Katelyn Sinclair's Blog: Open House for Butterflies

In Search of a Plot: The Making of Spooky Things

Autumn is by far my favorite season. I love everything about it: The brilliant leaves, the bountiful harvest, the cool crispness in the air, hot drinks and rainstorms and encroaching darkness and crackling fires to keep that darkness at arm's length. And of course, Halloween.

So when I decided I wanted to take a break from reimagining fairy tales, writing a Halloween book for kids was an obvious choice. I wanted it to be appropriate specifically for very young children who are just old enough to really start to “get” Halloween (although it’s also intended to appeal to kids up to age 7). This emphasis on spooky-but-not-scary worked well with my cartoon-based illustration style and also led to the eventual title of the book: Spooky Things.

Because of those very young readers, I set a strict word limit: no more than four lines of iambic tetrameter (which is 32 syllables, or typically around 20-30 words) per page.

A picture book with fewer than 500 words can’t have too elaborate a plot. I knew I would need something to tie it all together, but I decided to focus first on introducing “classic” Halloween characters, with the hope that a storyline might evolve organically once I started playing and exploring.

First, I made two lists: One of traditional Halloween creatures (e.g., witch, ghost, spider, bat), and another of spooky places (e.g., pumpkin patch, graveyard, haunted house).

Next, I thought about the characteristics associated with and natural habitats of these beings, and began matching up entries from the two lists. For example, the vampire should live in a castle. The witch needed opportunities both to fly with her cat on her broomstick and to concoct a potion in a cave. My early notes are filled with comments like “the skeleton should lose one of his bones on every page” and “where does the mummy live? coffin in haunted house or in graveyard?”

Then I put the character/location pairs in a logical order, starting with an owl flying through the pumpkin patch at sunset. The ghosts play in the graveyard while waiting for the mummy to emerge from his mausoleum; then they all stop by the haunted house to pick up the skeleton from the basement laboratory. They enter the forest, where they meet the witch and are waylaid by the werewolf, who wants to play fetch with the skeleton’s bones. The ghosts, skeleton and mummy plan to travel by boat down the river, but lose their oars in all the excitement. The skeleton comes to the rescue by offering one of his leg bones as a temporary paddle.

But where are they going?

I chose the vampire/castle pairing as the finale, thinking that the other locations might seem far less grand if they came afterward. I also thought that the castle would be sad and empty without some kind of party in it…. which was, of course, the perfect narrative thread I had hoped to find: The spooky things are all on their way to a big celebration at the vampire’s castle on Halloween night. And just like the famous canines in Go, Dog. Go! arriving at the dog party* at the top of the tree, their destination would only be revealed to readers upon arrival near the end of the book:

The river guides this little boat
Downstream into the castle moat.
Now spooky strains of music play.
A party must be underway!
The dapper vampire greets each guest.
His fangs are brushed. His cape is pressed.
He throws a party once each year.
All spooky things are welcome here!

The book ends with scenes from that fantastic party, and the spooky things vanish at sunrise.

Don’t forget that you can also watch the book trailer here! My last giveaway for Spooky Things ends tonight at midnight, but I’ll be doing several giveaways in November and December for The Golden Ball: The Fairy Tale of the Frog Prince and Why the Princess Kissed Him!

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*P.D. Eastman, Go, Dog. Go! (New York: Random House, 1989), pp. 52-61. (Original work published 1961.)

What Rhymes With Freedom? Finding Liberation Within Limits

Once upon a time on the internet, I read a discussion board post that said something like, “I wrote this great poem but now I’m on the very last line and I need a word that rhymes with hippopotamus. Any ideas?”

And I chuckled, mostly at 1) hippopotamus!* and 2) the suggestion that the writer had started at the very beginning of the poem and written through it steadily and chronologically until reaching the end, just like writing a letter. Nothing could be further from how the poetry-writing process works for me.† (If it actually does work that way for anyone reading this, you are a genius and I would love to hear about your work in the comments.)

At any rate, suffice it to say that writing rhymed poetry imposes significant restrictions on the poet.

Writing a children’s picture book is likewise subject to strict limits, both in terms of the total word count (for my books, usually in the 400-900 range) as well as the list of vocabulary the author can reasonably use.‡

And doing both of those things together — writing a rhyming picture book — can sometimes feel like trying to build a full-scale model of the Eiffel Tower using only empty toilet paper rolls and duct tape.

However! Within those limits lies the magic. Sometimes too many choices can be paralyzing for a writer. If all I have available are four-inch tubes of cardboard and duct tape, there’s no point in wishing for aluminum foil or plastic bottles or glue. The poetic meter provides structure for my work and directs my focus.

Its da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM pattern dictates where the stresses should fall in every line of iambic tetrameter. For example, a two-syllable word with stress on the first syllable can never be placed at the end of a line (e.g., pumpkin, monster, shadow — because its rhythmic pattern is DUM da instead of da DUM). Likewise, any word that doesn’t have an obvious rhyme in English also cannot go at the end of a line. There are many more constraints, but you probably get the idea.

So as I write, I don’t waste time thinking about any possibility that won’t fit the pattern. And if I struggle for too long with trying to make one set of rhymes work, I abandon that effort and start over.

For instance, my book Spooky Things is described as “an introduction to classic Halloween characters.” The first time readers meet the witch, she’s brewing something in her cauldron in a cave in the forest. The text requirement is approximately 25-30 words (32 syllables) that not only rhyme in smooth couplets but also simultaneously convey the essential characteristics of a witch.

That’s not very many words. And given my audience of 3-6 year olds, the word cauldron was not on the preferred vocabulary list. Pot seemed like an obvious word choice to substitute for cauldron, with many easy rhymes, including but not limited to got, hot, lot, not, plot, spot, forgot, fought, caught, taught, ought and sought. My early thinking was also that the witch’s brew might turn those who drank it into a frog, or possibly a toad.

Here are a few of the many couplets I rejected for this page. I dismissed these pretty much immediately because they didn’t match the intended tone and ambiance of the book and/or they didn’t truly capture what I wanted to say — and also because I judged them to be inferior poetry:

The potion brewed atop this log/Can turn a prince into a frog.

The potion brewing on this log/Can turn someone into a frog.

Meh. Sure, there’s a fire under the cauldron, but using “on this log” instead of “in this pot” or “in this cave” in order to rhyme feels like an awkward stretch.

Don’t try the potion in her pot/Or you will change upon the spot.

You might become a frog if you/Could sample this strong witch’s brew.

This witch’s brew is almost done./What does it need? We’d better run!

I think that writing in the second person here is too scary for such a young audience. “Someone” is better than “you”, but then we lose both rhyme and meter. And aside from all that, none of this is very good poetry.


After a few hours of feeling frustrated by these issues, I realized that the limited utility of pot and frog was pushing me in the wrong direction. The text wasn’t flowing, and I was using up too many of my 32 syllables trying to plug gaps in the meter rather than move the story forward. So I started over.

Now, here is the final text as published (you can see the whole page here):

Nearby, within the witch’s cave,
She gives her magic wand a wave.
The potion brewing in this vat
Can turn someone into a bat.

In addition to helping fill out the first line, the word “nearby” was important to include because the previous page is also set in the forest. And using bats instead of frogs not only completes the rhyme but also efficiently introduces another Halloween character.

As Robert Frost famously said, “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.”§ To an extent, I agree with him. I have nothing against free verse – I read and enjoy a lot of it – but I think my own poetry is better when I work within a specific rhyming structure. Boundaries help focus my creativity. And at that magical “eureka” moment when everything suddenly clicks into place, it no longer feels like I’ve been working with cardboard and duct tape.

Although my giveaway for the hardcover release of Spooky Things ends tonight, another giveaway will shortly be starting for the newly published paperback edition. You can also watch the book trailer for Spooky Things here.

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*At least, I think it was hippopotamus. So many years have elapsed that all I can remember for certain is that it struck me as an unusual word to include in a poem, and a difficult one to rhyme.

†I usually find the first and last pages of a book to be the most challenging to write. Starting somewhere in the middle is much, much easier.

‡This is why Dr. Seuss is such a master of the art. The smaller the pool of words from which you can choose, the harder it is to craft a great rhyming poem.

§I know Robert Frost said something like this, but today I can’t seem to track down the original quotation or remember in which book I most recently read it. Despite the hazards of relying on internet citations, for the purposes of this post the most likely one credits a speech in Massachusetts in 1935.

A Few Brief Announcements for August

1. Want to win my latest book? The final giveaway in a series of four for my spring 2016 release, The Tortoise & the Hare, has just started here on Goodreads and runs through Monday, August 22.

2. Ready for Halloween? I'm thrilled to announce that my Halloween title, Spooky Things, was just published in paperback this week. And a Goodreads giveaway for the hardcover edition opens August 16!

3. Curious about the “real” Katelyn? I’ve finally crawled out from underneath my writing rock and joined Instagram (@seekateplay), sharing snippets from my books, along with other bits of art and life. Hope to see you there!

Crossing the Finish Line: Certainty, Challenge and Commitment in The Tortoise & the Hare

I love reading to kids. It’s probably my favorite thing about being a children’s author. This spring, I visited several kindergarten classes shortly after publication of my latest picture book, The Tortoise & the Hare.

Before I start reading my retelling of any well-known tale to a class, I take a minute to talk about the fact that although the students will likely recognize the story, it will also be a bit different from the version(s) they have heard previously. We also talk about how lucky human beings are that we have a collection of stories which are so very old that they belong to the whole world, meaning that anyone—including them, including me—can choose to tell one in a new way and make it their own.

One of the delights of sharing a familiar story with children is watching them learn to balance the dramatic tension they’re experiencing with their certainty about what’s coming next. Every time I read a passage about the hare passing the tortoise, a new voice pipes up from my young audience, loudly proclaiming: “The tortoise is going to win!”

But will he? Should he? Does that make sense?

For me, interpreting a new fable, fairy tale or folktale begins with research. I spend some quality time with the original version.* I collect a stack of modern adaptations for reference (and fun) as I work. I study various interpretations and analyses written by people who’ve been doing this a lot longer than I have.

Most versions of this fable, ancient and modern, portray a significant personal animosity between the hare and the tortoise. The hare arrogantly taunts the tortoise about being slow, until the tortoise finally tires of his bragging and challenges him to a race.

What’s the tortoise thinking here?

It’s not as though these two competitors are closely matched. The hare and the tortoise could not be more unequal in their natural abilities to run; in any logical scenario, the tortoise doesn’t have a chance. The tortoise’s certainty in his own victory appears to be fueled by a mysterious clairvoyance. The implication, of course, is that the hare is so lazy and arrogant he can be reliably predicted to perform not merely poorly, but disastrously. Moral lesson or not, this still seems to me like a huge risk for the tortoise to take.

Instead of a direct challenge from the tortoise to the hare, intended to humiliate a bully, I decided to convert the race into a local event in which anyone can participate. Suddenly, the tortoise no longer needs uncanny intuition about his victory in order to enter. He signs up for the race as a commitment to do his personal best at something new, something at which he isn’t naturally talented. And as an author, omitting the pre-existing rivalry freed up precious page space for me to more fully explore the participants’ contrasting attitudes as they navigate the sustained physical and emotional challenges of the race. (The original tale is so brief—less than a page—that it necessarily glosses over the reality that races are not easy and serious commitment is required to finish. Likewise, many adaptations do not acknowledge that the tortoise might struggle with endurance.†)

This approach has another benefit, too. Opening the race up to “everyone” means that other animals might decline to participate because they’re certain the hare will win. So now we have the hare, who is talented but taking victory for granted, the tortoise, who isn’t as talented but is nevertheless committed to giving his all, plus a handful of other characters who don’t even bother to try. Adding this third group felt like a powerful way to enhance the impact of the tortoise’s victory.

Eliminating the personal rivalry also made it easier for me to make the hare a semi-graceful loser. Foiled by an ill-timed nap (as in many other versions of this tale), the hare has a brief tantrum upon losing, but rapidly realizes that he has no one to blame but himself for the outcome.

Which brings me back to those adorable kindergarteners and their utter certainty that the tortoise has to win.‡ I usually like to ask them a question after I’ve finished reading:

If the hare had done his best, do you think he would have won the race?

Generally, more kids answer yes than no. But there’s usually a lengthy pause first, and often more than a few looks of confusion. For that reason, I think it’s critical to discuss with young audiences that in any competition:

We might know who we think is going to win.

We might know who we want to win.

But until the race is over, we don’t know with 100% certainty who is actually going to win.

And that is how this story ends.
The tortoise and the hare stayed friends,
And everyone learned something new.
Today that secret still holds true:
More often than you’d think, the pace
Of slow and steady wins the race.

(Italicized above is the last page of my adaptation of this fable. For another excerpt and a discussion of the book’s rhythmic patterns, please see my previous blog post (link at top of page).)


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*“The Hare and the Tortoise”, in Aesop’s Fables, compiled by Russell Ash and Bernard Higton (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1990), 12.

†One retelling that mentions the tortoise finding the race difficult: Brian Wildsmith, The Hare and the Tortoise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). (Original work published 1966)

‡It’s worthwhile to note that the tortoise does not always win in retellings of this fable. An adaptation written by Toni Morrison and her son Slade handles the mismatch in running speeds with a “winner loses/loser wins” scenario—in which hare physically crosses the finish line first, but the tortoise also achieves a victory to his own satisfaction. Toni Morrison and Slade Morrison, The Tortoise or the Hare, ill. Joe Cepeda (New York: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, 2010).

Crazy in a Good Way(?): Wherein the Tortoise and I Both Take Big Risks

That slow, lumbering tortoise must have been at least a little bit crazy to race against the famously fast hare. The odds were clearly not in his favor. Some versions of this fable endow the tortoise with near-psychic certainty that the hare's arrogance will cause him to lose. However, it could also be that the tortoise simply saw an opportunity to do his personal best at something new and difficult, something outside his comfort zone.

That second possibility—the magic of aiming high—is how I chose to interpret his motivation in my own rhymed retelling of The Tortoise & the Hare, published this month. It's the third and final book in my folktale series (which also includes The Golden Ball and The Three Little Pigs), and is also the result of taking on a significant technical challenge as a poet.

I write in rhyme because I firmly believe in its power to aid kids in their quest for literacy. So far, my books have been in either iambic* or anapestic† tetrameter, which are common rhythms in rhymed children's books. I select the meter for each book based on what kind of story I'm telling. For example, the quick, waltz-like beat of anapestic tetrameter gives my version of The Three Little Pigs some of its high energy bounce as the eponymous characters flee the wolf, while my Halloween book, Spooky Things, uses slower-paced iambic tetrameter to complement the gently eerie atmosphere.

I'm always looking for new ways to grow as a poet and an artist, and at some point, I began to think about combining both of these meters within a single book. It occurred to me that the fable of the tortoise and the hare would be a perfect springboard to explore this idea: Using a "slower" meter for the tortoise and a "faster" one for the hare would embed the pace of the race directly into the story text itself.

So how does that work?

English is an inherently stress-based language. This includes both syllables within a word (e.g., to-MOR-row) and also words within the context of a phrase (e.g., prepositions and articles are naturally de-emphasized compared to other words—the CAT in the HAT). And the poet's task, simply put, is to ensure that the syllables and words we would normally stress in speech line up precisely with the stressed beats ("DUM") in these rhythms. This is, of course, much easier said than done—and switching meters with each turn of the page only increases the possible pitfalls.

Let's consider three phrases:

1) "Except the tortoise"

In two-syllable words, it's usually clear which syllable is stressed more strongly than the other: Ex-CEPT the TOR-toise (da DUM da DUM da)

This fits with the beginning of an iambic line—there is really no other way to read it without sounding strange.

2) "On the day of the race"

We intuitively emphasize the nouns over the prepositions and articles: On the DAY of the RACE (da da DUM da da DUM )

This is an anapestic rhythm. Some readers might also stress On since it's the first word in the phrase, but by the time they reach day of the race, the waltz beat will dominate (assuming the rest of the line continues in a similar pattern).

3) "And while the hare splashed"

It isn't immediately obvious how to read this. The noun and verb are both one-syllable words, with nothing to suggest how to stress them relative to each other. And and the are probably going to be unstressed. In other situations, while might not receive stress, but here it's likely to be perceived as stressed because it falls between two unstressed words. Part of what makes writing poetry so tricky is that many stresses in English rely on context.

So you could say either: And WHILE the HARE splashed (which could be iambic), or And WHILE the hare SPLASHED (which could be anapestic).



The above examples are intended only to provide some insight into the mechanics of creating a poem. I'm definitely not suggesting that this level of analysis is needed to read a rhyming book to a child. On the contrary—the meter should be obviously present, supporting the story and making it fun. Likewise, changing meter should not require active effort from the reader. It's the poet's job to provide that structure and flow.

Which is why, before I fully committed to writing the entire book in alternating meters, I wrote a few sample pages to test the idea. I prevailed upon my unsuspecting friends and family, asking them to read my "mystery text" aloud without knowing what it was or what I hoped to learn. I wanted to mimic the experience of picking up an unfamiliar book in a store or library and browsing a few pages at random. As a result of these experiments, I eliminated ambiguous lines that resembled #3 above, which failed to reliably switch the reader to the desired meter.

Below is an excerpt from the final version of The Tortoise & the Hare, beginning with four iambic or "slow" lines, followed by four anapestic or "fast" lines, and then four more "slow" iambic lines. If you clap on the stressed beats at a constant pace throughout, you should be able to hear the rhythm speed up in the middle and then slow back down again.

Ex-CEPT the TOR-toise. HE stayed IN.
Now, HE did NOT ex-PECT to WIN.
In-STEAD he SAID, "I'll DO my BEST.
That's ALL. I CAN'T con-TROL the REST."
On the DAY of the RACE, the hare LAUGHED till he CRIED
When the SLOW, stead-y TOR-toise showed UP at his SIDE.
On their MARKS, they got SET, and were READ-y to PLAY.
Then the ROOST-er crowed, "GO!" and the HARE zoomed a-WAY.
The TOR-toise PLOD-ded FAR be-HIND.
The DAY was WARM. He DID-n't MIND.
He COUNT-ed CLOUDS and SANG a SONG
As STEP by STEP he CREPT a-LONG.

Reviews for this new book of mine are only just starting to appear, so I don't yet have a good sense of how it will be received by the world at large. But in terms of my own personal and artistic growth, this has already been a risk worth taking.

A new giveaway for The Tortoise & the Hare starts next week here on Goodreads, so be sure to sign up!

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*The pattern of stresses (BOLD CAPS) in a line of iambic tetrameter: da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

†The pattern of stresses (BOLD CAPS) in a line of anapestic tetrameter: da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM

Counting to Three: Choosing and Using Rhythm in The Three Little Pigs

March 1 is National Pig Day in the US, and to celebrate I'm currently holding a Goodreads giveaway for my adaptation of The Three Little Pigs. (Go sign up now! The giveaway closes March 1.)

All of my books rhyme, but the pattern or poetic meter I use varies from book to book. It's a key decision to make for each one because meter plays a huge role in the pacing and overall experience of a poem. In this post, I wanted to share some insight into how I established the rhythmic structure for The Three Little Pigs.

It all started with The Cat in the Hat.

It's no secret that I look up to Dr. Seuss. His masterwork The Cat in the Hat is at the top of my list of favorite books to read aloud. There are many reasons for its enduring popularity, but as a poet, the aspect that inspires me most is the energy of Seuss's work, bouncy and fast-paced and fun.

That incredible energy is in part derived from the story's poetic meter: The quick, waltz-like one-two-three-one-two-three beat (formally known as anapestic tetrameter) underlying the chaos as the zany Cat and his two Things run amok.

Here's a sample couplet from The Cat in the Hat. I've added BOLD CAPS to emphasize the stresses occurring every third syllable:


Then those THINGS ran a-BOUT with big BUMPS, jumps and KICKS
And with HOPS and big THUMPS and all KINDS of bad TRICKS.*


I hadn't ever written a book in anapestic tetrameter before, but I loved that energy, and I wanted to learn how to create it myself.†

As I cast around for the right story to hang on this new meter, I explored a few possibilities from a short list of fairy tales and fables I'd compiled (with the idea that they might be interesting to retell in rhyme someday). One was the story of the three little pigs, and when I applied anapestic tetrameter to it, something remarkable happened. The traditional, rhythmic phrases for which the original version‡ of the story is famous slipped right into that waltzy rhythm like missing puzzle pieces.

Two examples of what I mean by "traditional" phrases:

1) "Oh, no, NOT by the HAIR of my CHIN-ny chin CHIN!"

2) "Then I'll HUFF and I'll PUFF and I'll BLOW your house DOWN!"


It was definitely a eureka moment. I knew I had found the right story for the meter, and I wrote the entire first draft of The Three Little Pigs within two days. Of course, the challenge was to build the rest of the story around those famous phrases so that the complete text consistently maintained the same rhyming beat. Here's an excerpt from the published version to demonstrate how it works:


"Then I'll HUFF and I'll PUFF and I'll BLOW your house DOWN!"
Said the TER-ri-ble WOLF with a TER-ri-ble FROWN.
And he HUFFED and he PUFFED and the LIT-tle straw SHACK
Blew a-PART. Then the WOLF said, "It's TIME for my SNACK."
Well, Pig ONE saw at ONCE that his CHAN-ces were SLIM,
So he JUMPED in the LAKE and he STAR-ted to SWIM.
And he SWAM all the WAY to the OP-po-site SHORE.
Then he RAN to Pig TWO's house and KNOCKED on the DOOR.


And that is why I consider The Cat in the Hat my primary inspiration for The Three Little Pigs, even though these two poems have nothing in common but their metrical form — a fast-paced, bouncy cadence intended to make reading aloud a lot of fun.

(NOTE: You can listen to The Three Little Pigs in full on my videos page!)

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*Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat (New York: Random House, 1985), 45. (Original work published 1957)

†Although Dr. Seuss did not invent anapestic tetrameter, he might be person most famous for using it, since he consistently makes it work brilliantly within the context of extremely limited vocabulary lists. Another famous poem based upon this meter is "The Night Before Christmas" (or "A Visit from St. Nicholas") by Clement Clarke Moore.

‡"The Story of the Three Little Pigs," in The Nursery Rhymes of England, coll. J. O. Halliwell (London and New York: Frederick Warne and Co., 1886), LV. Interestingly, the phrase "big bad wolf" does not appear in this early version of the story — and unlike the other phrases mentioned, it doesn't fit well with this metrical pattern. Ultimately, I chose instead to use the adjective "terrible" to describe the wolf.