Children's Fiction: A Sample Report

The original report was approx 3000 words. The report below has been cut down to about 1600 words. Ellipses (...) mark where material has been cut.

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SUMMARY

Thank you for sending such a lively and entertaining read. For the most part I found it genuinely funny and constantly inventive. For the first three-quarters of the book I even wondered if, with minor revision, it might be of publishable standard. By the end of it, I had more concerns. Nevertheless, I hope you will not be too discouraged by my criticisms, because I do think you have real talent. The ability to write humorous fiction is a great gift.

Although there is much to praise, and I do not have a large number of serious criticisms, those I do have relate to the most crucial parts of the book, and will need to be addressed.

TITLE

I don’t think Tassie, Time and the Evil of Roses really does it for me. You need to have read the book to understand what it refers to. You want something which will strike an immediate chord in your intended reader. Think of a word which conjures up the right picture. Knight? Maybe Knight Time? Work on it.

SYNOPSIS

I’m not sure that the synopsis conveys the full flavour of the book. You describe Tassie’s family as ‘seemingly ordinary’ to begin with. It would be better, both here and in the book, to jump into the middle of things. ‘Embarrassing’ would be nearer the mark. The words ‘Despite the normality of the opening situation’ suggests a slow start. I’ve already said that you need to eliminate that. Make it sound more like the lively romp it is.

[…]

OPENING

Page 1 is one of the weakest in the book. This is unfortunate. Imagine a hard-pressed editor, or her junior assistant, faced with a daunting pile of manuscripts and not nearly enough time to assess them all properly. If your first page doesn’t grab her attention, she may well put your story aside and reach for the next one on the stack. This may be unfair, but given the dwindling numbers of publishing staff, it’s a strategy for self-preservation.

From then on, you show an admirable ability to move things along and introduce new elements through action and dialogue. But on the first page, where it matters most, you don’t do this. You start with paragraphs full of information told to the reader at second-hand. Most of it isn’t happening now, but is a resumé of the family situation in a general way. It didn’t hook me. I was seeing these people through the wrong end of a telescope, not close up in their immediate situation.

[…]

You spend half your first sentence with Tassie applying chewing gum to the hair of her younger brother in the car seat in front of her. Stay with the immediacy of that. Don’t wander off into ‘Sometimes her dad would….’ Or ‘Sam and Delilah would only ever vote for….’ That generalised ‘would’ is a real turn-off. You’re quite capable of portraying their personalities by what they are doing here and now. If Dad is in the habit of sticking his head out of the window and shouting insults at other road-users, let’s witness him doing it today, not be told he’s done it in the past. It’s the old adage: Don’t tell me; show me.

[…]

CHARACTERS

Once you get into your stride, you’re away. You introduce a succession of colourful characters without wasting any more time on unnecessary introductions. They speak for themselves. Mr Ripley ‘swerving to avoid a frightened teenager on a zebra crossing’ makes much of your description on p.1 redundant. ‘Swerving at the last second’ might be stronger still.

Your cast is wonderfully inventive. The peace-loving Billy sets up some thought-provoking counter-values, under all the hilarity. I enjoyed your numerous digs at the traditional conduct of knights and the contradictions in the notion of chivalry (p.61). […] I particularly loved the Union of Live Ingredients and the newt with attitude. The palace gardener practising Haughty Culture was a nice touch. The youngest Bilge boy eating the breadcrumbs he was supposed to lay as a trail was well handled and very believable. It was one of your many unexpected complications of the plot.

SOME MINOR POINTS

‘mostly what she would be seeing during the tour would be some fat American’s backside’. I know what you mean, but I can see an editor wincing as she sees the prospect of US rights disappearing down the plug hole. An individual fat American might be OK, though it would help if there were also a more sympathetic one for balance.

I think it’s a mistake to call your hero Prince Billy, and at the end King Billy. There are too many resonances with factional war cries from Northern Ireland.

The fact that the loser of the joust will be sent to the Crusades jars. Crusades were seen as an occasion for adventure and idealism, however different the reality proved to be. You need to think of something much less glamorous. Think of Tony Robinson’s The Worst Jobs in History. The subsequent reference on p.129, ‘I think it’s against their religion’, could also come across as insensitive.

[…]

STYLE and PACE

After p.1, you set a cracking pace. One lively scene follows another.

Humour is in great demand in children’s fiction. It’s hard to sustain it for the length of a novel without it palling, but you come close to this. There were so many unexpected twists and reversals that, for the most part, I didn’t feel it was becoming repetitive. The only time I did groan a bit was when we were catapulted from the past into the fight in the Castle Café in the present time. It was so over-the-top that it made the happenings in the 13th century pale by comparison. Since the latter were the main story, this unbalanced things. You might have kept the tension going better by having Tassie reappear just at the point when things are starting to go wrong, rather than in the middle of absolute mayhem. Her vain attempts to stop the inevitable happening might be funnier.

Even in a fast-paced romp like this, occasional changes of tempo help, providing you don’t let things flag for too long. Your introduction of the Bilges on p.87 is an example of a nice variation in pace. And you keep the mystery going by not telling us how Tassie intends to use them. But having a boy with plague seemed a bit far-fetched, given its virulent nature.

You manage Tassie’s shift from one century to another adroitly. This is always tricky in time-travel fantasy. I especially liked the scene where she is descending the rope from Violetta’s bedroom, only to realise that she is going to land in the middle of the 21st century tour party. Tassie seeing both centuries simultaneously on p.79 is a subtle idea and when the groups from both centuries come together on p.120 it’s another unexpected twist.

The first sign that you were beginning to run out of steam came on pp.104 ff.

[… further detailed comments on the book then follow]

ENDING

Most novels fall into one of two types: (a) those where the literary style is no great shakes, but the reader is carried along by the plot; (b) those where the plot is of secondary importance; the enjoyment comes from the author’s style, evocative setting, engaging characters, or deeply-felt situation. Some gifted writers achieve both.

Comic novels usually fall into category (b). The lightest of plots is enough for a P.G. Wodehouse fan. The fun lies in his jokey style and the hilarious incidents on the way. So it was with this story. I wouldn’t have been too disappointed if the Plan had gone ahead and Brutus had been overcome by hay fever. It was a real surprise when Mum unwittingly foiled it with her antihistamine pill. ‘Now,’ I thought, ‘how is she is going to get her hero out of this?’

But it seemed you had, at last, run out of sparky new ideas. The pace flagged, just when it should have been building to a climax. The resolution was weak and unconvincing, not a patch of the dramas you had been providing in scene after scene.

[… further discussion of ending]

WHERE NOW?

As I said at the beginning, I think you have a real talent. You can write an unfailingly comic story, which relies not just on jokey style, but bizarre characters and unexpected twists in the plot. Underneath runs a useful theme: that it is not always the big, bad guy who wins, or rather that we, in the shape of Tassie, must not allow him to.

The problems are structural ones. You can easily tighten up the opening. Improving the ending will be much more difficult. You set such a cracking pace for most of the book that you’re going to have to pull a quite exceptional rabbit out of the hat to satisfy readers’ expectations that you are building up to a climax.

Try drawing a graph of your plot, with peaks for the highspots and troughs where the pace slackens off. Some variety is necessary. You can’t sustain a continuous high without numbing the reader’s sensibilities. A bit of contrast heightens the drama. But once you start leading up to the final crisis, it should build and build to the ‘eucatastrophe’ where everything comes right.

[…]

That said, I would strongly urge you to persevere with this, and further stories. If you can keep the fizz which this novel has for most of the time, improve the pace and structure of the last chapters, and come up with a cracker of an idea to resolve the plot, this would then stand comparison with plenty of books already in print.

If there’s anything in this report which you would find it helpful to discuss further, feel free to email or phone me. Good luck.