Coaching KidLit Episode 38: Digging Into Middle Grade with Guest Janet Fox

In this episode of Coaching KidLit, host Sharon Skinner, joined by guest Janet Fox, discusses various aspects of middle grade (MG) writing. Janet shares her writing journey, her passion for MG, and offers valuable insights on the craft of writing, particularly focusing on MG readers, character development, the importance of passion in writing, and tackling the challenges of writing mysteries and contemporary stories.

Visit Janet online at janetsfox.com and Fox Tales on Substack

Key Topics Covered:

Janet’s KidLit Writing Journey and SCBWI
Importance of Passion in Writing
Aspects of Writing for Middle Grade Readers
Writing Contemporary Middle Grade
Writing Middle Grade Mystery
Importance of Craft Mastery

Books and Resources Mentioned:

Big by Vashti Harrison
The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle by Janet Fox
Carry Me Home by Janet Fox
The Mystery of Mystic Mountain by Janet Fox
Wintergarden by Janet Fox, Illustrated by Jasu Hu
The Artifact Hunters by Janet Fox

Listen:

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Sharon Skinner: Welcome to Coaching KidLit, a podcast about writing and publishing good KidLit.

[00:00:07] Christy Yaros: We dig into various aspects of writing craft through a KidLit lens and provide inspiration and clear actionable items to help writers like you move forward on their KidLit writing journeys.

[00:00:19] Sharon Skinner: I’m Sharon Skinner, author accelerator, certified book coach, and author of speculative fiction and KidLit, including picture books, middle grade, and young adult.

[00:00:31] Christy Yaros: And I’m Christy Yaros, author accelerator certified book coach and story editor, focusing on KidLit, including middle grade and young adult.

[00:00:41] Sharon Skinner: Hello listeners, it’s me, Sharon . Christy’s not with us again this month, but I do have a fabulous guest and I’m excited to introduce her to you. Janet Fox is with us today and Janet is an award winning author with a deep passion for the magic of storytelling.

[00:00:57] Sharon Skinner: Her writing journey began at age eight with a poem published in the town newspaper setting the stage for a career dedicated to writing captivating tales for young readers. As a writer, Janet strives to create books that can help grow young hearts and minds. Her award winning books span the spectrum of picture books through young adult in a broad variety of genre.

[00:01:20] Sharon Skinner: As a mentor and book coach with 25 years in publishing, her mission is to guide writers through the twists and turns of their creative odyssey, turning struggles into triumphs. Janet has helped scores of writers to achieve their dream of writing, revising, and yes, publishing their children’s books.

[00:01:38] Sharon Skinner: Janet is also a certified author accelerator book coach, as am I, and I’m excited to have her here with us. Welcome, Janet.

[00:01:48] Janet Fox: Thank you so much, Sharon. I’m excited, too. It’s great to be here.

[00:01:51] Sharon Skinner: So your bio really starts us off but do you want to elaborate a bit about your writing journey?

[00:01:58] Janet Fox: Sure, I started almost 25 years ago now, and really, , I started with SCBWI, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and a mentorship provided by Kathy Appelt, who was a neighbor of mine in the town I was living in at the time. And so, I feel like I got a very good grounding in the whole art and craft of writing for young readers from the get go. SCBWI is a really fabulous organization for those of you who are just starting out. It was certainly, my, introduction to what it meant to tell stories for young readers. And I tried my hand at picture books way back when, as we all do in writing for young readers. With terrible results, until I realized that maybe my voice was more suited to middle grade.

[00:02:43] Janet Fox: And, that’s been my passion for quite a few years. Now I’ve gone back and I am crafting picture books. I’ve written young adult novels. And, it’s just a matter of learning how to tackle each audience. Each age range, each interest level, and then, understanding the basic craft of writing for children.

[00:03:04] Janet Fox: But I would say that my sweet spot for the past maybe 10 years has been in middle grade. I really love it. Although I’m veering back into other things now with some adult fiction, just for fun. So I love talking about middle grade books.

[00:03:19] Sharon Skinner: As an SCBWI member and the regional advisor for Arizona, of course, I am a big fan of SCBWI. I found SCBWI decades ago during my journey into writing for kids. Interestingly enough, my first kid’s book was actually middle grade And not a picture book.

[00:03:36] Sharon Skinner: I wasn’t attempting to write a picture book. I was telling a story that I knew was middle grade. I knew it was targeted at those readers, but I realized I didn’t really know how to do it well. And that is part of what brought me to SCBWI at that time. And of course, since then I have, branched out.

[00:03:51] Sharon Skinner: Much like you, I write across categories. I write picture book all the way up to adult, and you’ve published mainly in the kid lit arena so far

[00:03:59] Janet Fox: Yeah, so far. I have one adult novel actually with my agent right now and, another one that I’m contemplating just for fun. Just because I’m, you know, I love the craft. I love writing. I’ll write whatever. And I think that’s something, that listeners could take away is don’t limit yourself to one thing.

[00:04:17] Janet Fox: If you’re struggling in a certain audience age range or genre, try something else, just liberate your mind to learning the craft and really the craft is the foundation stone. And once you’ve tackled craft at a deep level, you can really apply it across the board to whatever audience or whatever genre you’re writing in.

[00:04:38] Janet Fox: so, Write from your heart. That’s, really a big thing of mine is to tell my clients to write what they want to write deeply and feel passionately about.

[00:04:48] Sharon Skinner: that’s great advice. I tell my clients to write not what they know, but what they feel, which is very similar, when we’re talking about how to get the story out of your heart and your head and onto the page.

[00:05:00] Janet Fox: Yeah, exactly.

[00:05:01] Sharon Skinner: What I, love hearing about your journey and not just that it’s similar to mine and I feel validated, but also because I was told early on, pick something, pick a category and stick to it.

[00:05:12] Sharon Skinner: That’s what you need to do. You need to buiLd your career on that? And I’ve never been that kind of a writer. I need to tell the stories that are in my heart. Just like you’re saying and I had lots of stories in my heart and they weren’t all middle grade and they weren’t all one thing or the other.

[00:05:26] Sharon Skinner: So I love that you’ve been able to develop your writing career around a variety of categories and genre.

[00:05:35] Janet Fox: Yeah, really, I think it’s the passion that comes with the story that is truly key, and as one example of that, I was writing middle grade fantasy, and I love this series, the Rookskill Castle series, for that fantasy element, it’s historical fantasy, so there was some history and research that I love doing as well, but in the back of my head, I was playing with an idea for almost 10 years about, a family living in a car, a homeless family, and what it would feel like to be 12 years old and living in a car.

[00:06:07] Janet Fox: But I didn’t know how to tell that story, and it just sat there stewing and stewing. For a long time when I didn’t even put a word on paper, not a word. I didn’t know the names of my characters. I didn’t know who they would really be except this one girl. And literally one morning I woke up and the whole idea kind of coalesced in my brain.

[00:06:27] Janet Fox: It’s a little spooky, but I felt like I was channeling something. And I wrote that book faster than I’ve ever written anything else. Came out in one month, went to my agent, went to my editor. And, Almost had no editing on it. It was so fixed. It was so solid right from the get go. It’s a very short novel, and that’s Carry Me Home.

[00:06:47] Janet Fox: And I think that’s really something that, writers need to understand. Again, if you write from your heart, from the passion of some idea, When you’re ready to write that book it’s so much easier, if you will, to put it on paper than it is to struggle through something that you think might be great.

[00:07:05] Janet Fox: It’s gonna sell, it’s gonna be a bestseller. Well, maybe, maybe not. That’s never predictable. What is predictable is that you will love the outcome and you’ll love the process as well, which is really important. writing from that passionate place is really key.

[00:07:21] Sharon Skinner: I agree With you. I think that’s, so important. And I know different people come to this from different directions, but I also believe that the more passionate you are about a project, the more readily it comes to fruition. That said, one thing I want to key in on is what you said about it took 10 years of thinking about it.

[00:07:40] Sharon Skinner: So another thing that I tell writers all the time is that, about 80 percent or more of the writing process takes place in our brains and in our subconscious So if we have a story that’s churning inside of us. Technically, we’re always writing. That’s not to say you don’t have to get it down on the page.

[00:07:57] Sharon Skinner: I don’t want anybody to think, oh, well, then I’m thinking about my story I’m writing. No, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that the process for different books. Is also different because every book that I’ve written, my process has been slightly different.

[00:08:11] Sharon Skinner: You’ve heard me say it all the time. Process is personal. And my personal process has morphed with each project. Depending on what it is and how I’m trying to come at it.

[00:08:20] Janet Fox: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, oh, by the way, the whole time I was thinking about this idea. I was writing other things and learning the craft of creating a good solid story at the same time, which is key. I mean, you have to understand the craft. So I’m also very passionate about following craft. And learning over and over again, learning new things, going to different conferences, or workshops, or webinars, or seminars, or whatever it takes to really understand at a deep level the craft of writing.

[00:08:55] Janet Fox: You think writing for young readers is a simple thing because they’re young, they’re kids. Picture books in particular seem to be very simple. No, no, it’s a cumulative process of understanding how a story is constructed and there is an art and a craft to it, both.

[00:09:13] Janet Fox: And I think it’s, important for writers to know that they have to put those hours in. To understand how to create the structure around the character of the story that they’re trying to tell. You know, a lot of people are impatient, to get the story out. Understanding the craft is the only way to really make that story rise to the level of, publishable, much less readable.

[00:09:36] Sharon Skinner: You just said it again, you weren’t ready to write that story yet. You didn’t really know how. You were going to tell that story yet. And in the meantime, you were being published. You had other books coming out, you were writing, you were publishing, but you weren’t ready to tell that story yet because you didn’t quite have whatever that little thing was that was going to really springboard that story into life.

[00:09:59] Sharon Skinner: I’m. Also a lifelong learner and a person who wants to really integrate craft at a deep level. That’s one of the reasons I teach, because I find that when I teach, the more I teach, the more I understand things at a deep level. The more I have to articulate it in multiple ways for different writers, the more I really understand it at an ingrained level.

[00:10:22] Sharon Skinner: And that helps my writing.

[00:10:24] Janet Fox: Yeah, every time I do a sub stack post on craft I go, Oh, hmm, maybe I’d better look back at that scene I was just writing and see if I did the X thing that I’m talking

[00:10:34] Sharon Skinner: I’m so happy to hear you say that because I’ll be teaching a workshop and I’ll be talking about something and I’ll suddenly go that’s why that scene’s not working in my book.

[00:10:44] Janet Fox: Yep. Yep. Being a lifelong learner is really, important.

[00:10:47] Sharon Skinner: We also need to hear things over and over in different ways or articulate them in different ways in order to really absorb them and get them at a deep level. Staying in it to win it is all about listening to podcasts like this and going to workshops and reading sub stack posts or blog posts or what have you about craft and just staying in the game.

[00:11:07] Sharon Skinner: I tell my writers I get it, there’s so much information out there and it’s, not all the same and it doesn’t all come at you from the same direction and it doesn’t all agree. I have over 200 craft books, just writing craft books that I dip in and out of constantly, and I tell my writers,

[00:11:25] Sharon Skinner: I do that so you don’t have to, but I can also make recommendations to them, which is, I think, really valuable, on which books might be helpful for them specifically, because that’s the challenge, right? Trying to figure out which way we’ll absorb it best, which articulation resonates, which, you connects with our brains because brains are fun, but they’re also very different.

[00:11:46] Janet Fox: Absolutely. Yeah, great point.

[00:11:48] Sharon Skinner: We’ve touched on that. You’ve written picture books. You’ve written nonfiction Wintergreen is a lovely picture book. That’s nonfiction you have also a nonfiction book about organizing But right now, I’m seeing more coming from you that is mystery and contemporary mystery and more in the middle grade arena. Let’s focus a little bit on that

[00:12:10] Janet Fox: sure. I love the middle grade mindset. I think I’m arrested in middle grade That’s a pivotal age. That 12, 13 years old. You’re just on the cusp of moving into, emerging adulthood. And so all sorts of things are changing in your brain and your body and in your social connections. I love that age group because when I taught that age group back in the day, when I taught, eighth grade. I call them my changelings because they would, one minute they were hugging me like I was mom and the next minute they’re like, so cool.

[00:12:43] Janet Fox: So I do love that whole mixture of emotions that comes with middle grade especially, , contemporary middle grade, Carry Me Home, and then my newest one, Mystery of Mystic Mountain are both contemporary middle grade. Carry Me Home is solid traditional contemporary. Mystery has fantastical elements to it, there’s a suggestion of ghosts and a past history and so on. Mainly because I love playing with that stuff and I think kids love it too. But I think for that. age group, it’s, reaching into those emotional touch points for them.

[00:13:16] Janet Fox: What’s important to them? And friendships are primary importance. So those friendship relationships and then the relationships that they have with family members, because They’re both in, conjunction at that moment in time prior to that, I think kids are mostly focused on family.

[00:13:31] Janet Fox: And after that, when they’re in the young adult space, they’re really focused on those friendship groups. So this is the one place in childhood where Readers are bridging both worlds, their family and friendship groups and the emotional connections and ties and conflicts that come up as a result of that.

[00:13:49] Janet Fox: So I really love playing with that. And I really loved it in Mystery of Mystic Mountain because I set it here in Montana where I live. And I set it in an aging dude ranch, which I know a lot about and so it was super fun playing with the history of this area that I live in and all the elements of things that I know really well. And, I just had fun writing this book. I wrote it at the tail end of COVID. And it was like, I just want to have fun. , So that’s what came out of that. But I will say, middle grade is in a funny space right now. Middle grade is struggling in terms of readership. I think that may have something to do with book banning libraries in schools and public libraries are a little bit, on edge about what they’re able to put on shelves for kids. Maybe that’s the reason maybe kids aren’t sure what they should read or can read. I see that middle grade is having a moment where it’s

[00:14:40] Janet Fox: not growing the way it had been over the last couple of years. But these things change. And so if you’re writing middle grade, by the time your book is done, and in the hands of an editor, and published, it’ll be booming again, for sure. I mean, this is the cycle we go through.

[00:14:56] Sharon Skinner: I’m glad you said that because yes, we see these cycles all the time. For a while it was YA was like the undiscovered country and everybody had just discovered it, right? and then middle grade. blew up quite a bit. And we see that expansion and shrinkage in categories, but also in genre. We see that happen in genre, although, as you know, we will hear we don’t want any more vampire books, but every year a new vampire book will come out.

[00:15:22] Sharon Skinner: Right? Because as Janni Simner one of my author friends says, there’s always room for awesome. So again, writing that passion project, writing from the heart, writing what is meaningful to you is in my opinion, the best way to go.

[00:15:37] Janet Fox: Absolutely. Don’t try to chase the trends because the trends are going to be gone in five minutes after you’ve, started your book. So I think that’s exactly right. And for me, this was a passion project just that rose out of needing something to entertain myself. The fun of , how can I construct this mystery? How do I create these riddles and clues? Which was difficult, by the way.

[00:15:57] Sharon Skinner: Yeah, mystery is not something that I aspire even to write, I know that it’s complicated, and there are a lot of challenges with having all those clues. So you have to know the mystery, the resolution to it, and then plant all these seeds. that’s an interesting process. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

[00:16:15] Janet Fox: Sure. I’d be happy to. So in this case, I knew from the very beginning where I wanted to end up. There’s a backstory in the story,, an outlaw, , long dead, who is a Robin Hood type of outlaw, so supposedly, his accumulated, wealth is still out there, it’s a treasure to be found, and, , these kids come together to try and find the treasure for various personal reasons.

[00:16:37] Janet Fox: Well, the treasure is not. What they think it is. I don’t want to give anything big away, but just to say that the treasure is,, a much different thing than they think it is. But they’re chasing these clues that were planted partly by this outlaw, when he was going through his latter days of maybe drifting into some sort of delirium, and partly by things that are contemporary because the antagonist is a contemporary treasure hunter who has bad intentions. So, It was really fun being able to play with all of these clues. And I, tell you, it was hard. I had to lay everything out and have arrows and diagrams and, this comes in here, wait, Oh, it has to actually be here because they need to know that by the time they get to this point. And it was a work in progress for sure. And I had a great copy editor who, pushed me with some questions, and I had to be able to answer the timeline questions, because there were these dual timelines, in the story as well. And so I had to be able to answer those , and I at one point made a huge, genealogical chart because there were so many relationships among these characters through time as well. So she said, can so and so really be so and so’s grandmother? And I said, yes, and here’s how it works. So it was fun, but , it was a challenge to write this book, but it was awfully fun. Yeah. And so writing This kind of book, this is more similar to, the Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle, which was also very complicated.

[00:18:05] Janet Fox: And especially the sequel, The Artifact Hunters, which involved time travel, which is another whole challenge. And by contrast, Carry Me Home was a very linear book in many ways. It’s actually jumps through time as well, with some backstory elements. but it was much more, straightforward to write in that I didn’t have to plant all these clues that people had to then figure out in the book that I needed to know but they needed to figure out.

[00:18:29] Janet Fox: So yeah, it was a challenge and I would not have been up to this challenge, if it had been my first book.

[00:18:35] Sharon Skinner: yeah, again, when you’re ready to write that story, it matters.

[00:18:39] Janet Fox: does matter.

[00:18:40] Sharon Skinner: I assume, because we’re both readers as well as writers, that you read a fair amount of KidLit. Do you also read a lot of Mystery? Is that kind of what pushed you to do this? Or did you just find this? idea so compelling that you needed to write it.

[00:18:57] Janet Fox: The latter, but I, think that every great story has a mystery at its heart, that there is something missing whether that’s something that’s missing in the character’s life or whether it’s an actual thing that’s missing or a person that’s missing. I think at the heart of every story is a mystery.

[00:19:14] Janet Fox: So, I have always embraced mysteries when I was a kid. my favorite thing to read were these minute mysteries. someone recently posted about it. I thought I was the only person on the planet who knew about them. But I had these books that were called Minute Mysteries and it was literally a page of a mystery set up and you were thinking about it and then you flip the page and there’s the answer.

[00:19:34] Janet Fox: It’s kind of like a riddle. but in mystery form. So this little mini story and you’re thinking, how could that happen? How could that be? And you flip the page and the answer to the, riddle , or this little mini story is on the next page. That was one of my favorite things to read as a kid and the Twilight Zone and, One Step Beyond were my favorite TV shows. So I think those and also, Agatha Christie followed right on the heels of Nancy Drew for me as a kid, because, when we were growing up, there was no middle grade genre.

[00:20:05] Sharon Skinner: Right.

[00:20:06] Janet Fox: So that kind of planted those seeds in me that mysteries Are just inherently there in everything. And they are certainly in everything that I write. There’s some kind of mystery, as it were.

[00:20:17] Sharon Skinner: that’s a great way to think about it because you said that there’s always something missing, in the character’s life. And we look at that and we think about what does the character need that they don’t know that they need , there’s a difference between what they want and what they need.

[00:20:30] Sharon Skinner: And usually that need is a mystery to the character, at least at the beginning of the book. We need to know as authors. Yeah, absolutely. So I totally hear what you’re saying. That makes such perfect sense. I love hearing it described as the mystery of the book.

[00:20:47] Janet Fox: As you just said, every character walks into this story. This is another thing that I think new writers need to learn and understand is that the story that they begin on page one actually has a long tail behind it that leads up to page one.

[00:21:01] Janet Fox: And that’s all the Stuff that the character has lived through, including, wounding experiences and that desire that they have, that they don’t know that they have, but also the desire that they do know the one thing that’s missing in their life that’s personal, above and beyond the story.

[00:21:19] Janet Fox: Goal, the big tangible goal. There’s always that big tangible, defeat the bad guy goal underneath that the character is going through something that they need that kind of parallels that goal and they learn how to deal with that inner need by going through what they’re going through in the story arc of the goal arc, if you will.

[00:21:40] Janet Fox: And that’s what I had to learn as a writer, to learn how to find all of those pieces to put them together to create a, three dimensional character with, a, big problem internally and externally.

[00:21:52] Sharon Skinner: Love that you said arrested in middle grade because I often tell people that the reason that I can write for kids is because I never grew up.

[00:21:59] Janet Fox: Yeah. yeah, we were always at the lunch table that wasn’t the cool kid lunch table, right?

[00:22:04] Janet Fox: It’s funny when I’ve gone back to see the people I thought were the cool kids at like reunions or whatever. They say, Oh, no, no, I was not the cool kid. I think we all carry the weight of those middle grade years.

[00:22:16] Sharon Skinner: Well, we were, all awkward because we, we’re just trying to figure out who we are and where we fit and how to navigate and like you said, there’s that. wonderful, bridging between family and friends and that separation that we’re trying to figure out how far do we separate and we’re trying to make sense of all of that. It’s a lot.

[00:22:37] Janet Fox: it is yeah, it’s a fun age to write for, though, that’s for sure.

[00:22:40] Sharon Skinner: Yeah it is, I, love my middle grade books. I keep coming back to them. My first middle grade book, I spilled out in eight weeks. It was horrible because I didn’t know what I was doing, but I loved the characters and I loved the setting and the idea of the story. And it took years to figure out how to fix it so that it was publishable and it is published.

[00:23:01] Sharon Skinner: So it is in the world. but figuring that out, like you said, it took me a long time to figure out how to make it work.

[00:23:09] Sharon Skinner: And honestly, the characters haven’t changed. The setting hasn’t changed. The external journey hasn’t changed. But all of that internal stuff and the structure of the story and, basically the agency of the characters, that was all stuff I didn’t really understand.

[00:23:27] Sharon Skinner: So talk to me a little bit about giving middle grade characters agency in contemporary stories.

[00:23:35] Janet Fox: That’s a great question. I love that question. because, agency means Doing the stuff that needs to be done and not standing back and letting somebody else do it. So, in the middle grade space, it means the parents don’t get to, do things for the kid. The kid has to actually go out and be on their own.

[00:23:54] Janet Fox: so one of the tricks in middle grade is making sure that the child that is the center of the story, the protagonist, has space. from adult supervision, and you can handle it in a number of different ways. Parents can be there, but they’re, off in their own space, off in their own worlds, or they’re distant, or they’re missing entirely.

[00:24:12] Janet Fox: However you want to handle it, it’s very important to give the character the space to do things, to make those things happen. And then the second part of that is to give the character, choices. Because , there are tiny little choices that we all face every day that the character is going to face in the moment.

[00:24:29] Janet Fox: And then there are those big choices that we come to this fork in the road where you can really veer off into a bad space or a good space or. Something very much in between, but, those choices are really key to giving the kid agency. And so, those quick and dirty choices are the ones that I love to play with.

[00:24:47] Janet Fox: In The Mystery of Mystic Mountain, I was thinking about this, just today as I was writing, a little blog post. That my main character has a sidekick. She chooses to join him in the search for the treasure. That’s her big choice. But then at one point, she chooses to take one of these clues and stuff it in her pack and not tell him.

[00:25:07] Janet Fox: And it was a momentary little choice, that was made by, Oh, I just don’t want to do this right now, kind of thing. One of those little things that we do every single day. Okay, I can’t deal with that right now. And so she takes this clue. Well, of course, when he discovers that she’s taken it, he’s furious.

[00:25:24] Janet Fox: And so it creates a great moment of tension and conflict in the story between these two characters. And it makes her sit back and think about her journey, her internal journey, has all been about what kind of person she wants to be. Does she want to be a mean girl? Disses on her old friends? Or does she want to be a true blue companion and a friend in a true way?

[00:25:47] Janet Fox: And it’s the moment where she says, Oh, dang it. I chose wrong. And so I think that that’s how you can give those middle grade characters agency first by letting them loose without parental supervision in a, constraining way. And secondly, by giving them both big and small choices that they can make all the way through your story that will, Make them think about, wait, this choice that I just made is really bad or yes, I nailed it this time. That’s how I, look at it. And when I’m in the middle of the scene, for example, say what can I do to make this character make a choice and then think about that choice.

[00:26:27] Sharon Skinner: One of the things that I find when I’m trying to write middle grade contemporary, is that technology can get in the way of that, because you’re always in touch. So I have to find ways to. take technology out of the hands of the kids or I have to find internal ways for them to choose not to.

[00:26:47] Sharon Skinner: So for example, if the reader’s reading along, they might think, why doesn’t the character call their mom and ask for help? Or go home and talk to their parents about this.

[00:26:56] Sharon Skinner: What we know as middle graders, middle graders don’t do that. A lot of times we don’t opt to ask an adult for help because we want to find our own way. but you need to show that on the page. We need to show the reader to answer that question so that the reader, when they get that question in their brain, doesn’t sit there and go, well, why didn’t they?

[00:27:13] Sharon Skinner: Why didn’t they? I always feel like, it’s important to in some way show that choice on the page, so that the reader doesn’t have that question bothering them as they move forward.

[00:27:24] Janet Fox: That’s, a great point. In fact, I tackled that issue in both Carry Me Home and in the Mystery of Mystic Mountain. So in Carry Me Home, , because they’re homeless, and things happen pretty drastically right from page one, my character just doesn’t have access to a phone, period.

[00:27:40] Janet Fox: In the Mystery of Mystic Mountain, she does have a phone. She texts a lot in the story, actually, but when she texts her dad, it’s very superficial and he’s gotta go, honey, kind of thing. Because he’s not present. Mom is present, but she’s in her own little world.

[00:27:55] Janet Fox: but she’s texting her friends, and that’s the way that I show this push pull of the kind of friend she is and the kind of friend she wants to be. And that was one way I, did that, purposely. Plus the antagonist is not just an antagonist searching for a treasure. He’s a social media star. And I wanted to play with that aspect of how, detrimental, how enticing, how, fraught that whole world can be.

[00:28:26] Janet Fox: So, he’s doing these things because he likes his stardom, he likes his fame, he wants more, and that subtly, I hope, that’s my goal, provides an example to these kids that, this is just not cool, you know, he’s a jerk,

[00:28:40] Sharon Skinner: so, you embraced technology for that, but you used it in a way that still furthered the story. I think that’s great.

[00:28:48] Janet Fox: Thanks, yeah, I had fun playing with that aspect of it too.

[00:28:51] Sharon Skinner: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you would definitely like to cover ? I know we’re kind of coming up on time here, so I just wanted to give you an opportunity to weigh in on anything else that you would like to share.

[00:29:04] Janet Fox: Not really. Again, writing the book of your heart, whatever that is, if you find a concept that says, oh, that really sounds like a cool concept to play with, I really encourage my writers to find the character first. I think everything is about the character’s emotional journey.

[00:29:21] Janet Fox: I think plot. Is one of those things that a lot of writers think, Oh, that’s the most important thing I got to get, my plot beats or my act 123 or whatever. And yes, of course you do. But I’m actually writing a craft book now, which I’m excited about. And I’m taking it from that other side I’m, calling it the art and craft and the art part is finding the characters. So once you have decided on your concept and have a general idea of the plot, I would really encourage listeners to focus on the main character and the antagonist and, what their emotional journeys are all about. And not worry so much about, this happens and then this happens, but What is the emotional journey that the main character must go through in order to achieve both their internal and external goals?

[00:30:13] Janet Fox: And what is the antagonist going to do to try and stop him? And that’s an emotional journey too.

[00:30:18] Sharon Skinner: I’m a very character driven writer, so I don’t know how to get a plot without having a character to understand what I need to put them through. So you’re speaking my language there. Well, this been great. I could talk to you all day. Clearly, we could just go on and on, but we do have to limit our time. But we do like to leave our listeners with an action item every episode, and I would like to offer you the opportunity to share your action item with our listeners now.

[00:30:48] Janet Fox: So when I talk about character. One of the very first things I do to create my character is to uncover what I call their backstory wound. And there’s actually a process that makes it fairly easy to do that. I like to think about, okay, where have they been? Where have they come from?

[00:31:05] Janet Fox: And then craft five short scenes or potential scenes for that character that happened long before page one. Even in picture books, there is backstory. I’m thinking of the picture book Big by Vashti Harrison. Which, the backstory is that she’s a big girl.

[00:31:21] Janet Fox: That’s enough for a picture book. For a middle grade novel, you need a little bit more. And I would fashion those five Very short scenes and then pick the one that’s the most emotionally dynamic, the one that has a most resonant emotion. We all have them. I mean, for me, one of my backstory wounding scenes might be that I was swept under by a wave when we were at the beach when I was three years old and I still remember the moment and I’m still terrified of water.

[00:31:48] Janet Fox: so if I were to write a story in which water was a factor, I’m on a boat or whatever. that would be a big backstory wound for that character and I’d play on it. So find the one that’s the most emotionally resonant for the idea that you’re coming up with and then detail it and make sure you really capture the wounding part of it and bring it into that character desire at the beginning of the story that, underlies all of the emotions the character’s carrying forward.

[00:32:16] Sharon Skinner: That’s great. So, my action for our listeners this month, because it was my mother’s 90th birthday recently, and she’s in memory care. So, she doesn’t really remember a lot of things. And it got me to thinking, because My sister in law asked me for a bunch of pictures.

[00:32:32] Sharon Skinner: She wanted to make a video for my mother. And so she was asking me for all these pictures when we were kids and all this stuff. And it got me to thinking about, some people struggle with remembering what it was like when they were in middle grade. Unlike those of us who have that arrested component to our personalities, so my action item is, for, Whatever range of age that you’re writing for, go back and look at those family photos, those pictures that will remind you of your place and the space that you were in when you were that age and spend time sitting with those memories. your school pictures, like if you have a school picture you or a yearbook that you can sit and look at your classmates and remember who they were and the interactions that you had and who you were and what you felt like during those years.

[00:33:23] Sharon Skinner: Because not everybody has kids at home . We aren’t in spaces where we hear and see kids. And some of us remember that time better we remember year. But of us don’t,

[00:33:34] Janet Fox: heh than heh what a great suggestion. I, love it. It’s so concrete. It’s a great idea.

[00:33:40] Sharon Skinner: I just think that will get you in the mindset when you’re writing for that age group that you can get into the mindset of that by remembering who you were at that time.

[00:33:48] Janet Fox: Yeah. That’s terrific. Yeah. Love it.

[00:33:51] Sharon Skinner: Janet, it has been fabulous having you here today. You want to tell our listeners where else we can find you?

[00:33:57] Janet Fox: Yeah. I do have a website, of course. And that can lead you to My course platform, and I have , free downloads, as well as, short paid courses, as well as bigger paid courses, and I’m also on Instagram and Facebook, and Blue Sky. But my main platform, I would say is my Substack platform, which is under my name.

[00:34:19] Janet Fox: It’s also under, Fox Tales, T-A-L-E-S, not the kind of tail on a Fox. And, that’s where I blog now twice a week. The, free blog, is still, Craft Tips and Tricks. And behind the scenes now, I’m posting, pieces of this upcoming craft book that I am writing. So, I’m trying to reach, all levels of audience.

[00:34:40] Sharon Skinner: You’re keeping busy. And your website is janetsfox. com, so , all one word. Correct. and we’ll put that in the show notes.

[00:34:49] Sharon Skinner: Thank you listeners . And Janet, I can’t thank you enough for being such a great guest.

[00:34:53] Janet Fox: Thanks. It’s been fun. Super fun. Thank you. Bye everybody.

[00:34:57] Sharon Skinner: Bye for now.

[00:34:59] Christy Yaros: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Coaching KidLit, a writing and book coaching podcast for writers who want to level up their KidLit writing game.

[00:35:07] Sharon Skinner: For more about us and to discover what a book coach can do for you, check out coachingkidlit. com and follow us on social media.

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For more information about Sharon Skinner, visit bookcoachingbysharon.com or follow her on Instagram @sharon_skinner_author_bookcoach and Twitter @SharonSkinner56.

For more information about Christy Yaros, visit christyyaros.com or follow her on Instagram and Twitter @ChristyYaros.

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Want to know more about working with a Book Coach on your KidLit book? Check out my KidLit Coaching Page or fill out my inquiry form to schedule a FREE Consult call and let’s get started!