Researching an Indie Picture Book

OVERVIEW

For this post in our indie picture book creation process series, we're going to dive deep into the research process.  We'll use our latest picture book, Pancho Bandito and the Sugarcane Hurricane (aka Pancho 3), as an example.

PHYSICAL RESEARCH

Research through books and the web is vital.  But another wonderful way we get inspired is to do physical research.  There's nothing like putting ourselves in the shoes of our characters and using our five senses to experience the story and world as they would.

For Pancho 3, we knew we wanted to set it on a train.  Fortunately, we had a wonderful resource an hour's drive away.  I visited the #1 tourist attraction in Sacramento: the California State Railroad Museum.

I went on a research trip here and shared the photos with Jonathan.  Jonathan absorbed the reference photos and did his own research online as well.  He created the beautiful art in the book and I used the research to help inspire the story direction.

PITFALLS

Writing research is a tricky thing and I have to fight to maintain a balance between research and actually writing.  I'm (hopefully) writing a book on a topic I'm interested in, so it's easy to get caught up in the minutiae of research.  Then several months go by and I haven't actually written anything, because I've been deluding myself that my procrastination was research.  I think it's also a mistake to try to do all of research up front.  I want enough research to feel on solid ground when starting to write, but not so much that I'm paralyzed by a devotion to authenticity.  I try to do 80% of my research up front and then fill in the rest as I'm writing.  If I get stuck on a story point, briefly diving back into research can help inspire a solution or way to pivot.

For example, I had started writing Pancho 3 but it was mainly a succession of Pancho fighting desperadoes in different train cars and it all felt like too much of the same thing.  Jonathan pushed me to find more of a puzzle-type of obstacle like we had with the trials in Pancho Bandito and the Avocado Desperadoes.  Doing the research led us to the idea of Pancho being trapped in a refrigerator car, which ended up being a key story obstacle.  The research also helped with the mechanics of the refrigerator car's doors and how they would swing.

Refrigerator (reefer) car from California Train Museum.  Note how the doors swing and their color.  Bright colors like yellow or orange were used for refrigerator cars because their contents had to be tended to in the rail yard first.

Aside from a few design details (triangular hinges), our refrigerator car is pretty close to the reference.

Research pic inside the refrigerator car.  Note the stacked fruit crates.

Jonathan put our family name on the fruit crates: Sundy.

INSPIRATION

One of the great benefits of research is inspiration.  When I start a story, I have some story kernel in my head but many details are unclear.  Research can help me decide on some load-bearing walls for the story and make it more concrete.  It helps me picture the story in my head and provides a mental model to strive to make real.

For example, the train itself is kind of a character in this book since it's the moving residence of the main villain.  Research gave us details to help flesh him out.  You learn a lot about Gordito by the opulence of his parlor car and the way he decorates his train with trophies and newspaper clippings of his business success.

Actual fancy parlor car interior.

Gordito's fancy parlor car.

MAPPING

Sometimes research can inspire the landscape.  In Pancho 3, the train became the literal map for the story and route that our hero took as he sought his objective.  He had to travel from the back of the train to the front, which meant we needed to set different turning points in the story in (or on top of) certain train cars.

A lot of work and rearranging went in to the order of the train cars.  The train gets split twice, so we needed certain cars in a certain order for the story to work.  One of the first tasks we had to sort out before writing the story was to figure out the layout of the entire train.

Early mockup to help us figure out order of train cars and scale of the characters in relation to the train.

In our other Pancho books, we always have a page with a map.  In this book, the train was the map!

AUTHENTICITY

Another key reason to do research is authenticity.  As storytellers, one of our jobs is the suspension of disbelief.  Anything "real" helps sell the truth of the story and makes any fantastic elements more palatable to the reader.  That means that even for fantasy/sci-fi/magical realism stories, we need to do research.  It preserves the illusion of reality in the reader's mind.  Another side benefit of authenticity is that it provides parameters to keep the story within.  Parameters often inspire more creativity than a completely blank canvas.  Authenticity is a funny thing.  Readers can sense it even if they can't articulate why.  A lot of that is the product of research and putting in small details that readers may not notice till multiple readings (or ever.)

For example, one thing we learned was that trains of that era had titles with periods.  So we did that for our train, The Hurricane.  It may seem like such a small thing, but it helps the story to feel real.  We also added details like the green color and arched windows on the parlor car.

Note the period on the train name.

Note the arched windows and unique green color on this lovely parlor car.

We also included details like a period on our train name and the arched windows and green color of the parlor car.

We put in other miscellaneous details that drew from real life train cars at the museum.  For example, the look and shape of the engine.

This engine is gorgeous in person.

A smaller engine but it still gave us a good sense of some details.

Wide shot that includes our engine.

Closer shot that gives more detail on the smokestack and top of engine.

CHARACTER

Research provides an excellent opportunity to develop and illustrate character.  The palette of a certain time period and setting gives many options to choose from when differentiating characters.

One key symbol we discovered during our research was the golden spike.  This is based on an actual railroad spike driven to connect the two halves of the Transcontinental Railroad.  We partially based Gordito on Leland Stanford, the railroad baron who helped complete the Transcontinental Railroad.  We liked the spike so much as a symbol of locomotive wealth that we incorporated it into Gordito's brand.  You can see that it's part of the "G" symbol he uses.

I believe this is a replica cast from the original mold of the Golden Spike.

#30 is the dapper railroad tycoon (and some say robber baron) Leland Stanford who helped create the Transcontinental Railroad.

The askew glass case on the wall contains Gordito's golden spike.

Close up of the spike in Gordito's "G" brand.  Can you find the other golden spikes hidden in the book?

DEVIATION

Sometimes we need to deviate from research.  If we have a key story point that needs to happen a certain way for emotional purposes, we will go a different direction than the actual research.  The spell of the story is the important thing, so we have to make sure our deviation preserves that spell.

For example, we ran into a problem with the rail couplers (hitches) of the period.  Most seemed to be the link-and-pin model show below.  We had to deviate from research here for story purposes to make sure it was the kind of coupler that could be separated by an object falling from above, like El Pico, Gordito's dastardly lieutenant.  It was a key part of the story (and emotionally satisfying) that Pancho pulled off an impossible shot to drop El Pico on the coupler and separate the cars.

Link-and-pin coupler that was accurate to the period.

This coupler was not accurate (at least not common) to the period, but necessary for story purposes.  We also painted it yellow so it would stand out more, which is rare but occasionally done.

EASTER EGGS

We have a lot of Easter eggs in our Pancho books, because kids love finding them and we get a chuckle out of putting them in.  Research provides opportunity to layer these Easter eggs in.

For example, the numbers on the parlor car and refrigerator car are the same as the ones in the California State Railroad Museum.  Jonathan threw in some other Easter egg numbers - one of the cars has his scrambled birth year and one has mine.

Another Easter egg is the newspaper in the background of Gordito's caboose: The Silver City Sentinel.

Close up shot of the Hurricane that shows Jonathan's scrambled birth year (1982) and mine (1974.)  Yes, I'm older.  No need to bring it up.

The newspaper in the background of the caboose is The Silver City Sentinel, which is the paper from the town Pancho grew up in.  Could this be a hint that Pancho might actually know this mysterious Gordito?

WRAP UP

In summary, research is vital and helps us create an authentic story world.  As long as we avoid the pitfalls of procrastination and aren't too rigid to authenticity, it can be a strong tool to map our story, round out characters, and put in entertaining touches like Easter eggs.

To enjoy the fruits of our research and find all of the Easter eggs, click the picture below to get Pancho Bandito and the Sugarcane Hurricane!

Picturebooking Podcast on Self-Publishing

Several years ago, I got more serious about writing picture books.  To do that, I had to find and learn from other professionals.  Enter the Picturebooking podcast.  It was the first kidlit podcast I ever listened to and one I treasure.  Now, all these years later, Jonathan and I are guests on this podcast that meant so much to me.  Please enjoy Jonathan introducing me as a ribbon dancer and other shenanigans as we talk about self-publishing children's books together.  We also offer some tantalizing details on Pancho 3 and how the structure of the setting mirrors the structure of the story.  Enjoy!

http://www.allthewonders.com/podcasts/mike-jonathan-sundy-picturebooking-episode-85/

Indie Picture Book Creation Process

Hi!  We are Mike Sundy and Jonathan Sundy, the creators of Pancho Bandito and the Avocado Desperadoes.  We're going to talk about the writing and illustration process we went through to create our indie picture book.  In the writing section, Mike will cover inspiration, fan dialogue, rough ideas, research, music, outline, manuscript, beta read, and notes.  In the art section, Jonathan will cover design, research, storyboards, illustration, and format.  Then we'll wrap up with a little bit about iteration and reception.  First, let's introduce ourselves.

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Mike

Introduction

I'm Mike Sundy and I'm the author of the Pancho Bandito series, among other books.  Jonathan and I are from a midwestern family of five, where I'm the oldest and he's the youngest.  I used to work at Pixar as an IT person and Jonathan used to be the Design Director of Metaphase Design group in St. Louis.  We both left our desk jobs a couple years ago to pursue creative lives, Jonathan in art and myself in writing.  We've worked together on a few books now and have figured out a process that works for us.  We call it "brollaboration." :)  So, let's start at the beginning of the brollaborative process: inspiration.

Inspiration

Our first book in the Pancho Bandito Series

Jonathan (R) and Mike (L) during a school visit for the first Pancho Bandito book.

Pancho Bandito and the Avocado Desperadoes is the second book in our epic tall tale Western series.  The benefit of it being a sequel is that I already have some material to start from.  There were loose threads from writing the first book that we wanted to explore, mostly having to do with the backstory of his family.  Things are usually fuzzy at this early stage, with no clear path forward.  For this one, we came up with the title first because it was fun to say.  Then we built a story around it.  Another place we got inspiration from was our fans.

Fan Dialogue

Jonathan at a school visit in Philadelphia.

We did Skype and school visits with fans of our first Pancho book.  Some of the kids asked questions that shaped the direction of the second book.  Some of these questions we explored were: Why is Pancho so big?  What happened to his parents?  Where's his weapon?

Rough Ideas

Notes from our first in-person meeting about Pancho 2.

A lot of my early stages of writing are jotting things down on Post-it notes and scraps of paper.  I'll also record a voice memo on my iPhone if inspiration strikes me while I don't have a pen handy.  The fan questions above got me noodling about possible answers.  Maybe Pancho's so big because his ancestors were Olmecs.  Maybe his parents had something unfortunate happen to them and that's why Pancho grew up alone.  Maybe he wasn't always alone, and we could end this book with a revelation about a long-lost family member.  I still didn't have a good answer about what Pancho's weapon was or how he got it.  That seemed like a good concrete goal that Pancho could have in book two: getting his weapon.  

Research

I got to research many interesting things for this book: southern California mountain ranges, avocado crop-growing regions, and the giant stone heads and language of the mysterious Olmec civilization.  Much of the research doesn't go directly into the manuscript, but it informs the feel and gives it an authenticity which grounds the story.

Our villain steals crops and ships them by rail to make his gold.

Pancho's heritage is from the mysterious lost Olmec civilization.

Gathering Olmec imagery also helps shape the story.

Music

Now that I'm ready to get into the official "writing things down" part of the writing process, I choose my playlist.  I write to music since it helps me block out the outside world and puts me in the fantasy world of the story.  Another bonus is that the music acts as a trigger to get me writing.  For Pancho, I wrote to classic country because it was the kind of music I thought a cowboy would listen to.  That meant I heard lots of Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, with a dash of Marty Robbins.

The playlist that I put on to when I write Pancho books.  Click the image if you want to listen to some old school country.

Outline

Here's where the "real" writing begins.  It's all been theoretical until this point but now I'm starting to construct the narrative.  I believe most kidlit writers don't outline, but I usually do.  It comes from my background in screenwriting.  I like outlining because it gives me a roadmap for the manuscript and lets me work out the story beats in a looser format.  I'm not as precious about changing major story beats if I haven't spent the time to craft dialogue and text.  That helps me be flexible when I get feedback.

Manuscript

I tend to write early drafts long and then cut way down.

This is the stage that most people think of as writing.  This is when I choose the actual words that will go on the page.  I've done a few drafts of the outline at this point.  Now it's time to do a few drafts of the manuscript.  I get to throw in fun Old West words like "vamoose" and "skedaddle."  The manuscript usually starts off way too long and self-indulgent.  By the time I get to the third or fourth draft, the text has been trimmed down.  It's going to get cut down and reshaped even more in the next stages.

Beta Read And Notes

I'm lucky enough to have a kid audience that I can test stories on: my three daughters.  I read early drafts of the story aloud to them to get their reactions and see where the text feels clunky, confusing, or overlong.  For children's books, it's critical to read the story aloud until I get the rhythm right.  After I read the draft to them, they give me notes and tell me what parts they liked and which parts they felt could use more work.

I get a handful of notes from other writers, but Jonathan's the key person I get notes from.  He's a writer himself.  We have a true collaboration, where sometimes he invents story things and sometimes I come up with art ideas.  Though technically I'm the author and he's the illustrator, we blur those lines and take whatever idea's best for the book.  I send every draft to him, and his notes are what give me the fuel to do the next draft.

My three legbugs holding the paperback version of Pancho 2.

The red ink is from my daughters' feedback on the story.

The yellow in-line notes are where Jonathan (aka Jolly) had some feedback on the story.  I write in Movie Magic Screenwriter because I can't live without the in-line notes feature.

Handoff

When the manuscript gets to the stage where we're both pretty happy with it, I hand it off to Jonathan for illustrating.  I'll still make many text edits throughout the illustration stage, but the bulk of the work now falls on his shoulders.  I will now hand off this blog post, so he can speak about the other half of making a kid's book.

Chilling in my backyard hammock now that Jonathan has to do all the work.

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Jonathan

Phew!  Is that guy finally finished blathering on about writing?  Now we can talk about the fun part - illustrating!

Design

Before you can illustrate a single page, I recommend figuring out the overarching design or style of your book illustrations.  Do you want a detailed, naturalistic style or cute and simple?  The design phase is all about figuring out the visual feel of the world in which your characters live.  During the design phase, my main focus is on Character and Environment Design.  Pancho Bandito and the Avocado Desperadoes is a sequel, which meant we already had a lot of the visual style figured out and our main characters had been designed.  So, most of our focus was designing new characters and environments.

Research

Research for our El Pico character.

Color and style inspiration for our environment.

Research for the train design.

When designing a new character, I always start with research.  I'll look at similar characters from movies or books, outfit designs, time periods, and locations.  The images I gather in research are then used as inspiration when I sketch a bunch of different versions of my characters.  I'll share these sketches with Mike and we'll narrow in on the specific design that makes the most sense for the story.  I always try to make each character's overall shape unique.  Generally, you should be able to identify each of our characters by their silhouette.  The main new character in this book was the villainous El Pico.  His name means "The Beak" so I knew his large nose would be a focus of the design.  

Exploratory character designs for El Pico, drawn while looking at reference photos

This loose sketch is getting closer to the final design of El Pico

This design process - research, sketch, downselect and refine - is the exact same method I use to develop the environment designs.

 

Storyboards

Now that we've solved the major design questions, it's time to storyboard the book.  Storyboarding is all about figuring out the image associated with the text on each page.  I start by asking questions: What is the major emotional driver on this page?  What is the main action in the text?  What information is most important to communicate to the reader?  Next, I do a really rough sketch for each page.  I do these sketches on Post-it notes or fit 10+ sketches on one page.  A small canvas keeps me focused on the big picture composition rather than noodling details.  I'll often do 3 or 4 super quick variations of each page to figure out which composition works best for the story.

A page of quick storyboard sketches.

Keep sketches loose, don't focus on details.

Mike and I typically do a few drafts of the storyboarded book.  We often find that once we have the illustrations, some of the text can be cut.  After we settle on a draft of the storyboard that we both like, I'll move on to final illustrations.

Storyboard sketches arranged sequentially.  I use Powerpoint for this because I'm familiar with the program and it's easy to share PDFs with Mike.

 

Illustration

This phase is all about creating the final drawings that will be in the book.  I illustrate all of my final artwork using Photoshop and a tablet, which enables me to draw directly on my screen.  I use the storyboard images as an underlay layer for each page.  I'll add more detail, clean up the linework, and add color and texture.  Also, I'm always careful to leave enough room for the text that will be on that page.  These images take between 6 and 9 hours to create depending on their complexity, which makes illustration the longest step in the entire book creation process.

Examples of final illustrations.

Format

Now that we have the final images, it's time to format the book.  By format, I mean combine the text and final artwork on each page and then output a file that can be used for either eBooks or Print.  We use the programs/apps Book Creator (iBooks), Kindle Kids Book Creator (Kindle) and Adobe Indesign (printed books) to format our books.  For Book Creator, we just drop the images in, add any text, and then export as an ePub file for iBooks.  Book Creator is an incredibly intuitive app and lets me do everything from my iPad.  InDesign is a more complicated program to pick up but it is very powerful and gives me a lot of design control.  Lastly, I wouldn't wish Kindle Kid's Book Creator on my worst enemy, but we haven't found a better app for Kindle children's books.

We used the app 'Book Creator' to format the iBooks version of Pancho 2.

Wrap-Up

Iteration

Things are never perfect the first time.  We iterate through multiple drafts in all of the writing and art stages.  It's vital to have a collaborator who can tell you when things aren't quite there yet but also supports you and helps you get to a higher level of craft.  We challenge and encourage each other through the multiple iterations it takes to create work of high-quality.

All those different files are different drafts of the story.

It takes many sketches before we find the right design for a character.

Reception

Featured banner on the front page of the iBooks Kids store.

We hit #5 out of all iBooks Kids books.

Now that we took you through the creation of the book, how was it received?  Very well!  We debuted at the top of our Amazon sub-categories and #5 on iBooks Kids.  The best part (so far) is that iBooks decided to feature it on a huge banner on the front page of their Kids section, next to kidlit heavyweights like Raina Telgemeier and Dav Pilkey.  Actually, I'm lying.  The best part is that I get to make cool stuff with my brother.  Hope you enjoyed this walk through our process to create Pancho Bandito and the Avocado Desperadoes.  If you want to support us and what we do, you can pick up a copy of the book here: Paperback | Kindle | iBooks.  Thanks!

- Mike and Jonathan Sundy

See Pancho battle bad guys on a speeding train!

P.S.  We're currently working on Pancho 3!  It's called Pancho Bandito and the Sugarcane Hurricane and will be released in Fall 2017.  You can pre-order it here on iBooks.
 

Art of Show podcast with the Sundy Brothers

Jonathan and I had a wonderful time on the Art of Show podcast with Brandon Cullum.  We talk about "brollaboration" in children's books, growing up in a practical family, and our process for creating the Pancho Bandito series together.  You can watch the Youtube video or check the podcast out on iTunes.

Youtube Podcast Interview with the Sundy Brothers

Stories Unbound interview

Had a wonderful time describing the pros and cons of indie kidlit publishing with Shawna Tenney on her excellent Stories Unbound podcast!  We discuss Pixar, how being an IT person applies to the indie kidlit world, and the future of publishing (hint: hybrid.)  Give it a listen here: https://chrisoatley.com/su16/