Fun and Tough Creative Choices

Humor and adventure in the Old West make Jeff Schill’s debut novel, The Kid, a fun middle grade read and a great one to discuss with its author.

The novel kicks off with an adventure story about The Kid, written by 14-year-old main character Henry. He’s been writing stories about The Kid to help his family stay financially solvent.

Henry’s stories are being published in Gunslinger magazine. His editor thinks the stories are true. His readers do too.

The stories are a crucial part of the plot and are one of the interesting creative choices Jeff made for this novel.

“Interesting is a good way to put it,” Jeff said, chuckling. “I wouldn’t necessarily say they were smart or easy choices.”

Jeff started with an idea of a quick-draw kid. “I probably wrote 10 or 15 of those little short stories. It was a ton of fun. I had to come up with all these clever ways that he would out-trick the criminals.”

Jeff was enjoying himself, but he realized those short stories, those scenes, didn’t add up to a novel.

As he continued to work on them, however, “the plot started to come. And characters started to form. And most importantly the voice came out of it. I found my voice as I wrote those scenes.”

Multiple point of view characters—including 2 adults

The novel uses three point-of-view characters—Henry, the main character, and two adults.

One of the adults, Sam, is the villain of the story. He’s been reading the stories about The Kid and wants to confront him and show the world that he, Sam, is the faster draw.

The other adult character is Henry’s editor at Gunslinger magazine, Herbert (pronounced air-bear because it’s French). Why include him?

“Herbert’s the one who brought it all together,” Jeff said. Having Henry’s stories appear in a popular magazine makes it possible for the villain to know about the stories. Plus, Herbert is a sort of narrator for the larger story. He provides an important through-line to the plot and the theme.

Jeff wrote Henry, Sam, and Herbert separately until the final chapters where the characters come together.

During revision “I had to go back and figure how to fit them all together,” he said. “That was probably the hardest part of the book—intertwining all those threads together and making sure the themes resonated all the way through.”

Jeff didn’t set out to write three points of view. “It just somehow happened,” he said. “Then I was so deep into it. How do I make this work?”

He recognized that having adult characters as POV characters in a middle grade novel “was very unconventional.” Jeff wondered how he’d pitch and sell the story.

So he took Herbert out of the story. “I needed more of the focus on the child instead of the adult characters,” he said.

When he submitted the story to the editor who bought the book, she told him, ‘You need to put [Herbert] back in.’”

Multiple timelines and a tricky time period

In addition to three different points of view in the novel—four if you count The Kid stories—the story uses multiple timelines. There’s the timing of The Kid stories, which are published ahead of what’s happening with Henry. Sam’s story and Herbert’s story are happening a year after Henry’s story.

Jeff said, “That was also very challenging and probably the part of the book where I’m least satisfied. Some of the critiques of the book have been that it’s hard for kids to follow, and I agree.

“The hardest work I did with the editor was the timelines and trying to line that all up. Which chapter goes where and how do you space it out to get the timeline to work?”

The book’s time period also proved somewhat challenging. Jeff wanted to keep the book light and funny.

The Old West period suggests the plight of Native Americans. Perhaps the Civil War. But Jeff didn’t want to address those serious issues.

He said, “I set out to write a book about family, and it just happened to take place in the Old West. Every time I tried to bring in historical aspects, it changed the mood of the book. It changed the feel of the book. … Sometimes you have to make tough decisions.”

One element that did force him to shift the dates in his story had to do with the typewriter. Henry uses his mother’s typewriter to write his stories on, so Jeff had to make sure the typewriter was available.

“Would this family in rural Colorado have a typewriter?” Jeff asked. “Things like that can all of a sudden twist your story.”

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See Part 2 of this conversation with Jeff: “Landing a Traditional Publishing Deal Without an Agent“

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