Author Archives: Avi

Making a movie

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The Fighting GroundFaria, of Valley Stream, NY, writes, “I really like your book called The Fighting Ground. I think you should make a movie of it.”

I get lots of letters from my readers telling me that they think I should make one of my books (one that they have read and enjoyed) into a movie.  I take this as a compliment, and like to think that have I provided enough vivid descriptions so that the book sometimes feels like a movie. But of course I can’t make a movie of one my books, let alone any other book. I don’t know how to do it. Film-making, and book-making, I think, require very different skills and talents. Then too, look at the credits at the end of a movie and count the number of people involved. You can see that the making of a movie is a vastly more complex project than the making of a book. It also requires a great deal of money, a lot more than I could imagine having. Yes, from time to time I am approached by film-makers. Projects start, and then stop. There are a few in process even now. I stay as far away as possible. To be sure, I enjoy going to the movies. But from what I have seen, it’s the rare film that is as good as, much less better than, the book. So truly, I enjoy reading much more. Besides, the pictures in my head stay longer. 

Commingling fact and fiction

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Sophia's WarThe most difficult aspect of Sophia’s War is the commingling of fact and fiction. The story of Benedict Arnold’s treason, and John André’s fate, is not just well known, it has been researched and detailed to an extraordinary degree. One of the books I used to research the event provided photographs and descriptions of everywhere André went during that extraordinary moment—virtually step by step. Moreover, my attempt to describe New York City during the British occupation (1776-7183) is based on detailed research that has been done by others. It is all as “correct” as I could write it. 

But Sophia herself, and her story, is very much fiction. How can the two connect? It is because as the historians of the events record, there are two key moments in the Arnold/André saga that have never been satisfactorily illuminated. Historians speak of “luck,” “fate,” and “coincidence.” Perhaps. But it is just at those points that I have been able to create a character, motive, and means, for these mysterious events to be explained. Not the least of what makes it all work is that Sophia does not want to be noticed, is not noticed, and indeed, cannot be noticed in the context of who and what she is—an independent young woman. It’s very much like that wonderful book title, Anonymous Was a Woman. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said (if I have it right) “History is biography.” Sophia’s War is Sophia’s autobiography. Just don’t look for her in history books. You can only find her here. “The writer’s task,” as I once heard Paula Fox say, “is to imagine the truth.”

Will there be a sequel?

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True Confessions of Charlotte DoyleIsabelle, from Harper Woods, MI, writes, “I was wondering if you’re going to make a sequel to The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle?”

In the years since the book was published I have been asked that question many times, even before sequels became popular. 

It seems to me that Charlotte’s story, among a number of things, is about her gaining the power and courage to make choices for herself—to decide what she wishes to do with her life. Of course, in the story, her biggest decision, her biggest choice, is what to do after the events on the Seahawk, after she returns home to Providence, RI. Since I feel Charlotte’s achievement is the ability to make choices for herself, to tell the reader what that choice might be would diminish the book’s power. That openness is what, I think the book is about. I am a strong believer that a book, once written, belongs to the reader, not to the writer. Since I have no idea what Charlotte might do, I want every reader to make that choice on their own, even as I want every reader to have that power in their own lives. We all have the power to write our own sequels. The sequel I won’t write is one for The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Isabelle, you are going to have to do that on your own.

Where do you get your ideas?

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Sophia's WarThe most common question asked of authors is, “Where do you get your ideas?” Consider my newest book, Sophia’s War, a tale set in New York City (NYC) during the American Revolution.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn (NYC), close to the site of the biggest battle fought during the American Revolution, the Battle of Brooklyn.

In 1947, when I was nine, The American Past, an illustrated history of the United States, came into my home. The first of its kind, its pictures fascinated me. I went through it countless times, gained a basic outline of US history, and a life-long love of history. I still have that book. I still read history.

Goodman Ace

Goodman Ace, creator of the radio program, You Are There

From 1947 to 1950 I was an avid listener of the CBS radio series, You Are There, which reported great moments in history as if they were just happening.

Not far from my home was the place where the notorious British prison ships lay at anchor. At some point—I don’t know when—I learned of what happened.

Rabble in ArmsAs a teenager I read Kenneth Roberts’ Rabble in Arms. Roberts was the foremost historical fiction writer of his time, and my introduction to historical fiction. This book focused on General Benedict Arnold. The book gave me my first real introduction to Arnold, his fascinating history, his tragic downfall.

In high school I began to buy (and read) books offered by the History Book Club. Some still sit on my shelves.

In college I majored in history, mostly American and British history.

Captain GreyMy first historical work was Captain Grey, (1977) a novel about the bitter aftermath of the American revolution. I would write some 35 other works of historical fiction.

In 1976 I watched battlefield enactments of the Revolution. Those experiences led me (1984) to write The Fighting Ground, about a boy fighting in the American Revolution. It’s one of my most successful books, and the first historical fiction for which I did serious research.

Iron ThunderIn 2007, I published Iron Thunder, a Civil War novel about  the Monitor and Merrimack. I wanted to write an historically accurate account of that battle, while inserting a fictional character, and thereby  creating an exciting adventure (and historical knowledge) for my readers. That was followed by Hard Gold—same format—about the Colorado gold rush. Before I had finished it, I conceived a similarly constructed story about the American Revolution. I decided it would begin with an account of Nathan Hale’s death. Three years before I started to write the book I knew the first line: “It is a terrible thing to see a man hang.”

Where did I get the ideas for Sophia’s War? Throughout my life.

What you leave out

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Letter CA writer friend recently sent me an e-mail. “What are you doing?”

I said, “Pushing the alphabet keys. You?”

She replied, “Working the delete key!”

I suspect that the most important aspect of writing is what’s not on the page. The white space. What you take out. Leave out. Cut. An editor once told me it’s much better to over- write, than under-write. Better to cut than to add, so you have only what is necessary. I once heard a lecture by Donald Hall, poet, picture book writer, a former US poet-laureate.  If I remember his words correctly, he said, “The good writer tries to create the perfect O.  But he leaves a gap, so that it’s like the letter C. If that gap is too large, your reader cannot fill it. If it’s too small, there is no reason for the reader to fill it. But if it is just right, your reader fills it with his/her own experience and the circle is complete.”

Want to study writing? Take three courses.

1. A journalism course will teach you what to put in. 

2. A poetry course will teach you what to take out.

3. A voice class will teach you to hear if your words sing.

Waiting for the reviews

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Sophia's WarThis has become an important part of the business in recent years as starred reviews drive book-buying decisions. Sophia’s War has received two starred reviews:

“Few historical novels are as closely shaped by actual events as this one during the last 100 pages. Working within the bounds of credibility, Avi manages to keep the fictional narrator on the scene for a good deal of the action and uses real moments to bring the imagined story to its dramatic heights.” —Booklist, starred review. Read more of this review …

“Newbery Medalist Avi (Crispin: The Cross of Lead) channels the mood, language, and danger of the Revolutionary War in this seamless blend of history and fiction, set in British-occupied New York City.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review  Read more of this review …

How many pages each day?

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BookPeter from Portland, Oregon, wrote to ask me, “How many pages do you write a day?”

Most (not all) writers I know write every day. My own personal goal is five pages a day. Sometimes I do more. Sometimes less. I have written a book (S.O.R Losers) in one twenty-four hour period. The longest time it took me to write a book (Bright Shadow), start to finish, was fourteen years. Needless to say I didn’t work on that one every day. The shortest time elapsing between the time I started to write to when the published book was in my hand was eleven months (Encounter at Easton)

The other day I read an interview with a British author who said she tried to write a thousand words a day. A writer friend told me he gets up at four o clock  each morning and stays at his desk till he gets ten pages done. Someone once told me that Stephen King used to write a hundred pages a day. Anthony Trollop, an important British Victorian writer wrote, “I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The average number has been about 40. It has been placed as low as 20, and has risen to 112. And … my page has been made to contain 250 words… I have had every word counted.” 

But—as I like to remind would–be writers—if you wrote just one page a day, at the end of the year you’d have 365 pages—a pretty big book!

Blurbs

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RoseA very fine editor/publisher, and a very fine friend, sent me an e-mail: “I have a huge favor to ask—huge not because of the labor involved, but because I know how you feel about blurbing.”

She was asking me if I would write a blurb for one of her forthcoming books, and she knows I dislike blurbs.

What is a blurb? The word, according to the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary, “is said to have been originated in 1907 by Gelett Burgess in a comic book jacket embellished with a drawing of a pulchritudinous young lady whom he facetiously dubbed Miss Blinda Blurb.” The OED goes on to define a blurb as “A flamboyant advertisement; an inspired testimonial. 2. Fulsome praise; a sound like a publisher… On the ‘jacket’ of the ‘latest’ fiction, we find the blurb; abounding in agile adjectives and adverbs, attesting that this book is the ‘sensation of the year’.”

Blurbing is a very common practice in publishing. Pick up a new book and, sometimes on the front, more often on the back, are comments from a variety of sources. They may be excerpts from reviews. But they are often “fulsome praise,” from an individual. They may well be sincere, but I always discount such personal comments, insofar as I think they are the writer’s friends. But, as in my current case, that’s not so. I know nothing about the writer whose book I’ve been ask to blurb.

Mostly, I don’t like to blurb good friends’ books because I fear losing the friend. After all, what if I don’t like the book? Or the “fulsome praise,” is not forthcoming? So I don’t ask for them, and don’t like to do them. In short, they make me nervous.

That said, I have blurbed books on a few occasions, mostly because I was asked by people (writer friends) whom I felt I could not refuse. Happily, in those few cases, I really liked the books.

As for the current request, I said yes. In return, my publisher friend said, “You are a rose.” To which I replied, “Ah, just remember, roses have thorns.”

Where did the idea for Poppy come from?

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PoppyThomas, from West Newbury, Massachusetts, wrote to me and asked, “How did you come up with the idea for Poppy?”

Well, Thomas, I was living in Oregon, in the town of Corvallis. Wandering into a bookstore, something I like to do, I went to the bargain section, something I like to do even more.There I found a book—shame on me for not remembering title or author—which was written by a naturalist. It seems that in a forest he found a lost baby owl in poor health. He took the owl home, nursed it back to health, and taught it to live on its own in the wilderness. The owl did well in the forest, but every now and again he (I think it was a he) came back to say hello to the man who saved him. I loved that book. The book also taught me a great deal about owls. The more I read, the more convinced I was that I should write a book about owls. Enter Mr. Ocax! But—as I wrote about the owl, I needed to detail what owls ate. They ate—among other things—mice. Enter Poppy! The book therefore begins with Mr. Ocax, but as always with me, the more I wrote, the more the story changed. I had become interested in the mouse—Poppy—the creature the owl wished to eat. It became Poppy’s story. In short, I invented as I went along. As I have said before, quoting the poet Robert Frost, “If there are no surprises for the writer, there are no surprises for the reader.”

As for the rest of the Poppy books, that’s another  story.

Names

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phonebookI was recently doing a Skype visit with a library group when one of the young people asked, “How do you go about choosing names for your characters?”

There are all kinds of considerations. First, boy/girl. Then, the time period in which the story takes place because names become more or less popular. I was writing a novel set in the 1950’s. What was the most popular name for a boy then? JIM. That’s the name I gave my main character. Sophia was a popular name in the 18th Century. King George III  (or last king) had a daughter named Sophia. And so, Sophia’s War.

If one character is named, say, Emily, I won’t use Evelina for another character. If someone is called Pip, I won’t use Rip.

In the Poppy books all the forest mice have names of flowers. Hence, Poppy, and her father, Lungwort, a mouse given to pompous speeches. My editor, Elise Howard, suggested the city mice in the book, Ragweed, have something city in their names. I decided on car parts, hence, Clutch. Sometime I name characters by way of suggesting what the person is like, both their nature and the way they act. Bear in Crispin is big, and bear-like.

In my own reference library I have books of names, modern, historical, and by nationality. And of course nothing is better for name choosing than a phone book.

What is your favorite fictional character name?