Mel is Mel Boring, moderator of this interview with Bruce Coville, and Web Editor of the ICL Web Site.

Interviews are held every other Thursday evening for two hours, beginning at 9 CANADA/
Atlantic Time, 8 Eastern Time, 7 Central Time, 6 Mountain Time, and 5 Pacific Time.

Mel: Welcome to the ICL Chat Room everyone! Bruce Coville, we have waited for this very evening, and I am so pleased you are able to be with us tonight in the ICL Chat Room! We children's writers, as well as the children you write for, have been entertained and fascinated by your books. We are eager to hear something about how you do it. Just the sheer NUMBERS of books you have written is breathtaking. Beyond that, your about-a-dozen SERIES of children's books seems a mammoth undertaking. You have written novels, funny books, scary books, fantasy, picture books-you've done it all, our friend. We WARMLY WELCOME You here, and are waiting excitedly to hear about how you came to writing children's books, and simply HOW you do it, and do it so much. We give you our very heartfelt WELCOME to the chat room tonight, Bruce Coville!

Bruce: Howdy! Glad to be here.

Mel: First of all, a special greeting from a friend for you, Bruce:

Bruce: Hey, Hope! What a nice surprise to find you here!

Mel: Bruce, were there other writers in your family of origin, or were you the first—as writers are sometimes thought of—"odd one"? J

Bruce: Oh, I was definitely the odd one. The general thought in the family is, "Where did HE come from? My grandfather was a square dance caller and a bit of a story teller (though he was a farmer by trade). And I always thought I got a bit of it from him.

Mel: Do you call square dances yourSELF then?

Bruce: Ah, no—there's not so much call for callers now. Though I wish I had had my grandfather teach me some. You think of these things too late, sometimes. (Sorry, I'm on HTML, so you'll be seeing a lot of ellipses…tonight.)

Mel: I think there's an ellipses of the MOON tonight—so don't worry about those!

Bruce: Nice pun!!

Mel: Did you do any writing that you remember as a child growing up?

Bruce: I can remember starting a few stories when I was a kid. The first time I thought I would like to be a writer at all was when I was in sixth grade. Our teacher had us write all year long, but I failed at it all year long. Until finally she gave us an assignment that wasn't pegged to a prompt . She just had us write a story, gave us an extended period of time to work on it, and told us we were going to read them all out loud at the end. Which meant we knew we had an audience. And I did a great job! That was the first time I thought I would like to be a writer.

Mel: Did you go to college, and if so, what was your major, English, Composition, Fantasy?

Bruce: It took me a few years to get through college. I started at Duke University, which was a great school, then I transferred to the SUNY College at Binghamton. Finally I went to the state college at Oswego (NY) because I had figured out if I wanted to write for children, I wasn't going to make a living at it right away, and what I ought to be doing was working with them. I taught for seven years, and that was my real education!

Mel: What did you learn from those kids, for instance?

Bruce: Well, I've based characters on them. Russell in The Monster’s Ring, and Eddie in the same book are both based on kids I taught. So is Duncan Dougal from the My Teacher is an Alien series. I learned how serious kids are, how intelligent they are, how underchallenged they are in today's educational system, how much they want to contribute and be part of the world, at least, some of them.

Mel: Were YOU a sixth-grade alien yourself in 6th grade? J

Bruce: Well, there were times when I felt as if I were the only purple kid in class. That was one reason I wanted to do the series. I think everyone in Sixth Grade feels like an alien!

Mel: YUP, I think you're right! Do you remember when it was, finally, that you decided "I want to be a writer"?

Bruce: Well, I decided several times! First time, in sixth grade. I thought I would take that short story I wrote and make it the basis for a book. But you change your mind when you're a kid. One day you're going to be a writer, then you're going to be an astronaut, then a ditch digger, then a writer again! I kept coming back to being a writer, and when I was about 17 I settled on it and knew for sure that was what I wanted. Which didn't mean I didn't have other majors in college. But I was writing all that time.

Mel: You're had some interesting occupations yourself throughout life, if I remember right. Were you ever a ditch digger?

Bruce: Nope, but I was a gravedigger. Much more interesting, imho.

Mel: What was the "magic" that happened at age 19 that made you decide to write for KIDS, Bruce?

Bruce: I was going out with the girl around the corner (you have to understand, we lived out in cow country, so it was about five miles around the block, so it's not like we had grown up together) and her mother gave me a copy of Winnie the Pooh to read. I had tried reading Pooh when I was a kid, but didn't like it because I thought it was silly that Christopher Robin didn't get to the 100 Aker Wood by doing something like falling down a rabbit hole. But when I was 19 I was old enough to "get" the book (it's really as much for grownups as it is for kids)—and that combined with the fact that my girlfriend was a fabulous artist, and the fact that I had always liked kids’ books—never felt a need to stop reading them to feel like a grown up—made me think that we could do them together. And a mere eight years later we finally sold our first book!

Mel: WELL put, Bruce! What was that first book that you and Kathy did?

Bruce: Well, the first book we TRIED to do was called The Pixie Palace. But it wasn't very good. Actually, the art was good. My story was lacking. The first one we sold was called The Foolish Giant. (Actually, I was a Sixth Grade Alien didn't come till much later).

Bruce: I used to do that, Alice. I would read them to my own kids, and also to my classes. You have to train kids to give you good feedback—make them feel safe, telling you when something DOESN'T work. You can get some very good info that way. But don't bother telling an editor. It doesn't cut any ice with them, partly because they know that a lot of kids will be polite when an adult is reading them a story. So you can learn from the kids, but you can't use that as a selling tool.

Bruce: Well, that's a good question! I think first, you have to have a somewhat unique personality! (Which, if you’ve decided you're going to be a writer, you probably do.) Then—and this is more painful—you have to write your way to that voice, write past all the other writers you've read, absorbed, and loved. Write so much that you get them out of your system. Though there will be traces of them there. And once you've gotten past them, these silent teachers who inspired you, you may start to find your own true voice.

Bruce: Do you write in class yourself? I think modeling is the single best teaching tool we have. I always used to have my students do journals. And when they journaled, I journaled. It was a way of saying/showing that I valued the activity. Also, writing doesn't always occur in isolated blocks of half-hour times. One of the best things I think I did for my kids was to always let them continue with a piece of writing if they wanted to. It gave them a sense of ownership and purpose. Not all of them turned in good stuff as a result. But some of them did work that was extraordinary. (And I'm talking about 2nd graders here!)

Mel: Did the fact that boys are usually less interested in books make you want to write for boys, Bruce?

Bruce: I think it's more the fact that I'm a boy that made me want to write for boys!

Mel: That figures!

Bruce: Actually, I never really thought of myself as a boy's writer, per se. That was how I got labeled when people figured out that boys were reading my books. But here's a conundrum: the common wisdom is that girls will read about boys, but boys won't read about girls. Yet my most successful book, read by hundreds of thousands of boys, My Teacher is an Alien—which is told in first-person female!

Mel: You've written for girls, as well. With your fifth book in the Magic Shop series, Juliet Dove, Queen of Love, were you trying particularly to write more for girls?

Bruce: Not particularly. For that plot, a girl made a lot more sense. It was simply what was right for the story. I do like writing about girls. I've done more male than female viewpoint overall, but really for each book I make the choice based on the story more than on a need to write about one gender or the other.

Bruce: Oh, I use Syracuse a lot. The three books in the Nina Tanleven/Ghost Series are rooted in Syracuse, using real locations and even a few real people. So is Monster of the Year (one of my tragically underrated titles ;> ) As much as Syracuse, I also use the sense of small town life I have from my growing-up years.

Bruce: Whoa! That's an interesting question, and I'm not sure I've got a quick answer. I do think you can make almost any character work if you provide an "entry point"—something the audience can identify with, even if they don't like the character as a whole. The thing is, for both boys and girls, you have to keep in mind the bell-shaped curve we all learned in statistics class. There are things that are of interest to LOTS of boys, and other things that are of interest to only a few—but sometimes of passionate interest to that small group. As to what publishers don't want well, mostly they don't want clichés, things that they've seen too much of before. If you ever have a chance to read "Slush." It's a very instructive experience. A fresh voice stands out like a spring breeze on a dung hill!

Mel: Thanks, Bruce, YOU dung GOOD!

Bruce: I loved "The Magic Toy Shop!" (In fact, I still see "the Play Lady" around on occasion). I'm not sure they fed into the Magic Shop that much. The local thing that had a greater impact on me was "Monster Movie Matinee" with Will Lape as Epal and Alan Milair as the unseen (except for his hand) host. What's really neat for me is that once I started my audiobook company I had a chance to work with both of those men who had inspired me so much, to direct them, and to give them acting opportunities, which they had fewer of in their later years. Will is gone now, alas, but Alan is still with us.

Bruce: When My Teacher is an Alien was published, I dedicated it to her. She had retired by that time but the school had her address and I was able to send her a copy. I think she was quite moved.

Bruce: Not really. It was a handful of really good teachers who kept me going. Most especially, Helen Buckley Simkewicz, who taught children's literature at Oswego, where I got my degree in elementary education. She believed strongly in my talent, and that belief kept me going through some really bleak patches.

Bruce: Well, I have a whole speech! Anyway, I had done a few books and then I saw that two "packagers" were going to start a series of young adult scary books, which I knew that I could write. So I got in contact with them, and then had to propose ideas, and then do outlines, and finally got contracts, and had to write the books very quickly. Once I had done that and proved myself, they started inviting me to work on series. Also, on my own individual writing, often something that I didn't intend to be a series would turn into one because I would want to go back and see what the characters had been up to while I was doing something else!

Mel: HA! Fantasy is not an easy write to write, I think. In writing fantasy, what are the "rules of the road" that are best followed to make it most successful?

Bruce: The main rule is, figure out the rules, and stick to them! By that I mean, you have to set up the magic system you're working in. With the exception on the great genius of Lewis Carroll in the Alice in Wonderland books, the general rule is this: "If ANYTHING is possible, NOTHING is interesting." That is, if you can always wave your magic wand to get the character out of trouble, pull some unsuspected rabbit out of your writer's hat, the audience doesn't feel like you're playing fair, doesn't feel as if they're playing along with you. Those limitations/rules within the magic world are what give the character something to struggle against, giving shape to an otherwise shapeless situation.

Bruce: HAH! There is no TRY, Luke. There is only do. Seriously, there is no magical and certainly no short formula. In fact, I think short fiction can be harder to write than long fiction. That's why I do more novels than picture books—picture books are too dang hard! The great thing is to learn your craft, hone your skills, and keep filling the "well" of your brain and your spirit with vast and VARIED kinds of reading. The more you have in there, the more you can get out. But, really, there are no quick answers on this. Okay, here's one short recipe: Take one believable kid and put him or her into one UNbelievable situation, and you're on the way. And after that, what you have to make sure to do is keep the character's REACTIONS believable.

Mel: You mentioned a moment ago going back to the characters of a series to see what they'd been up to in the meantime. You are the originator now, I believe, of about a dozen series of books for young readers. When you wrote the FIRST book of any of those series, was it your intention to write a SERIES, Bruce?

Bruce: Yes, on occasion. Let me see if I can list them. Magic Shop—accidental; My Teacher is an Alien—accidental; Rod Allbright Alien Adventures—accidental; Space Brat—accidental; Camp Haunted Hills—planned as a series; A. I. Gang Stories—planned as a series; Nina Tanleven Ghost Stories—accidental; Moongobble and Me—planned as a series; Unicorn Chronicles—planned as a series.

Mel: The score is five accidental to four planned as series. What a prodigious memory you have on the spur of the moment, Sir! You said "too dang hard" about picture books a moment ago. Can you describe for us how you go about writing a picture book, please, Bruce?

Bruce: Generally I go about writing a picture book by accident! My first two books were picture books—The Foolish Giant and Sarah’s Unicorn. In the first case my wife drew a picture of a befuddled looking giant and asked me to write a story about him. In the second case she asked me to write about a kid and a unicorn. (I respond well to requests!) The Shakespeare picture books are different, because there I am working with a well structured plot. Completely different process. For me picture books are usually the result of a seed, a core idea, that either comes swiftly—or doesn't come at all. I have a number of unsatisfactory picture book manuscripts in my files.

Mel: Me 2!

Bruce: No, it's just because I look so much like Sean Connery! Actually, I am in the spotlight a lot locally. I perform with the symphony, and with Open Hand Theater, and the paper runs my picture fairly often. The local press has been quite good to me.

Mel: THAT's who you look like, Sean Connery—NOW I've figured it out—THANKS, caq!

Bruce: Well, I loved snow days when I was a kid because I got to goof off! Now I am not so fond of them, because as an adult, I have to shovel or harass someone else into shoveling. But when I was little there was nothing better than an unexpected vacation day from school!

Bruce: Well, you don’t, always. But if it excites you, that's a good sign. I do like outlining. I didn't when I started out. I figured it would be boring to write a story if I had already outlined it. WRONG! What I learned was that with an outline I could always get to the end of a story (I have a lot of half-finished stories in my files from before I figured that out) but then I was always surprised by the way I got there! But you can't always know in advance that it's going to work. If that was the case, we'd be doing craft only, and not making art!

Bruce: Sure. My dad, for one, in an odd way…Sure. My dad, for one, in an odd way… (Wish I knew what’s making this thing "burp" like that!) Anyway, Dad read to me only once that I can remember, but it was a book that really turned me on. My other inspiration was writers! I would read great writing and it made me want to do it myself!

Mel: The "burping" you mentioned is from the HTML you're using, Bruce! HTML stands for Highly Totally Methane Loaded! J

Bruce: I'm working on a new computer system called FART. I'll figure out the acronym later.

Mel: HA—that’s a gas!

Bruce: Any of my students…not to my knowledge. But I do know that many of them have become teachers, which is something that I take great pride in.

Bruce: Yes, I do have a story in the paper. It's something we've been doing every year for about six years now. I do the starter, and the kids are invited to finish it!

Mel: Great activity, Bruce!

Bruce: I think the teacher should do both. But the response to content is far more important. The point of writing is to COMMUNICATE! And if the child is not getting a response to content, he or she doesn't feel as if communication has occurred.

Bruce: Ah, I knew that question had to come up.

Mel: KIDS are probably asking that TOO!

Bruce: The third book is the great embarrassment of my publishing career. I feel very bad about not having gotten it out sooner. I'm about 350 pages into it; it's going to be as long as the first two books put together. It's a big story, bigger than anything I've attempted, bigger by far than I planned when I started the series. I have given up on promising a specific date, because I've blown it so many times. But I really do have a LOT written on it.

Mel: YIKES, 350 pages, I heard SOMEone say! How long ARE your other Unicorn Chronicle books?

Bruce: Oh, off the top of my head, the first was about 150 pages, the second about half again as long. They changed the type size and the font, so you can't really compare the two.

Bruce: Well, to begin with, I don't think it's that easy for women to write for males. If it were, we might have more boys being readers!

Mel: Astute observation, for sure!

Bruce: That said, I don't think it's that easy going in the other direction, either. I have a theory about storytelling energy, male storytelling energy and female storytelling energy, and it is capturing that energy that makes a book a "boy's book" or a "girl's book." And a woman can capture the male energy, and a man can capture the female energy, but it's not necessarily easy. And the best books, in my opinion, capture and blend BOTH energies.

Mel: EXCELLENT point made, Bruce! And here are two similar questions from chatsters:

Bruce: I wish I had a schedule! My life is so scattered these days it's hard for me to manage that. But I can tell you that the best writing time for me remains the middle of the night! The world is dark and quiet then, and there is less, I don't know, outside brain activity or something. So it is easier for me to focus on my work. As to the second question: I do indeed outline my books. I find an outline a very useful tool—but I should clarify that I continually go back and refresh it and expand it and change it. The outline is a tool, and you are the master, not its servant.

Bruce: Well, I usually think I know, but that doesn't always mean I'm right!

Bruce: I write my books for US Publishers, but I'm fortunate enough to be published in many languages. My agent is the one who is responsible for that. He—and, sometimes, the publishers—are responsible for making those connections. You should see the Italian editions of the Unicorn Chronicles, they're lavishly illustrated with wonderful black and white drawings. It's very interesting to me to see the different covers and styles that overseas publishers use.

Bruce: Yes, absolutely. But if you are using fact about a specific person you need to be more careful. I do a lot of research for my stories. If you're going to send your character to the top of the Empire State Building, then you should get the facts about that building—about how it looks, what you would see, what you need to do to get in, and so on—correct. Then you can make up what they do while they're there. But it should be something that can really happen in that spot!

Bruce: Not necessarily. Just believing in it doesn't make it believable. It's WRITING it believably that counts!

Mel: Point WELL taken!

Bruce: Absolutely. Sometimes I work on three different stories in a single day. (Not often, but it has happened.)

Bruce: What I do with the Shakespeare books is try to very accurately retell the story, as completely as possible, in a manuscript of about 5000 words.

Mel: Are you—as is Sid Fleischman—a practiced magician, and did that inform your Magic Shop series?

Bruce: Ah, I only wish I could do the kind of hand magic that Sid is so accomplished at. It's more the DESIRE that inspires and informs the Magic Shop books. Sid is a good friend, and I am fascinated to see the way his sense of how magic and MISDIRECTION are done shifts from his magic to his writing.

Bruce: I tend to do expanding outlines. I start with a page, then do a new outline, and then break it out into chapter segments, and then expand those segments!

Mel: Tell us about that Oddities Series of yours, please. How did it begin, and is it still going?

Bruce: Yep, I'm just doing the contract for the third in the series, Oddest of All. It's actually a fifteen-year set up for the final title: Odd Infinitum!

Bruce: Only one contract at a time, but the plan is to write it in a total of fifteen years. I never found short stories a natural form, but Jane Yolen kept asking (browbeating!) me to do them, and when I had enough, she told me we could do a collection. She was editing a line of fantasy books for Harcourt at the time. Of course, when I thought I had enough, she decided that we needed new material, too. So the structure has become six previously published stories and three new ones. And now that I have enough stories to form the third collection—I'll have to do three new ones to round it out!

Mel: What a great finale your Odd Infinitum looks like! What made you decide to collect anthologies of children's stories, and what authors did you include? How did you decide WHICH stories to use?

Bruce: Well, I was actually asked to do the first anthology—The Unicorn Treasury—by the same editor who invited me to do the Shakespeare books. She had in mind an all-reprint anthology, but there wasn't enough material and I talked her into letting me bring in new material, too, which was a lot more fun. I did another one with her, and had a few more set up, but there were problems with the publisher. Then the packaging company I had been working with, but had sort of outgrown, was looking for a way to keep me doing something new with them, and since I didn't want to do more novels with them, they suggested I do the "Bruce Coville’s Book of…" anthologies, which turned out to be unexpectedly successful. One thing I tried to do with those was bring in not only children's writers but people who wrote for adults in the fantasy and science fiction fields who I thought had the right sensibility to write for kids. I also liked to bring in new people whenever I could, though one reality of anthologies is that you have to have some "name" writers to make them work in the marketplace.

Bruce: Why, thank you!

Bruce: I do an occasional magazine article. Most of my effort is focused on fiction, and I really prefer long form to short form, so articles don't come that naturally to me. But if someone asks me to write about something that I'm really passionate about, such as audiobooks, I'll usually go for it.

Bruce: Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Michael Chabon, William Goldman—that's for the adults. In the kids' world it's Tamora Pierce, Jane Yolen, Natalie Babbitt, and Lloyd Alexander, with a host of others. Lloyd Alexander's work has everything I want to get into my own books, great characters, crackling dialogue, fabulous action, high humor, wild adventure, and deep moral dilemmas. I think he's the best. But I think the best single children's book of the last 50 years is Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting.

Mel: I say AWOMEN to that!

Bruce: Well, one thing I've found about writing series is that the books tend to take me longer and longer to write as I go on. You'd think it would be the other way around, but that's not how it works for me. The question about average length doesn't really work. A Moongobble Series book is about 40 manuscript pages, a Magic Shop book might be 180 pages. The average would be 110, but that doesn't tell you much.

Mel: Bruce, you mentioned audio books, and some of your books are available in audio, I know. Are they on tape cassettes? And what is the Full Cast Audio you are working so hard on—it sounds like another whole business, is it?

Mel: WOW, that is a VERY appealing concept, and it really SOUNDS so much FULLER than ordinary audio for books! My compliments, Sir!

Bruce: Thank you!

Bruce: Oh, one other thing. One of the things I am most proud of is that we do age-appropriate casting. We're the only company that uses kids as kids, and the difference in the sound is amazing. My Moongobble and Me stories are narrated by an eleven-year-old—the youngest narrator in the business!

Mel: AMAZING, and SO appropriate! Who is that 11-year-old wonder narrator, Bruce?

Bruce: His name is Ryan Sparkes. He's a local kid we found who just happens to be an astonishingly good reader.

Mel: Right place, right time, right KID!

Bruce: You got it! Actually, we've used dozens and dozens of kids over the last four years. They come in and love working really hard with us, and give us great work, and have a great time. I deeply believe that kids really need chances to do real and meaningful work.

Bruce: Hmmm. That's a good question. I never really thought about it, but I think there may be an element of truth in it. Actually, the first thing I wanted to write was comic books! I was a huge Marvel Comics fan.

Mel: You TOO?!

Bruce: My great coup my freshman year in college was bringing in Stan Lee as a speaker at Duke University!

Mel: YEAAAA!

Bruce: Actually, it was probably the highlight of my entire college career!

Mel: THAT's worth your college diploma right there!

Mel: Or DO you?

Bruce: That's what the middle of the night is for! Especially now that I'm running an entire business! And that's not counting running all over the country for speaking engagements!

Mel: How many days out of a month do you do speaking engagements?

Bruce: Depends on the month. The peak months are October/November and March/April/May. One March I was in schools on 19 days. But that was kind of extreme.

Mel: Holy Mackerel—that takes a LOT of energy!

Bruce: Oh, certainly. When I'm in schools they will often ask me to have lunch with a select group of children. I love doing that, because they start out asking me questions, and then I ask THEM questions!

Bruce: A couple. The first was called Prehistoric People. It was part of a nonfiction line that Doubleday was doing. I wrote another one about horses, which was accepted and paid for, but was never published because they pulled the plug on the whole line. It was very disappointing.

Mel: A lighter note: Here are some interesting conjectures about the HTML eruption tonight! J

Bruce: LOL!!!

Mel: One last, easy question, Bruce: What's invisible and smells like carrots?

Bruce: Bunny farts!

Mel: Bruce Coville, you have MORE than lived up to your name and reputation here in our chat room tonight! THANK YOU so MUCH for all the information you have given us—and with such entertaining humor! I am privileged to be in contact both with our Chat Guest and all the guest chatters in the auditorium, and I could "see" what you couldn't—the excitement with which they anticipated, welcomed, listened, and responded to you. Because there is so MUCH that you have accomplished, more than we could ever talk about in a mere two hours, I want to ask you if you would be willing to come back someday and chat with us again in the future, Bruce?

Bruce: Sure. This was fun.

Mel: Bruce Coville, THANK YOU again for coming this evening! And PLEASE thank your family, and the people there as guests with you tonight for helping bring you to us LIVE. We will be even more eager readers of your books now—THANK YOU!

Bruce: Thanks for having me! Good night, all!

Mel: A SPECIAL HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW to caq!!! And goodnight EVERYchildren'sWRITER!