MONSTERS

After finishing Tom’s Clockwork Dragon, illustrator Mark Oliver got in touch with me to say how much he’d enjoyed illustrating that story. I was very pleased with Mark’s pictures for that book, so we resolved that we should try to do another book together.

Rather than leave it to chance, I asked Mark if he had any suggestions for the sort of book he’d enjoy illustrating and about a month later he sent me an email with some ideas. These ranged from a couple of words like “Flying Machines” to detailed outlines, but it was the following suggestion that immediately took my fancy.

“Mechanical Monsters. Imagine if all monsters were really machines, covered in skin, feathers or scales. They would occasionally break down. Surely all monster-owning children would require a repair manual. A kind of Haynes Manual for individual monsters. ‘The Gryphon Growler MkIII’. Also includes instructions on customization (a kind of Pimp my beast).”

I thought this was a great idea. I could imagine a monster repair manual having a similar appeal to the Thunderbirds and Star Wars cross-section books packed with technical detail that many children love to pore over. However when I sat down and tried to write a picture book along these lines I struggled to do it. I realised that one of the things that makes those technical cross-section books appealing is that the reader is already familiar with the machines they are exploring. A child looking at a Star Wars cross-section book will already know what the Millennium Falcon is and its role in the Star Wars films. Whereas the monsters depicted in our repair manual would be unfamiliar to the reader, so their internal workings would not be as interesting.

I decided that a solution to this problem would be to incorporate a story featuring mechanical monsters alongside the technical content of the repair manual. I worked on several story ideas including one set in a factory where monsters were made, one in a garage where they were repaired and one about a traveling monster repairman, but none of them seemed very appealing so I ended up putting the project aside.

However I couldn’t get the idea out of my head and so a few weeks later I picked it up and tried to find a fresh angle. Mark’s original suggestion had said that the manual was for a child, but why would a child have a mechanical monster? One answer was that the monster was some sort of interactive toy. Most interactive toys come with a user’s guide and I realised that this type of book, which described how the monster could be used around the home, would be a better basis for a picture book than a repair manual.

A search of the internet produced lots of user’s guides for toys and other products. One good source was the web site of Wowee, who make many interactive toys including the popular Robosapien. I read through lots of manuals by different manufacturers to get a feel for the writing style and organisation. You’d be amazed by how many manuals actually do start with the stock phrase “Congratulations on your purchase,” and they nearly all end with a guarantee page.

The writing style of most user guides is not very engaging, so to make this book more appealing I decided to set it in rhyme. I’ve written lots of rhyming texts and let me tell you, writing rhyme that scans well, makes sense and provides an opportunity for appealing illustrations is difficult enough. Writing rhyme that does all this while spoofing the style of a user manual proved almost impossible and I abandoned the first draft several times to pursue less-challenging projects before it was completed.

I eventually got a draft I was happy with and sent it to Mark. Fortunately he loved it and immediately set to work on some character sketches.