Word around the publishing industry is that animal stories don’t sell. My author friends advise me not to waste my time writing them – they are too hard to get published.

But as a reader, I love animal stories - stories in which animals are the main characters. Animals are given human characteristics such as speech and any humans are the minor characters.

Two of my favourite series of books are about wolves (The Wolves of Time by William Horwood) and moles (Duncton Wood also by William Horwood). My all-time favourite book is about a mouse, The Tale of Despereaux. Apparently the movie was awful but the book is great. I also enjoyed the Redwall series (more mice), Watership Down (rabbits), Guardians of Ga’Hoole (owls) and Warriors (cats).

Does anyone else have any animal stories to add to my list? Do you like animal stories and if not, why? Some readers say it is a ridiculous idea to have talking animals. Or that such stories are only for little kids. But to me it is no different than having a story with dragons and those are my most favourite stories of all. Although none of those has the dragon as the talking character. Perhaps I should write one of those!

And if ever proof was needed that animal stories are not just for little kids, we only have to look at Animal Farm by George Orwell. Wrapped up in an animal story, this book is a social and political comment on corrupt leadership and how indifference, ignorance and greed can destroy a Utopian revolution. Time Magazine listed it as one of the 100 best English-language novels ever written.

When I was researching this post I discovered a computer animated film of Guardians of Ga’Hoole is coming out on 30th September! It was produced in Australia and features the voices of a number of Australian actors and actresses.

Here is a sneak preview. (to be added when YouTube available)

The first time I heard the word steampunk my interest was hooked. I love words, just for the sound they make, and steampunk immediately has an exotic, fantasy ring to it.

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction. Stories are set in an era of spring gadgets, dirigibles, analog computers and steam power - often the 19th century Victorian era – and feature technology or futuristic innovations imagined by the people of the time. This technology of alternate history might include fictional machines or actual technological developments like the computer, but occurring at an earlier date.

Here’s the best definition I could find (see right). The picture is a bit hard to read but you can see it in all its glorious artistic detail here.

Historical steampunk is more science fiction than fantasy, but more recently the steampunk sub-genre has expanded to fantasy world settings that rely heavily on steam or spring-powered technology such as The Laws of Magic series by Australia author Michael Pryor (a favourite of mine).

I did a bit of research and discovered steampunk first became popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. But the word is quite new to me; I only discovered it last year, which is probably an indicator of its current publicity profile.

So what are the titles of some steampunk novels? Here are two lists to start with: Share Ranks Best Steampunk Novels and Steampunk 20 Core Titles . I looked through these lists to discover many of the titles were old friends. When I started Year 7 I was so overwhelmed by the huge high school library (compared to our tiny primary school room!) I didn’t know where to start. So I started at A. I found Aldriss and Asimov and read nothing but science fiction for many years. I didn’t know it then, but a lot of those titles were from the steampunk sub-genre.

Steam punk is a great example of how a fiction genre can reach out into other areas – art, fashion and music. Here are some steampunk gadgets - just for fun! Thes eimages would also make great steampunk story starters.

It's no secret that I love words. I love making them up. Onomatopoeias are my favourite. I'm often making a lot of noise as I research sounds - banging my gong (that's Sensei in Samurai Kids!) and dropping rocks off my balcony (so I can hear the sound of Iluak tripping over the soapstone pots and pans in Polar Boy).

The other thing I really like to do with words is twist them into something the reader might not be expecting. There are lots of common phrases we all know well. For example if I said "White as..." I would bet my next book at least half the class would say "snow". And if I quoted an idiom like "the cat that swallowed the ..." the other half of the class would say "canary".

One way to improve your descriptions, and have some fun at the same time, is to always say the unexpected. And if possible, to relate the unexpected words you substitute, to the genre or tone of the book. For example in Samurai Kids, when I was describing a sly smile, I used "the cat that swallowed the crane". I specifically didn't want to say canary (like everyone would be expecting) and I chose crane because it was not only a Japanese bird but the spirit symbol of my main character Niya Moto.

Here are some common phrases for you to improve.

as white as snow
as dark as night
as hard as nails
as slow as a snail
as fast as bullet
as dead as a dodo
as weak as a kitten
squawking like a parrot
exploding like a bomb
crying like a baby
howling like a wolf
sparkle like diamonds
glitter like gold

A good story needs a protagonist (hero) and an antagonist (villain) although sometimes it can be hard to work out which one is the good guy and which is the bad guy. Conflict comes from characters and the struggle between good and evil is a plot classic. In a series like Samurai Kids where the heroes stay the same, in each new book, the plot is driven by a combination of changing setting and new villains.

So what makes a good hero? Does he/she/it have to be good looking? Or do they even have to be completely good? Most writers would agree that a hero needs likeable characteristics and to be proactive and take action rather than wait for things to happen. The hero is a positive influence and the reader wants to align with him (or her!) and take her (or his!) side.

Villains need to be a believable adversary, they have to have as much at stake as the hero. They most often represent negatives such as greed, jealousy and all sorts of criminal activity.

The greatest heroes always have a flaw and the greatest villains have redeeming features. I think that might be because as readers we want to empathise with both.

When I was writing Jaguar Warrior I wanted readers to get to know the villain really well so I wrote a number of alternating chapters told from the perspective of the Captain of the Temple Guard, Huemac. He is bloodthirsty, cold killer tracking the hero, a fourteen-year-old slave boy called Atl. However, Huemac also has some redeeming features (sorry, can’t give the story away *grin*). As I gradually allowed the reader into his life I wanted them to change how they felt about Huemac – to move from intense dislike to understanding why he behaved the way he did. I am not sure if I succeeded so if anyone reads the book, let me know.

I wonder if there are nay books written totally from the viewpoint of the villain. I might try that!

Some heroes and villains are inseparable – Sherlock Holmes and Moriarity, Harry Potter and Voldemort, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, Gandalf and Sauron, Peter Pan and Captain Hook. Can you think of any more pairings? Strangely enough, I found it was easy to think of villains - Dracula, Frankenstein and the White Witch quickly sprang to mind - whereas I had to struggle to think of heroes!

Was there are a hero and villain in the last books you read? What were they like – were they all good or all bad? Which one did you like best?

History is a wonderfully rich source of heroes and villains. I am thinking of writing about Attila the Hun although I can’t quite decide if he whether he is a hero or a villain. The BBC did a great series on Heroes and Villains and each is loaded on You Tube in 6 parts. Check them out by searching for “Heroes and Villains” “BBC series” and to get you started here is Attila the Hun 1/6 [Warning: A bit gory!]

I was so impressed with the two pieces of writing that Tegan and Tanaya shared with me that I thought I should share something the writers among you might find useful. This might sound basic but it’s a very powerful technique. Pictures are a great tool to have in your writing toolbox.

Pictures help fill in the gaps when you are describing a character. I don’t see clear visual images of my characters; instead I will start with a strong feel for their personality. Sometimes I notice my characters develop a certain sameness when I am writing a physical description. That’s when I go to my ‘mug shot book’. It’s an idea I got from a friend who is a writer. She suggested I should cut out pictures of interesting faces and paste them into a scrapbook. Then when I get stuck with a description, I should look through the scrapbook. It works really well for me.

When I was writing Fire Lizard, which is the fifth Samurai Kids book set in Korea, I found this marvellous book called Korean Culture: Legacies and Lore by Lee Kyong-hee. It was about the ‘living treasures’ of Korea and how their skills were being lost as the older craftsman died. There was there was no money in things like ropewalking, pyrography and papermaking so no young people were interested in learning from the old Masters. I found this very sad. But the pictures of the craftspeople were wonderful and Ang Lee, the pyrographer in Fire Lizard, is based on a story and picture I found in Korean Culture. In case you are wondering, pyrography is an art form where a heated iron is used to burn pictures onto bamboo items like flutes and decorative hair combs.

If you feel like giving it a go, find a picture (anywhere will do – a magazine, book, internet) and write a six line description (or more!) to share.

Sometimes a description might tell us something more than what a person looks like. Here is a description of Lali who is an Aztec girl in my most recent book Jaguar Warrior, as told in first person by Atl, a slave boy. Not only does his description tell us something about what Lali looks like (her hair, eyes, nose and that’s she’s pretty) but the tone tells us about the relationship between Lali and Atl (he thinks she is an arrogant, irritating show-off).

Lali is short and wiry, with long straight black hair that spills like a waterfall. It splashes around her waist when she shakes her head. When she smiles, her pointy nose wrinkles and her eyes dance like moonlight on water. She’s not bad to look at but she’s awful to listen to. She never stops talking. Lecturing. Showing off. Her voice drags like a mason’s knife against stone. Scritch. Scra-a-a-tch. Scratch .

Grab a book off the library shelf, maybe one whose story you already know, and find where the character is introduced. Somewhere in the vicinity you should be able to find a description. Any character description will do. Doesn’t have to be the first one or the main character. Let me know the book title, author and character name and whether the description helped you visualise what the character looked like or helped you understand how the character felt about things. If the description didn’t draw a picture in your head, what was missing?

A few months ago I was asked to be involved in a project at the Wollongong Art Gallery called Just Imagine which was all about writing from pictures. They even ran a competition where students wrote stories about specific pieces of art in the Gallery. It was a lot of fun and I blogged about it here. Also check out the pyrography site of Australian artist Sue Walters.

Yes you are allowed to! Even on this blog.

When I was younger I had this silly rule that I would always finish every book I started. What I hadn't realised then was reading is for fun - it is not a competition. I read a lot of boring books becuase of that stupid rule. But when I got to high school I found a book I just couldn't keep reading no matter how hard I tried.

It was called The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Apparently there were some issues about the translation from the Russian because of the clever things he did with language but to me it was the MOST. BORING. BOOK. EVER. If you see it on a library shelf, run a mile! But if you wnat to take a peek, you can read an extract on Google Books here.

I didn't have to read it for class so the only thing making me was the rule. That's when I ditched the rule forever. Now I only read books I want to although that sometimes means I might read it for a different reason other than the story. I might read it because I want to learn something about a time or place or maybe something to improve my writing skills.

Have you ever started to read a book and decided you hate it? What made up your mind? Perhaps the cover and the blurb weren't very accurate and it was about something you weren't interest in?

I don't like spy stories much except I do like the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz. And I don't like detective stories except I love Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So I'm always willing to give a book a try in case it's an 'except'.


This is my favourite Alex Rider book trailer - for Snakeshead - the Australian connection!




Sometimes I don't like the way a book is writtem - especially of it's slow with lots of description. Some people like books like that. Not me. I like my description with lots of action. Even as I write that comment I am reminded of an 'except'. I read a book called The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Lots of reviews said it had too much travelogue description - but it was such a great story I didn't even notice that. It's a Dracula story with a difference - a marvellous blend of storytelling and folklore. Not horror but something different. Eerie.

Here's a challenge for you. Grab a fiction book off the library shelf based on the cover and blurb - one you think you will like. Read the first page. Give it a "I'll read it" rating out of 5. 1 = Awful 2 = Only if I'm bored stiff 3 = I might 4 = I'll read a chapter and decide then 5 = Gonna read it.

Then do the same for a book you don't think you will like.

I was quite surprised last week that many of you were reading really scary books. The more I thought about, the more puzzled I became. Why do we like to read things or watch movies that frighten us? I am not as brave as you guys, and after a discussion with a friend about Darren Shan I was nervous walking to my car in the dark! But what book did I order in from my local bookstore yesterday – Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater –a werewolves novel. If you are feeling brave, check out Maggie's website.

What about other emotions? What books have you read that made you laugh? Or what about one that made you cry? And I won’t believe it everyone says they never ever feel sad in books. I know no-one in the whole world cries as much as me – not only an I a wimp when it comes to horror, I am a sook when it comes to drama. Once I cried so much on the train a little kid said, very loudly: “Look mummy, that lady is reading the saddest book in the whole world.” The strange thing was it wasn’t really sad – just poignant in places when it was talking about friendship. The book was Dear Swoosie by Kate Constable and Penni Russon. It’s part of the Girlfriend Fiction range and if anyone reads it I bet they say: “This isn’t sad at all.” I wonder why some books are sad for some people and not others.

PS. If you like Girlfriend Fiction - and this is one for the hirls only (sorry guys) - try Something More by Mo Johnson. She's a good freind of mine and an excellent writer. You can read an extract here.

I even cried whenI read – The Knife of Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Has anyone read that one? There's a great review here. I think it would be post-apocalyptic science fiction or science fantasy. And if you are shaking your head and saying – I now that one, its exciting, action filled, a bit violent, dark and scary n places but what did she find to cry about? The dog scene!

The dog has readable thoughts – as do all the boys and men in the book – so if you have ever wondered what dogs think – read at least the first page. There’s a recommendation on the front from Frank Cottrell Bryce (if you’ve seen the film Millions, Frank wrote the screenplay and book and won the Carnegie Medal for it!) . Frank said “One of the best first sentences I’ve ever read and a book that lives up to it.” I agree it’s a great book but don’t think it’s one of the best first sentences.” I’ve been discussing first sentences with the Year 5 and 6 kids from Smithfield if you want to read what we thought or add your own first line suggestions here.

I was really pleased to get so many good book recommendations last time we talked that I’ve loaded up the we page Tegan and I discussed – a place to store central recommendations. I kicked it off with Grimsdon, the new Deborah Abela book I finished yesterday. Feel free to post comments to discussions I am having with other schools. If you have a book to add to the recommendations just post the details in a comment and I’ll add it in.

Here’s the book trailer for Grimsdon:


So why do you read? To be entertained, to be frightened, to feel all gushy in the romance scene or something completely different? I started reading because I had nothing else to do and libraries were free! I had a very strict mum (she didn’t even let me do homework!) and no pocket money. But I kept reading because I liked how it took me other places. That’s probably why I started reading mostly fantasy. Which reminds me – how did you go filling in the lest of genres? Did you get them all?

I also write about places I never go – like Japan, the Arctic and South America. And yes, I even cry in my own books. My kids tell me that is the lamest thing ever!

First – the introductions! Hi Manor Lakes. Maybe you’ve seen some of my books on your library shelves. I haven’t been an author for long. In fact I only started writing a few years ago when I was working on a joint writing project with my son and he told me to “Go write your own book.” In other words, butt out and leave my story alone! I thought that was a fair enough comment and good advice. So I started writing.

But I have always been a reader. And that’s a writing tip right there – every writer I know is an avid reader. My favourite genre to read is fantasy and when I first started writing, I thought I would write a fantasy book. I did but it was terrible. So authors don’t always end up writing the kind of stories they read.

What is your favourite genre and why? Do you have a favourite book in that genre? Some of my favourite fantasy books are Lord of the Rings, The Old Kingdom Chronicles trilogy by Garth Nix, The Tales of the Otori series by Lian Hearn, The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series by Michelle Paver and The Rangers Apprentice series. Are they on anyone else’s favourites list?

Sometimes I wonder how many genres, or kinds, of books there are. So I decided now was good time to do some Internet research and I found 59!!!! Something for everyone.

Let’s see if we can manage to find a book for every one of these genres and subgenres – I should warn you some of them are pretty tricky. Leave a comment suggesting a title and the genre/subgenre. Some books might belong to more than one genre. I wonder how many genres a single book could belong to? I’ll be very impressed and happy to add more genres to the list if anyone can find some. If you are unsure about any genre and can’t find a description on the internet – just ask me. Maybe we’ll agree to cross it off the list!
Adventure/Action, Comic/Graphic, Fantasy (alternate world, animal, Celtic, comic, contemporary, dark, folktale, heroic, high, historical, medieval, myth, prehistoric, romantic, steampunk, superhero, sword and sorcery and urban), Gothic (a story of romance and horror ), Historical Fiction, Horror (body-related (disease, mutation etc), ghost stories, natural disaster, psychological thriller, and supernatural) Humour /Comedy, Crime/Mystery (detective, medical, police procedural, spy, supernatural, and whodunit) , Poetry/verse novel, Political, Romance (contemporary, historical, paranormal, fantasy, and time travel ), Science-Fiction - 'what if' stories that are based on science (alternate history, apocalyptic, biopunk, cyberpunk, gothic, steampunk, time travel, space colonization and urban), Suspense/Thriller (crime, medical, disaster, spy, conspiracy, supernatural, psychological), War, Western.

You can print out the list here. Go for it!

PS If you want to ask a totally unrelated – question – feel free. You can even post a book review. If it is a few sentences put it in a comment and if its longer email it to me and I’ll post it to the blog. I’m always looking for suggestions as to what I should read next. Don’t forget to say what genre it is.

And while we are thinking about books in general, ask Tye to put this one up on the screen for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev4HeHUMluQ Not only is it a great book trailer but in Australia the book is published by the same people who publish me!