A couple of years ago, I decided that I should write a children’s
book. My theory behind the decision sounded good at
the time: Why write a 300-page novel when you can
write three 100-page children’s stories instead? J.K.
Rowling—with her carpal tunnel-inducing tomes—obviously
doesn’t operate under this theory, but plenty of successful
authors do, notably Daniel Handler, who knocks out his delightfully
dreary Lemony Snicket books like they’re haiku. As
an added bonus, children’s books give you free reign to
name characters “Snobby Funpf.”
Within about ten pages of my foray into children’s literature,
it became apparent that I was merely substituting one style
of hack writing for another, as these two excerpts illustrate:
My eyes returned to my suddenly important book.
Unsure of what to say, I looked hopefully at the woman’s
glowing brown eyes. My chest fluttered a bit as
she asked, “Do you know how to say mirror in German?”
That was from my stalled historical thriller The Loneliest
Monk, which I really should delete from my hard drive.
It gets worse, but I’m too embarrassed to include any more.
Well, maybe I’ll give you a couple more lines:
This woman was one of the great ones. It must have
been the synthetic strawberries that sold me on this.
I wasn’t sure if she felt the same magic. After
all, I probably just smelled like popcorn.
Contrast this with my attempt at children’s lit, from an
untitled work about little kids caught up in a battle over
potable water supplies:
The giggles were drowned out by a noise that all in the
group knew and dreaded. The Call of the Tapir, the
sound of danger. Caarooha. Caarooha.
Tak-Tak. It echoed off the dam and valley walls.
Caarooha, Carooha; tak-tak. Carooha Carooha taktak,
faster the call came. A dark shape hurtled from
the trees and crashed into the embers. Everyone
in the group knew the shape, but none had seen it up close
before.
What
the hell is this nonsense? Shame on me and my Caarooha
tak taks. After I realized that my fiction—both grown
up and kiddie—was gawdawful, I revised my theory:
Why write a 100-page work of children’s fiction when you
can write five 20-page picture books? The added bonus
here was that picture book dialogue can be really short:
Jaime Boll Weevil: “I’m going to the BIG CITY to
become a dancer!”
Mrs. Ram: “Watch out, Jaime. The BIG CITY
bustles!”
Cow: “Moo.”
After a couple of readings, parents get sick of picture
books and make up their own words anyway, so it doesn’t
matter as much if the words aren’t too good. Therefore,
my new plan was to write a short children’s story and then
get a talented friend to draw the illustrations. Unfortunately,
I found it very difficult to devise a simple plot and my
20-page picture book ballooned into a 100-page graphic novel
about a genetically-engineered Lippizaner stallion who attempts
to monopolize the dry goods industry in California’s Central
Valley.
I was lucky enough to get Henry Fong—a talented artist trapped
in the legal profession—to design the menagerie of characters.
He created fantastic drawings, but it was too difficult
to collaborate further on the roughly 600 illustrations
that I’d mapped out for Prancy Horse (later I also
would learn that it is tougher to sell collaborated books
to publishers). Consequently, I tried to recreate
Henry’s drawings, but I found it tough to motivate myself.
While my drawings of lemurs and locusts showed promise,
I had only a rudimentary grasp of perspective, which is
an important element in children’s picture books, now that
the Ancient Egyptians no longer dominate the market.
Therefore, I revised my plans yet again: Use only
Henry’s drawings and hope that nobody notices that they
never change positions. This plan didn’t even satisfy
children in the 12-18 month range, who have notoriously
low standards in literature, so I moved to Plan C:
Learn to draw. In the interim, I would work to my
strengths and settle for mediocrity.
It turns out that I do have a few strengths, down on the
doodling end of the art spectrum. I excel at drawing
pant legs. I can also draw a mean coelacanth and skink,
but these aren’t as useful as pant legs, which are everywhere
you look.
The
revelation that I can draw pants was particularly surprising
because when I was in graduate school, I passed through
a brief phase where I imagined that I could produce competent
acrylic paintings. I was mistaken. I had no
talent, as was proven by a poorly rendered portrait of the
shin portion of my brown jeans—tangible proof that I had
neither an eye for moving subject matter nor the technical
skill needed to paint parallel lines (nor good taste in
jeans).
My newfound mastery over pants led me to table my work on
Prancy Horse and once again reevaluate my goals.
Plan C, therefore, revolved around pants.
I concocted a fable about a boss of a crime syndicate, who
calls himself Fancy Pants and—for fairly complex reasons—wears
flashy pants and a lavender mask (I can also draw masks
quite well). His foil is an Average Joe, who favors
stylish pants. Through a series of misunderstandings,
the media begins to think that the Average Joe is the criminal
mastermind Fancy Pants, rather than merely a connoisseur
of a well-tailored—albeit fussy—pant.
While no doubt a sure-fire hit in the hands of a graphic
artist like Art Spiegelman or Todd McFarlane, I will eventually
need to include a little use of perspective or more than
brief flashes of the corners of character’s faces if I hope
to realize the story’s potential. With this in mind,
I’ve enrolled for beginner drawing classes in January, although
I can’t say that I’m looking forward to four straight hours
of drawing shaky pictures of oranges, or whatever it is
the junior college art classes do.
In
the meantime, I occasionally practice drawing faces, to
disheartening results. For example, here’s a picture
of a friend who—for privacy concerns—I’ll refer to as “Rik”:
First off, I tried to capture his essence in a whimsical
caricature:
It looked a little like him, sort of, I guess. Actually,
it looked more like a drunken Kermit the Frog, so I decided
to try for something more realistic, and therefore took
the advice of a couple of friends who told me to sketch
while looking at the picture upside down. Here’s my
first rendition of him using that technique (don’t ask why
I’m sketching pictures of “Rik”):
There's no doubt that this is a drawing of a person, but
as you can see, “Rik” has aged horribly, as if he were a
Ukrainian political candidate. With the picture right-side
up this time, I tried to get fancy and draw "Rik"
in semi-profile, facing the other way, and without his glasses.
I have no idea what happened, but here it is. Meet
Pat “Rik” Stewart:
Too bad Paramount already has the rights to his likeness.
This looks like a man who appreciates a fussy pant.
Mr.
Lewis can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.
Copyright
Jeff Lewis, 2004 |
