The Visual Art of Writing

Sophie's Cabin

JANICE:  Do you make pictures in your mind when you read a good novel? So much so that you forget you are reading? That means the author made pictures in her mind when she wrote it. Visualization is the most potent technique I have ever discovered. It not only transports the reader, it transports the writer of fiction to some other place and time.

Here is a scene from my historical novel, Sophie's War. Sophie is the daughter of a German family living in Comfort, Texas, during the Civil War. Her father, like many German immigrants, is a Unionist living in a state that has left the Union. Since he makes his views widely known by drawing editorial cartoons for a San Antonio newspaper, he has received threats from Confederate ruffians. Sophie tries to persuade him to keep silent, but he refuses.

"After school I went straight upstairs. Papa sat at his drawing board with his back to me. When he is at work he neither sees nor hears anything else. I looked over his shoulder, and my heart sank. He was drawing a cartoon for the Zeitung about the death of General Johnston.
I stood behind him, scarcely breathing. This one was going to get him in trouble. I had to do something, and begging did not seem to work.
Suddenly, I knew I had to destroy the cartoon. The very thought made my heart pound.
Papa must have heard it, for he turned to look at me. I reached for the cartoon, snatched it from the drawing board, and stepped back. I tore it in half as he stared at me in disbelief."

To write this scene I visualized climbing the stairs to the half-story and standing behind Papa. Long before, I had found and photographed the log cabin where she would live. And I had drawn a plan of both floors, including placement of furniture. These were pinned up on the wall of my studio next to my writing desk. I also had pictures of characters gleaned from books, magazines, and photograph albums. And Tom had drawn a cartoon in the style of Thomas Nast, a Civil War cartoonist. When Sophie looks over Papa's shoulder, as I have looked over Tom's, I knew exactly what she was seeing. My heart leaped too.

It took time and much writing before I became conscious of visualizing, even though I was doing it. Now that I am aware of the technique, I use it constantly. If I get stuck, it is because I am not visualizing. I refuse to use the w.b. words because they sound like a terminal disease. Being stuck is not terminal. It is temporary, caused by a lack of information that enables me to visualize. Thus it is time to do more research.

There are many ways to collect images. The library with its carefully chosen books and helpful librarians is a first choice for me. Although I also research on the internet, mostly for images, my real love is the library where professionals, both editors and librarians, have screened the contents for reliability.

But libraries are not enough. Give yourself experiences related to your book. These are but a few of the experiences that helped me write and Tom illustrate my stories: Crossing the Pacific Ocean by freighter, visiting the small village in Germany where my ancestors lived, watching a house being moved, playing soccer with the boys in the square where Vivaldi's childhood home still stands, walking the beach at Indianola on a cold December day, observing Arabian horses at a stable, following the Comanche trail across Texas that led to the Battle of Plum Creek. Do whatever it takes to give you images and sounds and smells of the places in your story.

For Sophie's War I lived in Comfort for two weeks and returned at the various seasons to experience the change. There I found Sophie's cabin, roamed the land where it stood, watched sheep grazing in the meadow, the sun rise over Cypress Creek, listened to the wind sough in the liveoak branches, and felt myself becoming Sophie.

Where Do Ideas Come From?

JANICE:  Ideas come from everywhere - from research, newspapers, history, ruins of ancient civilizations, family stories, our experiences, travel, even from music. Our love of music by Antonio Vivaldi led us to research his life and write and illustrate I, Vivaldi. He was a priest who taught violin to girls at an orphanage called the Pietà in Venice. He also composed music for them to play and conducted their orchestra which became known all over Europe.

Those orphan girls who developed into fine musicians fascinated me. I began to wonder what it was like to live in the Pietà and be Vivaldi's student. So I wrote Anna Maria's Gift to find out. Anna Maria is a young girl who is sent to the Pietà after her father's death. All she has left of him is the violin he made for her, but it carries his soul within. When she plays her violin, she hears his voice. That idea came from researching the great violin maker, Antonio Stradivari, who liked to keep each violin in his bedroom for a month before varnishing it. He believed his soul entered the violin while he slept. And he should know!

From idea, to writing and rewriting, to editing, to published book can take a long time, even years. But at last Anna Maria's Gift  will be available on April 27, 2010. Please look for it!

BIG THRILL: Our First Foreign Edition

JANICE:  Today a box arrived from Eerdmans Books for Young Readers with three copies of the new Korean edition of I, Vivaldi. I think Antonio would be as thrilled as we are. Thanks to the Korean publisher, Tomato House. Your edition is beautiful. May people in your country love Vivaldi and his music as much as we do. Now for the rest of the world!

TOM:  What a thrill to see my paintings embellished with Korean calligraphy.

Outside the Book

JANICE:  There are times when an author needs to get outside the book and into a school with her readers. What better place than Bradfield Elementary in Highland Park ISD? And what better grade than fourth? The amazing team of teachers used A Paradise Called Texas and the sequels, Willow Creek Home and Spirit of Iron in depth. In fact the children know my books better than I remember!


Fourth graders in Texas (and perhaps elsewhere) study techniques of writing. When I visit a classroom I am amazed at what they are learning and think I should go back to fourth grade. At Bradfield one assignment was to write a letter as if you were the main character, Mina, who immigrates to Texas in 1845. She is writing to her grandfather back in Germany. Here is what Jillian wrote in part, and I quote with her permission:

"Dear Opa,

Our new life in Texas is good, but some sad things occured. We have a wonderful log house and a beautiful garden. Also we made peace with the Indians and go to a nice school under some fine trees. Papa married a kind woman named Lisette because Mama died from a sickness called pneumonia. She said that she wanted to fly up to heaven with the seagulls, and I guess that her wish came true.

Mina"

Jillian's letter made a lump in my throat just like when I wrote about Mama's dying. That scene is a favorite with readers. Why? Because it makes them feel an intense emotion. Isn't that one reason we read?

I, Papa Haydn: Picture Book in Progress

TOM:  This dummy drawing is for I, Papa Haydn, the book we are working on now. It shows young Joseph Haydn in Master Reuter's carriage as they arrive at St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Here Joseph will join the boys' choir.  I drew the scene from an old etching and my photos and sketches made during our visit to Vienna. Those little marks in the sky show where the text will go. The drawing will evolve into a full color illustration.

Our decision to write about the composer Franz Joseph Haydn came from reading that young Joseph sang in the choir for Antonio Vivaldi's funeral Mass. Since we had recently published I, Vivaldi, this connection between the two composers seemed magical. In fact, while researching Haydn we stayed in a small hotel in Vienna that happened to be across the street from the building where Vivaldi spent the last year of his life. We felt destined to write this book!

Research Adventure

JANICE:  Research takes you to places you would never go and connects you to people you would never know otherwise. It is a glorious adventure with a purpose.

Tom and I are currently working on a picture book biography titled I, Papa Haydn. Since we do not write about or illustrate a place we have not seen with our own eyes, we traveled to Austria and Hungary where the composer Franz Joseph Haydn lived.

On a cold, rainy, windy day in November we set out from Vienna by train to visit the country palace of Prince Esterhazy, Haydn's patron. We crossed the border into Hungary and stopped in the small village of Fertod. Alighting from the train, we seemed to be nowhere. There was no train station, only a hut by the tracks. Tom knocked on the door. A grim, bearded, man opened it a crack.

"Kastely?" I asked. (Castle or palace in Hungarian)

Out came an arm and pointed the direction. Though the palace was nowhere in sight, we started off down the long straight street bordered by shut-tight houses. No one was about, only dogs that barked at us.

At last we came to a center and a school and asked directions. Walking on to the edge of town we came upon the lonely palace, a Hungarian Versailles, walked through the wrought iron gate, across the vast entrance court, and up the central steps. The doors were locked. On a lower level we found a room with a ticket office and a sign that obviously said closed. The few tourists who had gathered there left. We stayed. I noticed a door slightly ajar. We opened it and began roaming the palace, not knowing how to find the room we had to see, the Music Salon. Doors were locked and Tom's new shoes were hurting, so I went on. A guard commanded me to leave.

"Mein Herr," (My husband) I pleaded in German and pointed upstairs. He threw up his arms, and I continued to explore. Finally a young man came bounding down a spiral staircase. I pulled out Tom's storyboard illustrations and pointed to the one of the Music Salon. He understood and brought the curator of the palace. She, along with the guard, took us to the glorious French salon.

After Tom took photographs, we hurried back to catch the last train to Vienna. Standing in the cold wind as daylight waned, we watched the man in the hut come out and manually lower the traffic gate for the approaching train. As we boarded, he smiled and waved. It was the only smile we received from the village. But we got what we wanted. The moral to this story is, never take no for an answer.

Little Yellow Tabs

TOM:  As illustrator of Janice's books, I am her love slave!
Our home studios are in two separate buildings, the big house and the little house, connected by a bridge across our wooded property. On days when I'm working downtown in my architectural office, Janice crosses the bridge, reviews the current sketch or illustration, and leaves her comments on little yellow tabs stuck around the edges — some praising, some not.
In an illustration of young Antonio Vivaldi playing his violin at home, I gave him a sad expression. His mother had just told him that God meant for him to be a priest, not a violinist, which was not what Antonio wanted to hear. As he tells it, "I stomped upstairs and played a fast piece that expressed the anger in my heart."
When I came home from the office the illustration had a yellow tab that said, "Angry not sad. Read the text, dummy! Love, Janice."
I did and the final illustration became one of our favorites in I, Vivaldi. Eerdmans Books for Young Readers also loved it and turned it into a poster for the book.