Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline Carlson (Children's, 9 years +, 10E/10E, semi short 'n' sweet review + Guest Blog Post)

2nd January 2014, Simon and Schuster, 368 pages, Paperback, Review copy 

Summary from Simon and Schuster 

Hilary Westfield has always dreamed of being a pirate. But the Very Nearly Honourable League of Pirates rejects Hilary's application because she's a girl, and her father ships her off to Miss Pimm's Finishing School for Delicate Ladies instead.
 

Expected to wear woollen dresses (petticoats not provided) and enthusiastically throw herself into activities such as Viennese Waltzing for the Eager Novice, Miss Pimm's is every bit as horrid as Hilary feared. However, a true pirate never lets dire circumstances stand in her way, and after a mostly dreadful first week, Hilary escapes and applies for a job with a freelance pirate known as the Terror of the Southlands. He offers her a place on his misfit crew, on one condition: she must find the famous treasure that's rumoured to contain most of the kingdom's lost magic. Hilary soon finds herself caught up in a dangerous quest, and on the run from her school governess and the most villainous pirate on the high seas!

 

Hilary Westfield has always dreamed of being a pirate. But the Very Nearly Honourable League of Pirates rejects Hilary's application because she's a girl, and her father ships her off to Miss Pimm's Finishing School for Delicate Ladies instead.
Expected to wear woollen dresses (petticoats not provided) and enthusiastically throw herself into activities such as Viennese Waltzing for the Eager Novice, Miss Pimm's is every bit as horrid as Hilary feared. However, a true pirate never lets dire circumstances stand in her way, and after a mostly dreadful first week, Hilary escapes and applies for a job with a freelance pirate known as the Terror of the Southlands. He offers her a place on his misfit crew, on one condition: she must find the famous treasure that's rumoured to contain most of the kingdom's lost magic. Hilary soon finds herself caught up in a dangerous quest, and on the run from her school governess and the most villainous pirate on the high seas! - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.co.uk/Very-Nearly-Honourable-League-of-Pirates-Magic/Caroline-Carlson/9780857078278#sthash.Bdx1JCWX.dpuf

Nayuleska's thoughts 

I love adventures which involve pirates and girls, but so many a time the plot heads in a direction I'm

not fond of, or there's a character who disappoints me. The total opposite is true for Hilary's adventure -

she is awesome! Even when the outlook is bleak she never gives up. She proudly fights for her dream, discovering new friends who made me smile and shocking truths which made me glad I don't know where

Caroline lives or I would be tempted to stage a sit in process on her doorstep to get the next book in my

hands immediately! And yes I may wave a crochet hook menacingly while I'm at it-mine is bright purple

like one of Hilary's disguises. Miss Primm would have words with me about that...I truly loved the theme

of friendship springing up constantly, it warmed my heart even when Claire and Hilary were separated.

The minor niggle I had was the style of script for the letters-it makes it a bit hard to read if you're tired/ill but I let that slide in the grading. Girl power is a formidable thing on land and most definitely at sea! 

Find out more on Caroline's website.

Suggested read

For more pirate adventures check out Dread Pirate Fleur and the Hangman's Noose by Sara Starbuck (Children's, 9 years +, 10E/10E)

Guest Blog Post: How I Plan a Story by Caroline Carlson

It is with great excitement that I can present you with the short piece Caroline has written for NRC about planning stories!

I don’t think anyone will ever be able to adequately explain where story ideas come from, but for me, they usually arrive when I’m standing at the kitchen counter eating cereal out of the box and letting my mind wander all over the place. As it wanders, it stumbles over a strange or silly thought, and I sort of laugh to myself and say (with a mouth full of cereal), “That would be a good idea for a story.”

Usually, it is not a good idea for a story. Usually it turns out that I’m just standing in the kitchen talking to myself like someone who really should not be left alone for long periods of time. But sometimes my brain starts to tingle in a particular way, and I abandon the cereal and run to my computer, where I open my file of story ideas. This is a Word document full of phrases and sentences and paragraphs describing every idea I’ve ever had that’s made my brain tingle in that particular way. Moving quickly, before the idea dies, I find a blank space in the document and write it down. I usually don’t write more than a sentence; for my book Magic Marks the Spot, I wrote, “A girl tries to enroll in Piracy but her application is forwarded to Young Ladies’ Finishing School.”

Then, once the idea is safely recorded, I forget about it for a very long time.

I think this is the most important part of my process. The idea needs time by itself to ripen, and if I hover over it and poke at it too much, it won’t develop properly. I let the idea sit in my subconscious mind, soaking up everything I read and learn about and experience in the meantime, and every so often I’ll realize that the idea has grown a new sort of tendril (“the pirate girl has an adorable sidekick… maybe a talking parrot? A talking rabbit? A talking… something else?”). I write that tendril down in my story idea file and go back to not thinking about it for a while. Though it’s not always possible, I prefer to let a good story idea ripen for at least a year while I write about something entirely different. I had the idea for Magic Marks the Spot about a year before I started writing the first draft. The idea for my second book was only allowed to ripen for eight months (I was on deadline), and it was still a little green around the edges. And I have another idea that’s going on two years of ripening now, though I haven’t yet started to write it.

An idea is ready to be written about when I know a few crucial things about it. First, I have to know the thing that wonderful children’s fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones describes in her book Reflections as “the taste, quality, character—there are no words for it—nature of the book itself, a sort of flavor.” This flavor could be the subject of its own blog post, but it usually arrives at the moment of inspiration and grows stronger during the ripening period. Next, I have to know how the story begins. I like to know exactly what happens for at least the first twenty pages, since once I’ve written that down I am firmly in the story, and I’ve given myself enough momentum to keep going. I also need to have some idea of what the story’s climactic scene will be, so I know what I’m aiming for. I will usually know two or three scenes that take place along the way, though that’s not absolutely crucial; they will have popped up during the ripening process, and they may be subject to change if the story takes twists and turns I don’t expect.

Finally, I need to plan out how my heroine will change and grow emotionally over the course of the book. I’m the sort of writer who gets so caught up in plot that I forget to let my characters feel things, so I plan this emotional arc very consciously and deliberately; if I don’t, I will utterly fail to include it in the story.

After that, I start writing. I’m a planner by nature, and I usually make an outline about halfway through the first draft, when I have a pretty good idea of how the rest of the book will go, but I don’t require myself to stick to it. Not knowing what will happen next may be terrifying, but the scenes that come out of nowhere, unplanned, always turn out to be my favorites.

And that, in exhausting detail, is how I’ve planned the stories I’ve written so far, though I can’t guarantee it’s how I’ll write the next one.

Thanks for giving us such a detailed insight into your story planning Caroline. I'm forever fascinated how every writer uses different approaches. Just goes to show there is no 'right' way in writing!