When nine-year-old Maia describes her drawings, they come to life with comic and chaotic results – but could losing the family she loves be the price she has to pay?
When Publication Day Arrives
Imagination is a superpower. I really don’t think it gets half the attention or respect it deserves. Without even going into the issue of fair pay and recognition, how many creatives reading this article were told as a child that they had “too vivid an imagination” or something of that kind?
Mischievous Magical Maia Malone is about having a gift that allows your imagination to become real, with all sorts of consequences and not all of them good. It is a middle grade novel for 7-10 year olds that is hitting the shelves on September 17th, but it wasn’t always.
It began life as a short animation script I wrote in 2004 called Bookcraft. Parts of that script morphed into a series I created called Punky. It ran to two series, was available in 100+ countries and had 5+ million hits on YouTube. What made it unique was that it was the first mainstream animation series in the world in which the main character had special needs (Down’s syndrome).
In Bookcraft, the main character drew pictures to make the world into what she wanted it to be- but that part didn’t make the cut. It and the rest of the story became a feature script called PIA. It was a quarter-finalist in the Page Screenplay Awards, LA 2011 and a finalist in the Cordelia Award, and was optioned, but never made.
A Rollercoaster Ride
Being a book has allowed the story, the lunacy, the magic and heart of it to take wing. It’s a rollercoaster ride, full of surprises, with themes of identity, adoption, friendship, bullying, and the scary responsibility of a powerful magical gift. But it still has a logline:
When nine-year-old Maia describes her drawings, they come to life with comic and chaotic results – but could losing the family she loves be the price she has to pay?
Writing for me is rarely linear. My brain disappears down rabbit holes and goldmines with equal regularity.
The very original germ for Bookcraft was a squiggle drawing my child did when she was three or four. To her, it was “Kifkin the chicken in his rocket made from bread”. That’s the magic I wanted to capture in Maia’s story.
But before I decided to go ahead and publish, I needed to find an illustrator who would create illustrations so gorgeous that kids would want to keep the book forever. I pitched the idea to a group of illustrators, and one of them – the wonderful Abigail Hicks read three chapters, then the book, and when she came up with initial character sketches, I knew I’d found the one.
Mischievous Magical Maia Malone
Mischievous Magical Maia Malone is my tenth book – four were traditionally published, this is my fifth as an indie publisher and one was published by a new independent publisher, Silver Locust Press. But I have been a screenwriter and a screenwriting tutor and consultant since the 90s and there are key skills you learn that feed into writing prose.
1. Nothing is wasted – everything in your story has to earn its existence.
2. Every second counts. This is visual storytelling – so there needs to be something compelling on screen at all times, but not necessarily action by any means.
3. Less is more – although sometimes, in prose, you do need more. But if you apply the other two, then the ‘more’ you add – be it character description, dialogue, scene setting – then it’s exactly as much as it needs to be.
There is also a rule of three that can be useful to keep in your back pocket. It is critical in comedy – the first time something happens, it’s new. The second time, you set up a pattern, an expectation and the third time you pull the rug out. But it’s useful to note that more than three of anything is generally overkill – so three blind dates, three interviews, three attempts to buy pickles. Let me give you an example, merging all the rules above.
Maia’s Family Home
To begin with, I use elephants in the description of Maia’s family home:
When the Lighthouse was built, it felt majestic and very important until the sea turned its back and retreated. Tiptoe by tiptoe, the salt water slipped back from the bottom step and then from the newly planted garden, to a distance of oh at least seventeen sleeping elephants.
So, when Maia’s drawings transform villainous Uncle Morgan, I finally went with this:
Morgan’s tiny nose morphed into the large and unwieldy trunk of an elephant. Not only that, but this trunk dragged Morgan to a blocked sink full of dirty, spitty water and tissues and drank it dry.
The faster his trunk drank the water, the faster Morgan spat it out.
Desperate to control it, Morgan wrestled with the trunk. Between them, he and the trunk smashed into doors, urinals and landed in a heap under the hand driers.
The trunk liked the hand drier.
At least until it began to disappear.
And then we meet Winston, the little brown mouse…
Despite his tail and his ears and his love of cheese, [Winston] was convinced that he wasn’t a mouse at all. That he was, in fact, an elephant.
“Do you want me to squish you all with one toe?” he said to the cats, his paws in fists and his head held high.
The cats sniggered. They pointed and giggled and wet themselves laughing at this silly little mouse and his silly little words…
Suddenly all the cats made way for the big grey cat that had terrorised Zach. “Your mother was talkative too,” she said, “but she tasted delicious.”
In early drafts, he thought he was a dragon. I changed it to create a pattern, because it was funnier and used an image that was already in the reader’s head.
Complex and Compelling Characters
The other key aspect I took from screenwriting is that characters should be complex, compelling, and that we should understand their motivation, eventually. This is why even the irremediably villainous Uncle Morgan has a past that has made him act the way he does – it also gives you a glimpse at a moment in his life when his ideas got skewed and that’s quite tragic, really.
I was a journalist before I was a screenwriter, so I find deadlines hugely motivating, even if they’re my own. I would recommend creating your own for each stage of a book or a publication journey, and holding yourself to it, as much as you can. I still can’t believe that publication day is actually here. That one seems a bit unreal!
Way back in 1998, my first agent asked me, how I would make money from writing. Thinking I was being smart, I said TV instead of film. No, he said. Books. You write the book, then sell the rights, get paid to write the script…. And so on. But I just love writing, across genre and form, and a story finds the medium that suits it. Even if it takes a while!
Brainstorming Ideas
I can brainstorm an entire character from a sketch or a world from the germ of an idea and have done so for producers and directors as well as in my own stuff. I am currently working on a fantasy novel called Candlemist that features ear sparrows and gobthorks – they’re like small hairy bison but with hands instead of feet. I’m also writing a creative memoir, The Kimono in the Bottom Drawer, and there’s a trilogy of kid’s books glaring at me from the shelf!
The huge advantage with books is that they allow me, as the creator, to tie down my IP. And that, after decades as a screenwriter, is huge. While the rights for TV and film are there for anyone brave enough, there can be no buy out. No matter how the stories and characters adjust to perform well on those mediums, the original remains.
Plus, anyone can pick up a book to read. Fewer people find reading scripts easy, and I think they can date quicker. Having said that, I have several that I would love to see on screen.
Launching Mischievous Magical Maia Malone
Mischievous Magical Maia Malone is officially published this week, on September 17th. It will be available from all the usual outlets, and orders have come in from independent bookshops that I supply directly. My first print run is already diminished – with orders from bookshops and the distributor. You can order it from International Education Services, from Gardners, from Amazon and get signed copies directly from the Janey Mac Bookstore
And if you are free, pop into a launch!
- 17th September – School’s launch at Hodges Figgis, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, 11am.
- 17th September – The Exchange Bar & Restaurant, Lord Edward Street, Dublin 2, 6.30pm
- 2nd October – Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Galway, 6pm
All my books, including Write that Script, are available in the usual outlets, but you can get signed or dedicated copies directly from the Janey Mac Bookstore .
(c) Lindsay J. Sedgwick
Web: lindsayjsedgwick.com Insta: @Lindsayjsedgwick
Online bookstore: Janey Mac Bookstore
Author Photograph (c) Barbara Henkes
About Mischievous Magical Maia Malone:
Broomsticks, alligators, gargoyles, and a lighthouse stretching up to touch the sky. When nine-year-old Maia describes her drawings, they come to life with comic and chaotic results – but could losing the family she loves be the price she has to pay?
After finding herself transformed one time too many, Maia’s older sister Neeta snaps and tells Maia she’s adopted. Maia’s world crumbles. Thinking her family would be better without her, she sets off on a daring and dangerous quest armed only with her pencils, her notebook and a faded photo of a woman she resembles.
A rollercoaster ride full of surprises, with themes of identity, adoption, friendship, bullying, and the scary responsibility of a powerful magical gift.
From the author of the Wulfie series and the creator of the ground-breaking animation series, Punky, comes a new action-packed adventure for 7-10-year-olds, illustrated by Abigail Hicks. A rollercoaster full of surprises, it deals with themes of identity, adoption, friendship and bullying, and the power (and cost) of having a magic gift. A heartwarming tale about the true meaning of family, friendship, identity and the power of believing in yourself, richly illustrated by Abigail Hicks.
Mischievous Magical Maia Malone will be available from International Education Services, Gardners, bookshops and online, while you can pre-order signed copies here.
And read more from Lindsay J. Sedgwick on Writing.ie here.
