Summary:
Like Tohby, experiment with using words and pictures to tell a story or to tell others about one of your ideas.
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Music
Interviewer: Thank you Tohby for agreeing to be interviewed this morning.
Tohby Riddle: It's good to be here.
Interviewer: You have studied art and architecture and you're a popular Australian cartoonist.
After these varied experiences what is it that appealed to you about writing and illustrating children's picture books?
Tohby: I didn't necessarily separate the activities that much in my mind.
The books I do tend to have ideas that, you know, there could be cartoon-like ideas in the books.
In fact the books are sometimes extended cartoons to me but they do develop into larger works and have other themes and ideas but also there's ...
If you look in the books you can probably see a preoccupation with architecture, even if it's just reduced to skylines and things like that.
There's definitely an interest in architecture and of course art.
I think from my art school days I feel as if I approach the picture books from an artist's point of view rather than a strictly illustrative point of view.
I look at sort of the possibilities of sort of a fine art approach in my mind anyway.
How it turns out is up to other people to assess.
Yes, so I guess it does seem like a natural extension of other things I do.
Interviewer: Have the wit and discipline of producing cartoons influenced your creation of picture books?
Tohby: A lot of my cartooning was for a weekly magazine and I did it for nearly ten years.
And what that does is really drill you in having to come up with ideas and then work out how on earth you're going to show them to other
people in a cartoon format which uses words and pictures.
So, that was just a really good ongoing kind of training and workout for also doing picture books.
And it made me develop various techniques for getting ideas because I think when I've thought of an idea for a cartoon ...
The very first idea I ever had I was just so amazed that it actually seemed to look like a cartoon, would pass for a cartoon, that I wasn't sure I'd ever think of another one.
And you have to keep coming up with more ideas and often to deadlines and that can get pretty scary.
So I just got into the practice of looking for ideas, generating ideas through ways of thinking and therefore becoming confident that
there's actually millions and millions of ideas out there.
And it's just up to you to be on the case and the more you look for them, the more you find them.
Interviewer: You have received many nominations and awards in your career.
How important are awards in a creative career?
Tohby: I think you have to keep them in perspective because sometimes you get nominated and sometimes you don't and you can't
let that sort of impact on you too greatly either way.
Otherwise you just get knocked off course a bit by either disappointment or maybe even a sort of false sense of how good your work is or something like that.
I think there's an element of luck.
I mean good quality work tends to get recognised.
Well, you'd hope it does but there's still an element of luck because there's a lot of good work out there and if yours gets chosen you know you feel that that's fortunate.
Some awards can have, can actually have a big impact on sales so you know that really helps keep you viable and it helps you remain an attractive proposition to a publisher.
So, that makes a difference.
Summary:
Try illustrating one of your stories in black and white.
Try illustrating someone else’s story and/or giving one of your stories to someone else to illustrate.
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Interviewer: What are your work habits?
Tohby Riddle: I try and have some routine.
I found out just after I left school it was quite easy to waste a hell of a lot of time just by slouching around and with friends and there just doing stuff.
And it was a bit sobering because I realised, you know, I wasn't really getting much done.
So, then I realised, I started working freelance and I realised it really helps to have a routine.
You feel like you're locked in with at least other people during business hours so that you can interact with them and do all those things.
Having said that I've worked best in the night, a bit of a night owl, so I do do work naturally, you know, in the middle of the night.
But I do have this other routine which kind of helps hold it all together because if you are working for yourself you do need a good deal of
discipline and routine just to make sure that you get stuff done as the days go by and the whole thing doesn't unravel a bit.
You know, when you've got a job where you're employed, it's easier just to sort of get up because you've got to be at work or else you might get the sack or something.
If you don't have those extra pressures you have to sort of create them for yourself a bit just so that you get things done.
And certainly when I'm into a project I'm usually pretty excited about it so I kind of, you know, when I wake up in the morning I can't wait to
get on with it, which is a good thing.
So, unless I get really stuck with it and then, you know, then you don't know, you start looking at how you can avoid doing it.
But that's only sometimes, luckily.
So yeah. So, the main thing is routine, I'd say.
Interviewer: You took a big risk with 'The 'Great Escape from City Zoo' by illustrating a picture book in black and white.
Can you tell us about that decision as well as any other norms in the writing process that you have challenged.
Tohby: Well, to answer the first part of your question, the more I thought about the idea for 'The Great Escape from City Zoo' it felt like a story.
An old, almost familiar story from the past.
But from a time when films were black and white and photos were black and white and so I felt more and more strongly that to be true
to the idea I needed to show it as if it were even an old black and white movie and the pictures in the books were stills from that black and white movie.
So, that really excited me and so I pursued that idea.
But it was interesting because when I showed my publisher, who was very excited about the idea, they were a lot less excited about the
black and white and I realised then that there was a perception among publishers that picture books should have bright colours in most cases.
There were publishers out there who were very cautious about straying from that perception.
And then I showed it to someone else and then I rang them to see what they thought about it and they said they'd call me back in forty minutes.
That was about twelve years ago now, or longer.
And eventually an editor who I've worked with ever since, rang up and said 'Have you got any ideas for books at the moment?'
I said 'Well I've got this idea' and I showed her and she said 'That's great' and so it went from there.
So, it just required someone to connect with what I was trying to do and champion it I guess.
In some ways you end up inadvertently challenging norms.
But in a way it just goes back to trying to be true to the idea you've got rather than, you know, diluting it or standardising it.
Because I think there are standardising forces in publishing because it's a business and it can be risk averse.
So, and over the years I've become attuned to their standardising processes.
So, editors might say 'Well, you know it might be better if we do this because this is our House style'.
All sorts of things happen, so, and sometimes they make good sense.
But often they're not well founded really and certainly not in an artistic way.
Interviewer: You illustrate for other writers as well as write and illustrate your own books.
What are the advantages of doing both?
Tohby: I did that more so earlier on.
When I was just starting out I didn't actually have a, you know, a whole schedule filled with books that I had to do.
And so if a publisher contacted me and said 'Would you like to illustrate this book?' there was a good chance that if I felt like I
could connect with the text and could see a good way of illustrating it I would give that a go.
But probably for quite a while now I've stuck to my own ideas because that seems to take up enough of my time and energy.
And so really the last few books now I've done are all my idea and my illustrating.
And I'd have to say that's my preference because once you get an idea you start to get very strong feelings about how it needs to be shown.
And it's good to have that creative control over the text and pictures.
And then if you're that person dealing with the publisher you know the design of the book, you know you can then get into how it should
be designed so that it follows through on the idea as well.
So, that's probably my main thing.
Although recently I did do illustrations for a book called 'The Word Spy' and that whole project just appealed to me an awful lot and
I actually really enjoyed engaging with the project and the team of people involved.
And the illustrations there were more in the sort of cartoon area so I enjoyed doing that.
The other side of illustrating for picture books, say, is that there is an awful lot of work involved in the artwork and you don't want to
take on a project lightly because it's a big commitment.
So, again that's probably why I just mostly do my own.
Summary:
Choose an animal that lives in the natural environment. Make notes and drawings of the animal as it might look and act if it took on human qualities and habits.
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Interviewer: Being the writer and the illustrator allows you to develop the character from two perspectives.
Which one comes first, the idea of the character visually or does the look of the character come from the storyline?
Tohby Riddle: It always depends on the specific idea and some ideas, I think in one case with one of my picture books I really wrote
the story and it was just pure prose and then the trick was, I had to make a decision whether or not it was a picture book text to be sure.
Then I decided it could make a good picture book and I worked out how to illustrate it.
So in that case there was a definite division between the way the idea developed, starting with purely the text.
But in most cases they sort of come simultaneously, so if I look at the notebook where I first started getting that idea I'm kind of
scribbling little ideas and scribbling little pictures next to them.
Because I scribble into notebooks a lot I just jump between the visual and the verbal almost simultaneously and so it's hard to answer
that definitively because of that thought process.
In my most recent book I think though the character just jumped out at me which, that book's called 'Nobody Owns the Moon'.
It starts out as if you were reading a non-fiction article about foxes and how foxes are starting to increasingly live in certain cities around
the world probably because they're losing habitat and how they're actually good at it.
A friend of mine said she's seen a fox in Marrickville, so probably happening in Sydney a bit.
And when I read about foxes living successfully in cities I just thought that was a really nice statement and just immediately I saw this
fox in a cardigan in a comfy chair with his feet up, you know, having a snooze in what looked like a nice little apartment.
And again I just had that non-fiction sentence and this image and when you connected the two I just thought gee there's a story in that because, you know, who is this fox?
And what's he up to? What else does he do and does he have friends in the city?
And funnily enough I was working full time at that time.
I knew there was something in that I left it in the notebook and I came back to it a couple of months later and the story just almost just wrote itself.
And especially because that character was so strong, he just seemed to lead the way.
That's an example I guess of how a character developed but it does vary from idea to idea.
Interviewer: What do you base your characters on?
Tohby: Well, that's hard to know. Writing a story is often a process of getting to know the character and it reveals itself in various ways.
Or they do and often you realise that there's a part of yourself in those characters or people you know well.
I can't think I've ever started a story where I've decided to base a character on something.
It's just, there's an idea there.
There's a situation and there are characters in that situation and then there are questions about ... writing a story is often answering
questions that seem to arise in my mind about that situation, that initial premise and so the characters develop from there.
Again, in the recent book 'Nobody Owns the Moon' there's a donkey and he just took over as well and if I look back on that I realise
there's elements of friends I have in that donkey which unconsciously I didn't realise.
But I just seem to know him very well and the things he did didn't surprise me but he was almost ahead of me, I was just sort of recording what he was doing.
Interestingly I use animals a lot though and I guess maybe that's so that they're freed up from being based on anything too specific as well.
Because when you use animals, you know, you anthropomorphise them a little, you get away from specifics that might distract from the story.
So, when you choose a person then you've got to make all sorts of decisions about what clothes they wear and, you know, what
nationality they are and their age and all those things can have unwanted baggage, you know, unwanted information.
So I find animals are quite a good basis I guess to start with.
But again it's not too premeditated, it just tends to ...
These ideas just sort of come, you know, they merge and I play around with them so.
Summary:
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Interviewer: Your plots are often unusual and have an appealing silliness for both children and adults.
What other writers have influenced you and how much do you base on your own personal experiences?
Tohby Riddle: It's not always a case of other writers influencing me.
It could be friends I know who have a particular take on the world.
It could be films that I've enjoyed.
I mean, I think, you know, when I was younger I really loved Woody Allen films from the seventies and eighties and they might have influenced me.
Perhaps not consciously, it's hard to know.
When I like something I really get absorbed in it.
So say I remember watching a Woody Allen film three times in a row just because I just wanted to get it somehow.
And so I guess the way I kind of get into things I probably do absorb things in a certain way.
Definitely for just creating powerful atmosphere.
I like Maurice Sendak but I wouldn't necessarily say he has silliness.
The silliness I don't know, it's true that often when I start a story it's the silliness that is the initial appeal.
What I like to think of as good silliness like really good, stupid silliness.
And so I start with that and that just amuses me and then I find often when it's also sort of kind of odd silliness I then start thinking about it.
And then often you realise there are sort of potential metaphorical meanings in there and you can sometimes tease those out a bit and yeah and then possibly even layers.
That's where I think the ideas can then be appreciated on different levels and that adults might see something that a child doesn't and vice versa.
But by the same token I'm never intending to exclude any reader from enjoying the book.
So, if a child doesn't get something in there it shouldn't affect the reading of the story.
And likewise if an adult is getting something and is amused there might be something they can discuss with the child so that the reading
experience is enjoyable for both of them and there's some level of sharing there as well.
Summary:
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Interviewer: What tips can you offer to young people who may want to become an author and illustrator?
Tohby Riddle: I can start just before I got a book deal which is that I worked as a mailing clerk in a publishing house.
And what that did was I was opening manuscript submissions all day and sending them back all day.
And so I saw that there were good ways to show your ideas to a publisher and there are bad ones and I learnt a lot from that.
When I got an idea I then knew how to present it but I also realised that I was an unknown illustrator.
And publishers have whole stables of illustrators who they like to use because they're often award-winning illustrators and they're very good at what they do.
And I realised I didn't stand a chance getting offered illustrating work as a nobody.
So I thought, if I come up with a good idea for a book and then I say that I'm the illustrator as well I present, you know, I made up a
mock-up book with my illustrations, rough illustrations, showing how the story would be told in words and pictures.
And they were a little hesitant to take me on so I did some more finished artwork and they said 'Okay, looks like you can do the job.'
And so that way I got to be an illustrator of a published book and also the author.
But that worked for me.
I'm not sure, it seems like each person has an individual path in terms of how they get to where they are.
It's not necessarily like, you know, if you want to be a doctor you go to university and you then work in a hospital for a while, do those things.
In this sort of area it's a kind of just, you have to be a bit hound like and kind of try and sniff out a trail that will lead to where you want to get to.
I always try to have the best possible, the highest quality work I could think of at hand so that I had some benchmark to aim for.
Which didn't mean I could ever get there but it always made me aim as high as possible.
And I was talking to some authors last week about this.
We all agreed that we wouldn't have been at this festival, we were there only because we never gave up and that's the other thing.
Other than that you just have to put the hours, in probably quite a few, and just not give up and just keep working out ways as ingenious
as possible to try and get your foot in the door somewhere.
And take on, say , put your hand up, say yes to things when you're starting out.
Summary:
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Tohby Riddle: This book's called 'Nobody Owns the Moon', it's written and illustrated by me.
I'm Tohby Riddle and I'm going to read the story to you.
'The fox is one of the only wild creatures in the world that can successfully make a life for itself in cities.
This is because it is quick-witted ... and able to eat a variety of foods.
Other creatures can live in cities but often with limited success - especially when compared with the fox.
One fox who lives successfully in the city is Clive Prendergast.
Clive Prendergast is the name he gave himself to fit better into his city world; his real name can only be pronounced by foxes.
Clive lives in a small one-room apartment in a busy part of town.
By day, Clive works in a factory.
He doesn't know what is made there; he just puts the same two parts together - over and over.
By night, Clive gets up to more foxy things.'
And that's as far as I'll read to.