Panel: The Secret of Crafting Engaging Nonfiction - Candace Fleming

SCBWI Golden Kite Award Winner Candace Fleming writes nonfiction and fiction (more than 40 books!). Most of her nonfiction is historical YA, but she has recently taking a foray into science picture book nonfiction.

How is writing nonfiction different from writing fiction?

Candace says, "I always think of everything I write in terms of cake. As a writer it's my job to create a cake that all of you want to gobble up in three minutes. When I write fiction I get to buy all the ingredients I want to put in a cake that I pick out myself, like coconut and chocolate chips and maple syrup. When I write nonfiction the goal is exactly the same, but I didn't get to go to the grocery store, I have to use the ingredients my partner Eric brings home, like flax seed and pepto bismol, and find a way to make that into a gobble-able cake."

What's your favorite part of writing nonfiction? 

The biggest part of nonfiction is figuring out how to take all the research you do and turn it into a compelling story for readers. Candace says you do three years of research and travel, if you can, because it's the amount of research that determines the variety of ingredients available to your 'cake'.

"You don't want me to tell you everything I learned in three years, you want me to tell you a story. And it's a story the way I see it. [Anyone up here on this panel] could take that same research and make a completely different book."

How do you pick your stories?

"... My book needs a Vital Idea. I'm not going to write this book just because it's a cool piece of history, there has to be something more, something bigger, something that connects to readers."

"The vital idea of the giant squid book is mystery. We know more about dinosaurs than we do about giant squid yet there are still 100,000 of them swimming around us today."

"When I know the vital idea, then I know what's going to go into my book. Only after I do enough research do I know what my story is truly about."

"The Romanov family book, the original thought was it would be about Anastasia, the book now is not that, it's not just her life, it's about what 3% of the population with 90% of the wealth do to a society... What's the ultimate result when rulers don't pay attention to the people they are governing or take their wellbeing into account..."

"I xerox everything, I tab everything I research for three years, that whole time I'm searching for my vital idea." And with that vital idea figured out finally, Candace will go back and re-review this research with vital idea goggles on. She tells us she has 60 pages of research on faberge eggs, but you won't find one mention of those eggs in her Romanov book.


What's Candace working on now?

"I'm in the throes of a book I'm working on, a biography on Charles Lindbergh. We think about him as being the first to conquer transatlantic flight, but he had a secret research facility about wanting to conquer death, to replace organs like you replace airplane parts..."

And Charles Lindbergh was America First, he wanted us to join the Nazis, he was on the board of the eugenics society until 1974 at his death and just recently we discovered he had three other families in Germany! Candace thinks a lot of where we are in America today politically and racially was propogated from exactly the sort of mindset and culture that a person like Lindbergh represented.

Candace Fleming: Six Quick Fixes for Your Nonfiction Picture Books

Candace Fleming

Candace Fleming is the author of many wonderful nonfiction books for young readers about a wide range of subjects, from the family Romanov to giant squids.

She talked to us about six things she does when she's approaching her own revisio
ns.

There are six steps she takes:

1) What's the vital idea? If you cannot express what the vital idea of your picture book is, then you need to rethink it. She has an idea before she writes, one that comes from the research. But if she can't express it after the first draft, she knows she has more thinking to do.

Does everything in the manuscript speak to the vital idea? If it does not, it has to go. She's amazed by what can go from a first draft of a manuscript when viewed through this lens. Some questions to ask yourself:

• What is your story really about? What's your concept? What's the idea? What is the "something more"? For example: giant squid are fascinating. But what does she really want to say to kids about them? She wants readers to know they're mysterious and elusive. Scientists estimate there are 100,000 giant squid--school-bus-size creatures. And we rarely ever see them. Good facts can be bad storytelling. 

2) Have you remembered your fence? PB writers have a fence. We have a form that we have to stick to. Here's a reminder: My fence is 32 pages. But it really means we have 26 pages. The story really starts on page 5, on the right-hand side. How will your first page look in that little space? Does it promise the ending on the first paragraph? Then, ta-da! You have a page turn. It's the single most important thing in a PB. Some stories need a bit of setup—that's the first few pages (6-7, 8-9). She knows that if her story doesn't start by page 10, she needs to rethink it. Page 32 is the last page of her PB. That is the Ahhh page, where she gets a little extra something, a moment of satisfaction. (She calls it the haunt. It makes you want to come back. It makes you want to think. It makes you want to know more.

3) Look at every single word. She circles all the verbs and adjectives to see if there is a better one. There almost always is. Every word choice must speak to the vital idea. She makes lists of words, trying to find ones that are authentic to her story and her voice.  

4) Attempt to get all 5 senses into your book. ("Taste is a bitch.") Actively searching for it forces you to think about your nonfiction in different ways. Remember, we are not fact-tellers. We are storytellers. We have to tell true stories.

5) Count the number of words in your sentences. This helps her vary her sentence structure and use fragments. This makes her more aware of what she's doing—and that's really what revision is about. 

6) End when it ends. When your story is done, exit quickly. Don't say goodbye. Don't wave. Don't blow a kiss. Get out of there!

 

The Secret of Crafting Engaging Nonfiction Panel is About to Begin!

Moderated by Melissa Stewart (at podium), the panelists are (left to right): Deborah Heiligman, Barbara Kerley, Jason Chin, and Candace Fleming.

Melissa starts out and explains the difference between expository and narrative nonfiction, and shows us statistics that highlight the difference between what the adult gatekeepers prefer (narrative, by far), and how children actually prefer expository nonfiction!

The panel dives into questions about theme, styles, process, the difference between writing fiction and nonfiction, and so much more. Check out the individual posts on each panelist to come!

Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann: Seven Simple Fixes for the Picturebook Text

The room is packed tighter than even a polyamorous sardine would be comfortable with, but for good reason! We are soooooooooo lucky to have both Eric Rohmann and Candace Fleming here! They are sharing seven simple fixes for the picture book text, here are a few:
1. With picture books you are limited to 32 pages, so get to the problem of your story as soon as you can. You can have a few pages of set up, but if your story doesn't start by page 10, you're in trouble.
As an example, go read Clever Jack, there are a few pages of set up, but the problem is introduce by fourth spread.

Whereas in Oh No! the problem is introduced on page 1.

Read your story draft and mark out page by page, which text goes on what page to help remind you of the structure of your story as you write. (Candace reminds: when you send your manuscript to the editor, don't paginate, send a clean, unpaginated version for submission)


2. Something that helps Eric and Candace in their writing of picture books is they think in terms of small scenes, not just sentences per page. Each scene should move your story forward, not just words and sentences. Eric and Candace recommend looking at your manuscript and marking off the scenes, where the beginning and end of them are. Then count them—if you only have 4 scenes and they are very similar in length, rethink your pacing.

Clever Jack has about 9 scenes, Oh No! has about 12.

Finally, take a look at the first and last words of your scene, they should be really good and interesting words.

3. Eric does an exercise on his manuscripts, he takes out all the adjective and adverbs. Candace says then ask yourself, which ones do I miss? Because some do improve the language and rhythm of the book, but for many, you'll find those words will be taken care of by the illustrations.

A Golden Kite for Candace Fleming

Candace Fleming gets her 2012 Golden Kite statuette for "Amelia Lost: The Life And Disappearance Of Amelia Earhart"

"I have been blessed to be part of this community for 17 years."

Candace shares the story of how she knew Amelia being lost was a story she had to tell, the personal connection to her and her insight into what makes a book.

She's regaling us with some of the challenges she faced writing this non-fiction book, how she overcame them, and her goal to:

"Give readers a story that doesn't just show them their world, but shows them what their world can be."

Candace Fleming—Keep ‘Em Turning the Page: Writing Compelling Nonfiction for Kids

Candace Fleming is the author of more than 25 books for children, including Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!, The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary, and Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart. 

Candace’s breakout session was a full house, but when I walked in, she was chatting with some of the attendees before she started. She also took the time to introduce herself to people individually, asking what they were working on.

Candace started by talking about her process. There is no right way to create your story. Although this was a non-fiction talk, she loves her fiction as well.

For her, writing a biography is a process, requiring years of research. Candace has to feel the book’s absence if she doesn’t write it—that’s the only time she takes on a project. It has to speak to her. Everything has to come from her own place.

Writing is like making a cake. As a fiction writer, she can go to the store and buy anything she wants to make a delicious cake to gobble up. In non-fiction, she has to send someone else to the store, and they pick what THEY want—like spinach and chili peppers and hot chocolate. But she still has to use the same skills to create another delicious cake. She can’t make anything up.

Non-fiction writers are storytellers. And the purpose is to entertain, inform, and enlighten.

Candace did share a few tips for her non-fiction cake:

* Know your reader. Specifically.

* The idea is vital. It’s not just the topic—it’s the vital demand of how the story connects to our human condition. After you discover, you post the meaning.

Candace begins her research by reading everything she can on the subject, except for the things that are too new. She’s trying to find her own opinion. Reading a biography, you learn as much about the biographer that you do about the subject. From there she branches out. 

But research is an organic process, different for each writer.