But as writers, we sometimes forget about our reader because we get so caught up in what amuses us. As 2012 is the National Year of Reading, maybe it’s worth spending a moment to consider our readers.

When I started writing the Hazard River series, I had two sons aged eight and ten, so my readers were never far from my mind or my computer. Their adventures on the Noosa River inspired the stories. The boys were also my chief critics. I was lucky to have in-house readers ready and willing to share their opinions. The Hazard River series was very much written for them. I wrote it to appeal to their sense of adventure and sense of humour, with action-packed chapters that I hoped would keep them turning the pages. But when I went off on tangents that I thought were jolly clever, but left them bored, my sons let me know.

Keeping the reader in mind helps to keep a story on track.

I find having one specific reader in my mind is much more helpful than a whole pile of faceless readers. You know exactly what your reader is interested in, what language is appropriate for him or her and what style will be appealing. Even if you want your story read by a million people, it’s very difficult to write with all of them in mind – will they like my characters, will they like my character’s sense of humour, do they like adventure, or do they prefer science fiction? If you try to write a story for everyone – you’ll probably end up with something that’s contrived and disjointed. If you write a story with one reader in mind, you are more likely to end up with something that is genuine and interesting. And hopefully everyone will love it as a result!

Happy writing.

Julie

The series chronicles the adventures of four children, Jack Wilde – the narrator, his brother Ben – the ‘Stink Collector’, their neighbour Lachlan Master – the ‘Master of Disaster’ and ‘Professor Bigbrains’, Mimi Fairweather, who lives on a yacht in Hazard River. The gang comes up against rogue miners, smugglers and developers while holidaying at Hazard River. In between tracking down the baddies, the kids fall into quicksand, get stranded on boats, find messages, discover super-cool secret bases and abandoned boats. They play pranks on each other, get lost, get found and get into a whole lot of trouble.

There are now six books in the series – Shark Frenzy, Snake Surprise, Bat Attack, Tiger Terror, Blood Money and Toads’ Revenge – all set on Hazard River. A map at the start of each story gives readers a clear idea of where everything is. The map is also useful for me to keep things consistent. It’s amazing how easy it is to get places and names mixed up, when you are writing, if you try to keep it all in your head.

It’s also good to know everything you can about your setting. The more you know, the more convincing your story will be. If you set your story on a river, you need to decide if it’s narrow and brown or wide and blue. Is it in Queensland or Victoria, the Amazon or the Rockies? Is the kind of place where you might see a red-belly black snake (found on the east coast of Australia) or are you more likely to see a diamondback rattlesnake (found in the desert of the USA)? Will there be crocodiles or funnel webs, tigers or lions? They all live in different parts of the world and if you are writing something that is realistic (not fantasy) you might need to do some research to find out what belongs in your setting.

Because my setting is based on a real place, I have a clear idea what everything looks like and what normally happens there. It doesn’t mean I have to stick to the truth – that wouldn’t make a very good adventure series. But it gives me a place to start and that makes my job as a writer a whole lot easier.

Try these exercises:

1. The Hazard River series was inspired by a family holiday on the Noosa River. Try writing your own story about a family holiday that went wrong.

2. Blood Money came from a story that I read in the newspaper. Two boys found a bag containing $100,000 when they were fishing in a quiet creek in New South Wales. Try writing the events of Blood Money as a news story. The most important information goes at the beginning of the story. You need to include who, what, where, when and how.

3. Toads’ Revenge (like all of the Hazards River stories) is told from Jack Wilde’s point of view. Try writing one of the chapters from Lachlan Master’s point of view.

See also http://writingclassesforkids.com/competitions-2/
You can read teachers’ notes for the books at http://www.hazardriver.com/Teachers__Notes.html

Here’s an example: It’s Halloween and you and your best friend go out trick or treating. You visit 150 houses in your neighbourhood and get so many sweets you can hardly carry them. Then your friend decides you should visit one last house – the Brunson’s house. That’s the one that no one ever goes to, because everyone knows it’s haunted. Your friend talks you in to going, even though you know it’s a bad idea. This is the moment of change. Your Halloween has been pretty much what you expected until you decide to visit the spooky house at the end of the street. This is a good place to begin the story, rather than at the beginning of the night, when nothing is going on.

Once you have worked out where to begin the story, you need to decide how to start. Do you begin with a question, a statement or dialogue? I find the best idea is to try them all out.

Here are some options for starting the Halloween story:

1. Have you ever had the feeling that something was a bad idea, even before you did it?
2.  It might not be the bravest thing to admit, but I have to say it. Halloween freaks me out.
3. ‘One last house to trick or treat,’ my best friend Bertie said, stuffing a blue giant python into his mouth. ‘We’re going to the Brunson’s place.’

I normally go back to my first line (and the first paragraph) after I have finished the whole story and spend a lot of time rewriting it to make sure it conveys something about the rest of the story and gets the reader interested right from the beginning.

Here are some first lines from my books.

I made a deal with sharks. Shark Frenzy 

It should have been the best New Year’s Eve ever. Bat Attack

It was probably my mother’s screaming that frightened the cat. Tiger Terror

Take particular notice of how your favourite stories start. What do you find out in the first line, the first paragraph and the first chapter? Try using other people’s  techniques in your work. And don’t worry if your first line is perfect the first time. Leave it and go back to it later, by then you might have worked out the perfect way to start your story.

Good luck!

I know I spent a lot of time in the Ashgrove water  as a girl – knee deep in Ithaca Creek to be precise, trying to catch guppies. I wasn’t into books much at the time, I was into wildlife and wildlife magazines – hoping to start a wildlife sanctuary of my own one day.

It didn’t ever happen. I became a news reporter and eventually ended up writing the Hazard River series for kids who like adventure and wildlife.

I wish you could just become an author by drinking the right water – but sadly it’s not the case. But there are other things that will you become an author, if that’s your dream. Start with reading (a lot) and writing (lots and lots and lots). Keep your ears and eyes open for good ideas for stories and maybe one day we’ll all be reading your books.

Good luck,

Julie

Christine Bongers, Michael Bauer, Josie Montano, Narelle Oliver, John Danalis and Julie Fison at the Mater Dei Writers’ Festival

The story inspired one of my recent stories in the Hazard River series – Blood Money. In my story the Hazard River kids find a bag of money in the mangroves. Jack and Lachlan want to keep it, Mimi wants to give it to the police and Ben thinks it’s cursed.  While the gang decides what to do with it, lots of strange things happen – as if the money is bringing the children bad luck.

I have always wondered what happened to the two boys in the real Money Bag story. What happened after they handed the money to the police? Did anyone claim it? Did they get to keep any? This week – I finally found out!

I was invited to talk about diary writing by Green Cross Australia, which organises a great initiative for kids, called the Green Lane Diary.  Students are asked to keep a diary about what they do each day to help the environment. The event was held at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival and was a great chance to talk to kids about the planet – but a bonus for me was sharing the podium with a guy who knew the kids in my journal story! And the exciting news is: the boys waited six months and no one claimed the $100,000 – so they got to keep it! They spent it on a trip to Germany to compete in the Under 19 Frisbee championships.  Now, that’s a story you couldn’t make up.

It pays to pick up rubbish in your local creek!

If you want to know more about the Green Lane Diary see  www.greenlanediary.org

See a review of Blood Money at ReadPlus 

Find out more about the Hazard River series at www.hazardriver.com

I have four main characters in the Hazard River series:

1. Jack Wilde – the narrator of the story. He thinks he is the hero and comes up with the best ideas, but he’s actually a bit nervous in dangerous situations and not as brave as he thinks.

2. Ben Wilde – Jack’s little brother. Jack calls him the Stink Collector because he collects strange things. He adds humour to the story because he does silly things.

3. Lachlan Master – Jack’s friend. He’s spent many holidays at Hazard River and is a bit of a know-it-all, but he actually gets the kids into lots of trouble. Jack calls him the Master of Disaster.

4. Mimi Fairweather – another friend. Mimi has sailed around the world and lives with her family on a yacht. She’s very clever and knows a lot about the environment, so Jack calls her Professor Bigbrains.

Each character in the story has different strengths and weaknesses, and so they have different jobs to do in the story. In an adventure story, something often goes wrong at the very beginning, then the characters face more obstacles before they finally work out how to get themselves out of trouble.

Each of your characters will react differently when faced with a problem. Write down your characters and beside each one write a list of their strengths and weaknesses. Bring these characteristics into your story. But don’t just tell the reader their characteristics – show them.

Here’s an example from Shark Frenzy:

Panic rises inside me like a battalion of hairy caterpillars marching through my chest. I close my eyes. A jumble of sharks, stingrays and giant squid swim through my mind. They try to stop me getting into the water. They fill me with fear. But I must save Ben. I fight them off. I dive into the river.

I haven’t said that Jack is nervous, but we know he is by the way he reacts to danger. Eventually he jumps in the water to save his brother, so we know he’s not a coward, he’s just scared.

Good luck with your characters and happy writing.

Julie

Jack Wilde, his brother Ben, and his friends Mimi and Lachlan find themselves in a freaky other world in Toads’ Revenge, when they accidently shoot themselves into the future. The kids face their most gruesome adversaries yet – giant mutant cane toads. How will they overcome them and more importantly, how will they get home again?

Here’s a taste of the action:

‘Eenie, meenie, minie, mo . . .’ Ben says, pointing at the buttons as he chants the rhyme.
‘This one looks good,’ he says. He makes a random selection and pulls down a lever for good measure.
The lights in the cinema go down and a nice woman, like a flight attendant, comes on the screen. She starts rattling off some safety instructions. It’s the usual stuff about seatbelts and emergencies. Just why you’d need that stuff to watch a movie is anyone’s guess.
I completely ignore the seatbelt warning. I’m hardly listening at all, until the screen goes black. I wait for the movie to start, wondering what will come up.
That’s when a countdown begins.
‘Ten…nine…eight…’ a serious voice says.
‘We have to get out!’ Mimi shouts, jumping out of her chair. She runs for the exit, banging at the control panel. The door doesn’t budge. The countdown continues.
‘Relax,’ Lachlan says.
But I’m not relaxed. I’m getting nervous. I wish I hadn’t followed the Master of Disaster on another dumb mission.
I jump out of my chair and help Mimi, mindlessly pushing buttons.
The countdown goes on. ‘ Three . . . two . . . one.’
The room starts spinning. Slowly at first, then faster. So fast that I’m hurled against a bare metal wall. Mimi is flung against the door beside me. Lachlan is ripped from his chair. I look around and find Ben. He’s spread-eagled against the television screen. His face is frozen in terror.
We’re all trapped like flies on a piece of honey toast.
‘Enjoy your flight,’ the countdown voice says.
The room is spinning so fast that I can’t
see a thing. It’s all a blur. There’s a flash of white light, a nasty pain between my eyes, then my mind goes blank. (Chapter 1 Toads’ Revenge)

In Blood Money, Jack Wilde thinks he’s made the big time when Ben discovers a bag full of money. Jack and Lachlan want to spend it, but Ben thinks it’s cursed and Mimi wants to take it to the police. The gang decides on some detective work to find out where the money has come from. But that’s when they really get into trouble!

Here’s the point where things start to wrong in Blood Money:

‘ Think, Ben,’ I say. ‘ What were you doing when you first saw the bag?’
Ben scratches his head. He doesn’t say anything. I hope that is because he’s thinking. But he might just be deciding if green thongs are better than red ones. Who knows?
‘I was hanging from the rope swing,’ he says. ‘That’s when I saw the bag.’
Hooray! He thinks!
‘The rope swing!’ I shout, hugging my brother. ‘That’s near here.’
I run through the mangroves until we reach a clearing. A big gum tree stands in the middle. A rope dangles from one of the branches. Dad tied it up there at the start of the holidays. I haven’t used it much, but Ben often comes here. It’s some kind of kangaroo graveyard. Ben likes to look for kangaroo bones. What can I say? It’s just something Stink Collectors do.
I run to the swing and grab hold. I wrap my legs around the rope and swing towards the mangroves. I see something big and black.
‘There!’ I shout. ‘The bag! It’s right behind you, Ben.’
A sports bag is hanging by one handle. It’s on a low branch of a mangrove tree. The bag is bulging. It must be packed with money. I let go of the rope and fly through the air towards the mangroves.
‘Weee!’ I shout. ‘Money does grow on trees!’ (Chapter 2 Blood Money)

Blood Money is just a made up story, but it was inspired by a true one – a few years ago two brothers were fishing in a quiet creek in NSW and they found a plastic bag full of money – $100,000 in cash! The boys thought long and hard about what to do with it, but eventually handed it in to the police.

The stories are published by Ford Street Publishing and the covers are done by Marc McBride.

Check out my website for more details or to buy a copy of the new books: www.hazardriver.com/Shop.html

Visit Speakers Ink if you would like me to visit your school or festival. And read a review at ReadPlus 

Happy reading!
Julie

Writing fiction works the other way round – you need to use words to describe the pictures in your head. Good description helps to draw in your readers and helps to make the story more exciting.

You might find these suggestions useful, the next time you write a story.

1. Use all of your senses when you describe something in your story.

Mostly, we rely on our sight. But other senses help to build up a complete picture of what is going on. Draw in your readers by telling them what you can see, hear, smell, taste, touch and how it makes you feel.

In my book, Blood Money, I describe what I can hear and see:

I’m thinking of money, not dangerous animals. That’s why I put my foot in the long grass without thinking at all. There’s a rustle just in front of my foot. I hear it before I see it. I scramble backwards. A long black body slithers out of the grass. It’s right in front of me. A tongue flickers. Then there’s a flash of red. ‘SNAKE!’ I scream. ‘Red-belly black snake!’(P.24 Blood Money)

2. Make your description as specific as possible.

There are lots of adjectives that sound cool to use, but they don’t always add  meaning to your story. Your house might be in “chaos”, but does that mean there are a few clothes scattered on your bedroom floor or does it mean aliens have invaded and set up camp in your kitchen? Make sure you don’t leave the reader to guess what you might mean.

How about a man with a “creepy face”? What is it about his face that scares you?

Here’s how I described something scary in Snake Surprise:

An ugly thing with a human body, ears like a rabbit and a face so grotesque it would make gladiators wet their pants, leaps off the roof of the houseboat. (P.19 Snake Surprise)

3. Use details that are relevant to the story.

That means the detail has to be useful to readers. You might not need to tell the readers that you have blue eyes, but if you have purple eyes and people with purple eyes have supersonic vision, then eye colour is a relevant detail. Make sure all the relevant details come out early in the story. Don’t surprise the reader in the climax with your supersonic vision. The reader will feel cheated. And be consistent. If your best friend has a broken leg at the beginning of the story, he won’t be playing rugby at the end of the story.

This is an example of relevant detail at the beginning of Shark Frenzy:

I made a deal with sharks. I don’t swim near them and they don’t play cricket. It may be a little unfair. I can swim, whereas they haven’t got a hope of hitting a six. (P.1 Shark Frenzy)

4. Make sure your description is part of the action.

Good detail advances the story. It doesn’t slow it down. In this scene from Tiger Terror, the description is part of the action.

Something wet hits me in the face. Cold, slimy fingers grab at my neck. I can feel them, even through the balaclava. Sharp talons scratch at my cheeks. I fight to get free. But I get more tangled. I gasp for breath. I’m going to be choked to death. (P.51 Tiger Terror)

TRY: Describe what’s going on in this picture – using all of your senses, and make sure the description is part of the action. 

Good luck.

Julie xx

Paul Collins with students from Springfield College

My advice to younger writers is that it doesn’t pay to tell the publisher your age (unless the magazine specifically wants work from younger readers). If your work looks professional, then your age won’t matter. Catherine McMullen was ten years old when she sold a story to the UK science fiction magazine Interzone, and has since sold stories to anthologies such as Spinouts. If you have sold stories already, you should mention this in your covering letter.

Remember that a rejection letter does not necessarily reflect on the quality of your work. It might just be that your article/story does not fit in with the publisher’s current requirements. A golden rule is to never let an unsold piece of work sit in your home for more than twenty-four hours. Keep sending it out until you have exhausted all avenues. Never throw a manuscript out. I have had novels accepted that had been rejected by the same publisher a decade before. Editors change, as do times. Indeed, as you become a more experienced writer, you can always go back to those ‘bottom drawer’ stories and re-work them.

Most publishers prefer a covering letter. The following is a good example. Under no circumstances do you tell the magazine editor how good your story is, or discuss its many merits. The editor will have his/her own opinion and will not welcome yours!

The following is how you lay out your manuscript. Most publishers do not require you to put in indents at the beginning of paragraphs, because when they format your file, they will have to take them out. Make sure that you have no fancy fonts or illustrations. Keep it simple! This means no illustrations such as butterflies in the margins. Publishers only have to delete them.

Word count: 2300 words

Paul Collins
PO Box 1339
Collingwood
Vic 3066
Australia

The Thing that went ‘Blerckh!’
by
Paul Collins

‘Blerckh!’

‘That was truly gross,’ I said to my best friend, Daniel Barnes – Barnesy to me.

‘It wasn’t me,’ he said, ‘but I wish it was.’ Barnesy looked around. No one was there.

‘Ace!’ I laughed and pointed down at his foot. The fattest, pukiest glob of bubble gum was stuck to his foot. It was so gross it had anchor lines stretching back to the main wad stuck on the footpath.

Barnesy lifted his foot and shook it. The bubble gum wouldn’t let go.

I cacked myself laughing. ‘It’s caught you, Barnesy – now some big fat spider’s gonna come and take you away!’

Barnesy frowned. ‘Seriously, Fletchard. You’re so loserish.’ He tugged so hard his shoe came off.

That threw me right off. ‘Let me tell you, Barnesy,’ I gasped, ‘you look so funny.’ I sat down on the footpath, tears of laughter screaming from my eyes.

Barnesy gave me a filthy look. He bent down to pick up his shoe. He pulled with two hands. He steadied his feet and hauled with all his strength.

Nothing. The shoe was wedged there.

Barnesy jumped back.

Blerckh!

‘What’d it do, bite you?’ I howled.

‘Shuddup, Fletchard.’ Barnesy glared at me. ‘It just went “Blerckh!” again.’

I swallowed hard. My stomach was aching too much. I had to stop laughing. Cars were slowing down looking at the idiot on the footpath who was losing it with tears. I pushed myself up, my whole body shaking with laughter.

‘It just burped?’ I repeated slowly, hardly daring to breathe.

Barnesy checked me out. He was about to lose it.

‘Serious? It burped?’

Barnesy let go of his shoe. It snapped back to the footpath. ‘It’s stuck,’ he said. ‘The gooey stuff’s got it and won’t let it go.’

‘Weird,’ I said. I could have laughed my head off. After all, it wasn’t my shoe that was glued to the footpath. Instead, I shook my head in sympathy. What are friends for?

‘I can’t walk home with only one shoe,’ Barnesy said seriously.

‘You could take the other one off and leave it,’ I suggested.

‘That’s really dumb,’ Barnesy said. ‘I’d rather have one shoe than none.’

‘But one shoe’s no good to you,’ I pointed out.

‘The gunk’s not going to have my other shoe,’ Barnesy said firmly. ‘No way.’

(You will note the double spacing between sentences (you can use 1.5 spacing). This is so that editors have space to mark in corrections etc. Also, take notice of the border around the manuscript. Do not print both sides of the paper, and make sure you number each page and have a title on each page. This is in case the pages get loose or rearranged. Do not clip or staple your manuscript.)
What makes a good story?

Basically, most stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. If you are writing a fiction story for a magazine that publishes 2000+ word stories, your manuscript will have about nine pages.

During the course of these pages, you should have drama (perhaps mystery), conflict (obstacles to overcome, dilemma), humour (if possible), a focus, as in ‘where is this leading?’ (towards a logical conclusion, the reader hopes!), and obviously the climax.

You start out introducing your character. Here you will set the scene for what is about to follow. In the above story, The Thing that went ‘Blerckh!’, the conflict is between two best friends, Barnesy and Fletchard. Barnesy also has a problem (obstacle), which Fletchard thinks is funny. So there’s humour in the first couple of pages, too.

The middle comes around pages six and seven. Barnesy can’t dislodge the gum from his feet. They discover a man is picking up all the globs of chewing gum. Here’s the mystery – why would someone go around picking up chewing gum? The obvious way to find out is to following the man (we’re heading toward a logical conclusion).

Towards the end, Fletchard and Barnesy discover the ‘man’ is from another planet. They follow him. It turns out that his special gum has been snaring Earth objects, which are valuable on his planet. The boys also discover that he has caught lots of cats and dogs. To release them, they might jeopardise their own safety (a moral dilemma). This is where the characters need a resolution. In this case, they put the animals before their own safety, but of course it’s a wise decision because all the animals get free and so do the boys (climax).

It makes good sense to be creative when considering how your character resolves their problem. In the case of Barnesy and Fletchard, they discover a giant plug. Do they pull it, or will it put them in more danger? Only when the old man screams at them not to touch it, do the boys decides it’s a good idea to ‘pull the plug’. The ending is where all the loose ends are tied. In the case of The Thing that went ‘Blerckh!’, the boys vow to look for the old man again, because they want to get back to his planet.
Know Your Characters

There are basically two types of fiction writers – those who concentrate on characterisation and those who lean toward writing good plots and action. Writers rarely succeed in being excellent in both. Authors who write plot-driven stories filled with twists and turns and brilliant foreshadowing often receive letters of rejection claiming that the characters are two-dimensional or lack depth.

It’s easy enough to draw up a checklist of necessities for your characters: what they look like, colour of hair, shape of nose and nationality etc, but these mundane items should be a given. Your characters need filling out – especially the main protagonists. Giving your character a quirky nature is one way to add a bit of depth: their eye might twitch when agitated or they might stutter. James Bond liked his martinis shaken not stirred, and when introducing himself, he would say, ‘Bond. James Bond.’ Your characters might have a ‘rising inflexion’, which means almost every second sentence seemingly has a question mark, even when they’re not asking a question. The more you fill in along the way, the easier it will be for the reader to identify with them.

Never make statements to the reader. Commonly known as ‘show don’t tell’, the following is an example: ‘Keiren didn’t play sport because he was no good at it’. Far better to give a reason: ‘Dom’s older sister was the captain of both the seniors’ cricket and rugby teams. No way could he compete with that; instead he spent most of his time in the library’. In the first version we know that he doesn’t play sport because he’s no good at it. In the second version, we learn why Keiren is no good at sport (he’s daunted by his sister’s superiority), and we learn that he’s a reader because of it.
The rule of thumb is that if you know your character inside out, and convey your knowledge in your story by showing and not telling, your finished work will be much richer for it.

When editing your work – commonly known as ‘polishing’, watch out for the obvious mistakes of over-writing. These include repetition, using the same words too many times, labouring a point, using more words than necessary to say something simple.

My greatest tip to anyone is to persist! Remember that many publishers have rejected most of the best-selling books of all time before the books saw print. And this applies to short stories, too.

Good luck with your writing. I hope these minor tips prove helpful.

Paul Collins’s latest books are The Glasshouse, illustrated by Jo Thompson and Mole Hunt, book one in The Maximus Black Files. His website is: www.paulcollins.com.au.

Ten tips for writing

1. Keep a journal for snippets of conversation, story ideas, newspaper clippings, bus tickets – anything that might be useful in a story.
2. Make a plan for your story. You need to start with a rough idea of what will happen, who will be involved and where it will be set.
3. Create a back story. This is the background to your story – what went on before the story started. This information doesn’t all go in your story but helps you to work out why your characters act the way they do.
4. Start your story with a problem. Give your audience an exciting start to your story. But remember it has to build to a climax, so don’t throw everything at them in the first paragraph.
5. Add obstacles and build to a climax and resolution. Make sure if you want a happy ending that your characters have the ability to overcome the obstacles.
6. Use detail to add excitement by using all of your senses when you write. What do your characters see, hear, smell, touch, taste and how do they feel about what is going on.
7. Use dialogue to add interest to your story. Dialogue is also useful as a transition – to join parts of your story together.
8. Edit your story. Read over the story, asking yourself if you have answered the questions – how, when, where, why, how?
9. Remove anything that doesn’t add to your story. When in doubt, leave it out.
10. Rewrite any parts of your story that need to be improved. You can add dialogue and detail to make it more exciting. You may need to do several rewrites to get it right. I do!

GOOD LUCK!

Anyone for a blueberry with that rewrite?