mixture of horror and delight. For those of you who missed the sad saga, it’s this:

Ooey Gooey was a worm,
a mighty worm was he.
Crawled out on the railroad track,
the train he did not see.
Ooey gooey!

Death at its silliest.

Read more
...

Gail Carson Levine on POV

She has an excellent post on the topic, going into some detail about her struggles with finding the right POV in Fairest.

I have a chapter about point of view (POV) in Writing Magic. I define it there, but, briefly, the two main POVs are first person and third. In first person, the narrator is a character in the story, usually but not always the main character, and tells the story as I. In third person, the narrator is outside the story and all the character pronouns are he and she. A third-person narrator can be omniscient (all knowing) and can reveal scenes in which the main character is not present; or the third-person narrator can stick to the main character and show only scenes he’s in. It’s also possible to write from a second-person POV (you) or first-person plural POV (we), but these are rare.

In some of my books POV was the major hurdle. I was a long time getting it right in Ever, Fairest, and the final Disney Fairies book, Fairies and the Quest for Never Land, which will be out next June.

Fairest is my best example of POV misery. It’s a retelling of Snow White. Since Snow White bites into a poison apple and is in a coma for a big chunk of the story, I thought I couldn’t tell it from her POV. Initially, I decided to tell it in first person from the POV of a gnome. (The gnomes stand in for the dwarfs in the original fairy tale.) I decided a gnome named zhamM would be madly in love with the Snow White character, Aza. His love would be doomed, however, because he’s a gnome and she’s a human. It would be a tragedy modeled on Cyrano de Bergerac. I wrote 300 pages from zhamM’s POV, while my critique buddy kept scratching her head and telling me something was wrong. Finally I had to admit my choice had been a mistake.

Read the rest.

Gail Carson Levine on unpredictability

Gail Carson Levine reimagines classic stories and still manages to surprise readers. How does she do it? Her thoughts:

What's next?

Erin Edwards asked me to expand on this from my post about revising: "Am I leading the reader along properly so that what happens is neither predictable nor too far fetched to believe?" Erin added, "I think this takes real skill and is ultimately what makes a book satisfying."

Predictability happens to be timely for me right now. I just (ten minutes ago) emailed my mystery novel to my editor, who hasn’t seen a word of it. So I’m wondering if my villain is going to be instantly obvious.

Of course I want his or her identity to be a surprise, but I’m willing to put up with other writers’ predictability in some cases. I’m a great fan of the Adrian Monk TV series, for example, although sometimes I can spot the villain as soon as I lay eyes on him, before the plot has even been laid out. I’m okay with that because I’m there for the laughs and the poignancy of Monk’s sad life.

Readers of my fiction come to it expecting an ending that won’t leave them feeling hopeless. I may write a really sad book one day, and if I do, some people will be disappointed and even angry at me. We go to some books, especially series books, craving predictability. We want to enjoy again what pleased us before. There’s some of that pleasure in rereading books we love.

For tellers of old tales, like me, the story’s ending is known; what’s unknown is how the ending is achieved.

There's more; read the whole thing.