By author and illustrator, Anna Ciddor
My novels are often inspired by real people – usually kids. The idea to write a time slip story came from reading the first draft of a historical novel to a Grade 5 class. One kid put up his hand and told me it reminded him of a time change book he’d read. That night, I threw out my plan for the historical novel I’d been writing for 18 months and turned it into a time slip story instead!
I needed a new main character, and again, this was inspired by a kid – my nephew Lucas. He became ‘Perry’ in The Boy Who Stepped Through Time, and he checked the story as I was writing it to make sure Perry thought, felt and reacted like he would himself!
Then Lucas’ sister, my niece, read The Boy Who Stepped Through Time, and when she learned about the embarrassing communal toilets, and the disgusting Roman food, like dormice and pigeons, she made the comment, ‘I’m glad you didn’t send ME back in time!’ Instantly, I decided that in my next book I would send her back in time, in the character of a reluctant teenage girl!
I made her name ‘Zoe’, and she is one of the main characters in my newest book, A Message Through Time. I gave her a younger, annoying stepbrother called Felix, and again, lots of real kids helped me, giving me jokes Felix could say in the story.
When I wrote The Boy Who Stepped Through Time I worried a lot about how a modern boy could get away with going back to the past. I sent him to a museum to learn about ancient Roman times. I worked out an elaborate plan for him to be wearing a costume, and contrived a way he could be accepted as a strange person who suddenly turned up in a Roman household. I gave him two friends in the past who could learn his secret and look after him.
But for A Message Through Time I decided to take a completely different approach. I decided to throw Felix and Zoe in at the deep end, knowing nothing about Roman times and wearing inappropriate clothes.
I had great fun as they struggled to cope, and this time when they meet a girl from the past, instead of being instant friends with her, there are lots of frictions and misunderstandings. 12-year-old Petronia is a haughty upper-class Roman girl who expects the other two to behave like slaves. A fun part of the writing was including the names of three kids who’d won a competition to be included in the book. I emailed them and interviewed them about their characters so I could make them into real people in the story.
Fletcher and Travis became Felix’s best friends, and Angela became a little slave girl. I even included her pet bird, called Tiger, in the story, because Romans sometimes had pet birds and Tiger was a real Roman name for a pet.
When I finished the first draft, I pulled out a secret weapon – a 13-year-old boy! Frank was an avid fan of The Boy Who Stepped Through Time and also my sister’s neighbour. He’d given a few bits of input on the earlier book but this time he went a lot further. I spent weeks reading the whole of A Message Through Time to him over Zoom, watching for his reactions and discussing it. His feedback was always polite and tentative, but always spot-on. He’d say something like, ‘If you want to cut the book a bit, you don’t really need that section,’ and I’d know to chop it out!
When the book was edited and almost ready to go to print, I read the whole thing aloud again over Zoom, this time to a 10-year-old boy called Rupert, and he showed me how he was feeling, pumping his fists in the air or crossing his fingers or putting emojis on the screen. When he didn’t show any reactions for a while, I knew that part of the story was boring and needed to be trimmed.
This is only a small sample of the kids who’ve helped with my writing. When I visit schools, I often ask kids to vote on possible titles, give opinions on the blurb, or give feedback on numerous other questions I have along the way. If you would like to be one of my young helpers, please email me.
You’ll find my email address on my website. Maybe we’ll work together one day!
My website address is www.annaciddor.com
