It’s a wonderful achievement to finish a manuscript and have a publisher offer to turn it into a book. Once this happens and reviewers speak well of it, what’s next? Party time? No. Time to get to work. I’m not just talking about book launches and face to face speaker engagements. The next step for me, once A Room for Ryel went into the world, saw me create some extras for readers. The icing on the cake.
There are many things I know that don’t appear in the novel. I’m talking about back story and information my protagonist doesn’t know or need to know in order for his story journey to unfold. Likewise, anything that doesn’t move the tale forward and isn’t necessary for readers to know.
Once the novel is released, however, readers who were immersed in it come up with questions. These are what help me create more for them. Not exactly another story, but items of interest that use the tale as their basis and that answer questions about where the idea for the game of Sockey came from. And more. Lots more.
With the story world established, and having invented the game of Sockey for it, I could just say I made it up. That was pretty boring. So, I thought about what would interest not only readers but also classroom practitioners. Something that was fun.
I liked the concept of a newspaper front page with an article about the history of Sockey. The conundrum I faced was whether to use the back story as it related to the novel or have my author persona explain how I came up with the idea. What was best? Perfect option was a headline that said the history of the game was in dispute!
Doing it in this way meant the article could include any of the characters from the story world who were there back when the game first appeared, as well as the author. It would also present a text type that kids were at liberty to decipher in order to reach their own conclusion.
Of course, once I had a front page, I couldn’t stop. I knew an instructional text that held the rules of play as a ‘how to’ guide would be excellent. This could be a back page or a stand-alone piece, depending on how someone wanted to use it. But, if this was to become a newspaper, it needed more than a front and back page.
That brought about ideas for inner pages. Using characters from the story to deliver interviews was ideal. These examples of an interview text type made for double page spreads that could be acted out by two people, therefore doubling as performance pieces.
Finally, what would a newspaper be without a puzzle page? And who better to deliver this, than one of the characters? This two-page spread presents fun activities that may be used by anyone at any time and, added to the other pages, forms a complete newspaper.
If you have a novel out there in the world, consider that you also have the makings of more. Use the characters and backstory you know to build something more for readers. Something that will be of further interest to them and useful for teachers. If you want to see how this was done for A Room for Ryel, check out the activities and other materials I created on my website: www.emmacameron.com.au/