As one of author Lynn Becker’s critique partners, I have to tell you that her tuneful stories can keep you humming and tapping long after the meeting! But it’s not all fun and songs, she tweaks and fine-tunes until every word is just right and the story sings! Congratulations on this fabulous book, Lynn! And thanks for sharing a bit of your process with us!
GIVEAWAY!! If you’d like a chance to win a copy of GHOST TOWN IN THE MOUNTAINS from Lynn, just leave a comment below.
Tune + Topic = the Heartbeat of Story
by Lynn Becker
When I write stories like Ghost Town in the Mountains and Monsters in the Briny, finding the heart tends to be mostly a matter of finding a song and a theme that feel like they make sense together. Both parts need to form a whole that feels deeper than simply pairing a random song with new “lyrics” (my picture book text), when they ultimately have nothing to do with each other. That’s the biggest stumbling block for me in writing them.
As I’ve written before, Monsters in the Briny came about because I had a handful of “finished” manuscripts to query. While I was doing that, I decided to write something that my younger self would have appreciated. A poetry collection about all kinds of mythical creatures came to mind, and I thought to pair a kraken with a sea shanty. This was truly a case of the form meeting and inspiring the content. Monsters in the Briny was a joy to create, from start to finish, and after it was picked up by Sleeping Bear Press I thought it would be great to follow up with another picture book manuscript based on a song.
Easy, right?
But to get started, I needed to find a connection between a song and my new content for it—a reason to change the words of an established song to something else, kid-friendly, that also makes sense to me. Monsters in the Briny is a sea shanty about sea monsters and, for my next book, I wanted something that felt as inherently connected.
I’ve found that, for me, the connection might be between form and subject matter—like the aforementioned sea shanty about a sea monster. Or maybe the new title rhymes with the original to create something that feels right; Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Car, by Kate Dopirak, or E-I-UFO, by Zach von Zonk are two examples. So I was hunting for a tune that’s in public domain, along with a fresh way to spin it that kids might eventually be as excited about reading as I was about writing.
It took a while for me to come up with something inspiring, a lot longer than I would have thought. But one evening it hit me—a ghost town that’s actually full of ghosts, and with it, “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” popped into my head. And there it was! Obvious, but only in hindsight.
My (non-song-based) stories typically take lots of revisions, but just like with Monsters in the Briny, Ghost Town in the Mountains came together relatively quickly following the initial spark of an idea.
Once I had the subject and the song, I needed to come up with a storyline. For a book about ghost towns, it didn’t take long to think of the chapter book by Alvin Schwartz and Dirk Zimmer, In a Dark, Dark Room, (yes, this is the book with the dreaded Green Ribbon story as one of its chapters). I reread it, along with other variations, including Ruth Brown’s A Dark Dark Tale, and The Teeny-Tiny Woman, by Paul Galdone, and books with similar atmosphere, like The Ghost Eye Tree, by Bill Martin, Jr, John Archambault, and Ted Rand.
Once I have a structure that works for me, I’m free to be as silly as I want. That’s something I really enjoy, as long as it’s in service of the narrative, and in the case of Ghost Town in the Mountains, the silly is a great balance to the spooky.
I love playing around on a word level, and these books are the result of working and reworking to get rid of a lot of the repetition that’s often typical in songs (thankfully my critique partners are always happy to point this out), and pushing the word and rhyme choices to be as interesting as possible (again, critique partners are essential in getting me to work until my words are as interesting and unexpected as possible). I walk first thing in the morning, and this kind of rhythmic writing works really well for me when I’m out on the trail. I focus on a stanza or two, and being in motion seems to free me up to play and think outside the box. I enjoy it so much that revising these kinds of texts over and over is actually something I look forward to.
But the biggest challenge in making the writing work? The part that I consider the heart, or the “why bother?” Definitely finding that song-subject pairing that inspires me to dive in. Once I have that, “scrim-scram,” I’m on my way!
Enjoy the trailer for GHOST TOWN IN THE MOUNTAINS!
🥳 Don’t forget to leave a comment below to get in on the GIVEAWAY—a copy of GHOST TOWN IN THE MOUNTAINS! (US addresses only, please. Winner announced 7/31)
Bio:
Lynn Becker is the award-winning author of Monsters in the Briny, illustrated by Scott Brundage, and June Moon, illustrated by Nate Carvalho. When she’s not writing picture books or children’s book reviews, you can find her hiking, gardening, or reading about monsters, witches, and ghosts (but not zombies). She also enjoys putting books in the Wee Free Library outside her home in Colorado. Her most recent picture book, Ghost Town in the Mountains, illustrated by Roland Garrigue, was published by Sleeping Bear Press on June 15 of this year.
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Beth Anderson, Children's Writer 
Thank you for walking us through your process. I also find that walking helps me sort out words. Your book looks fabulous!
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My grandson and his friends love MONSTERS IN THE BRINY. I know he’ll love GHOST TOWN IN THE MOUNTAINS, too, especially as he and the family hike often in the mountains near their Boulder, CO home. Congratulations, Lynn, on this new release!
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