Caroline: Dianne, I had no idea about this! (Or if you’ve told me before, I’ve completely forgotten.) Your experience reminds me so much of my own with CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY. It was 1995, and I was student teaching. I discovered the book on my mentor teacher’s shelf and was blown away by how fresh and clever and exciting it was. I knew immediately that’s what I wanted to do: write historical fiction for mid-grade readers.

Dianne: Reading and writing are full of serendipitous surprises. 🙂 Which is why I’m so excited to have you on ReaderKidZ this month to talk about your writing process and your newest book!

And that brings me to my first question: You’ve published both picture books and novels. Though I’m sure there are some similarities in your approach, how does the process of writing a novel differ for you from that of writing a picture book? Do you tend to work on one or the other? Or do you dip back and forth into both at the same time ?

Caroline: I like to alternate between the two, actually. I feel like picture books stretch me one way and novels stretch me another. To me, writing pictures books is like solving a puzzle. I am more willing to take risks and experiment in this form. Those picture book risks have pushed me to be more willing to experiment with my novels, too.  I’m more comfortable now trying (and tossing!) when necessary. Likewise, picture books are all about sound, as their main audience is the adult reading to the listening child. Writing picture books reminds me my novel words should also be pleasing to the ear, even if they’re never read aloud (which I hope isn’t the case. All books are meant for sharing with listeners!). 

As different as the two forms are, I feel like each informs the other.

Dianne: You mention in your acknowledgement that the idea for MIRACULOUS was sparked by a lecture you stumbled upon while visiting a museum in St. Louis in 2013. Writing about a traveling doctor/charlatan required you to dive into the time and setting, the mindset of your characters, and so much more. As you begin your research, I assume that the more information you gather, the more questions you have. Can you talk about the experience of writing this book, in particular? Any twists and turns that you didn’t expect?

Caroline: Like always with the topics I’m drawn to, there was so much I didn’t know and so much to learn. It can feel overwhelming. But I try to take it moment by moment. I know I’ll live with the novel for several years, and I want to be sure its premise and world are going to continue to fascinate me.

I figure a story will rise to the surface the deeper I dig with my research. My questions will become more specific and will help me find the way. With this book in particular, I knew I wanted it to be told in a number of voices. I wanted to see the story through the eyes of the main character, Jack, who works for the mysterious Dr. Kingsbury, but I also knew I wanted to hear and see the reactions of people who lived in the new town the doctor visited. I felt very strongly I didn’t want to have the doctor’s perspective included (though I’ll confess late in the process I thought it might make things easier if he took a part of the story!).

There are always surprises with novels, I think. The first time I took the chapter called “A Wooden Rabbit” to my critique group, one member said the rabbit felt very significant. At that point, it didn’t really play much of a role, but I kept that idea of making it significant in the back of my mind. Jack encounters the rabbit again — I won’t say where — but when I first added the rabbit to that later scene: Wow. It gave me chills as I realized, alongside Jack, what that rabbit had to mean.

In a similar fashion, the character Silas, who we meet first as a boy and then as a man, was originally told only through his older voice. I distinctly remember my editor telling me, “Kids aren’t going to care about an old man’s beef!” (She makes me laugh, that Stacey Barney. And she’s brilliant, plain and simple. I call her my Story Whisperer.) “But I like his beef!” I told her. So Stacey challenged me to tell Silas’s story another way. His life was already meant to parallel Jack’s, so when I started with him as a boy coming to Oakdale and not fitting in alongside Jack’s very similar experience, well, it felt so powerfully right!

Dianne: Your next book, THE BURNING SEASON, is scheduled for Spring of 2024. It’s a verse novel about a fire tower in New Mexico. Can you share a little more about the book? How is writing a verse novel different from writing longer prose? What helps you decide which format will be the best fit for the subject matter and characters you’re writing?

Caroline: I can tell you THE BURNING SEASON was a JOY to write. Returning to verse felt like coming home, like writing in my native language (after writing two novels in prose). Honestly, the whole process came very naturally, and I was aware as I drafted how special the experience was — and how unlikely it was it would happen again.

I knew I wanted to write a girl in a tower story. I also knew I wasn’t yet finished with exploring solitude and nature, as I did with MAY B. I wasn’t sure if the story would have fairy tale elements or not. (It doesn’t, but there certainly is the idea of being set apart from the rest of the world that you find in stories like Rapunzel.) I figured my “tower” would be a lighthouse, but realized there were plenty of lighthouse books. Then I saw a picture of a fire tower in a magazine and was hooked. When I learned my beloved home state is one of the few with fire towers still in operation, I knew I’d finally found my New Mexico novel (something I’d wanted to write for ages).

I describe verse novels as photo albums, where each poem is a picture capturing a different image. When added together, they make a story. Prose, for me, is like rolling film. There is so much space to fill! It can feel a little intimidating. The “how” of the storytelling is quite different with each form, and having a metaphor for each helps me in my approach.

Very early on, long before I have a plot I can “feel” a story’s form. I go in already knowing if the book will be verse or prose. 

Dianne: Any other projects in the works that readers can be looking for?

Caroline: Not with any bites! 🙂