JON COBLYN WELLESSELY HOW TO

When the premise suggests that this can end more ambiguously, and if there's more to be gained there, it should be allowed to do that. I think there's as much danger in that as going the other way and being too sweet or just too convenient. I never want to promote edgy things just for the sake of it. What’s your response to that impression of your work? It’s been said that your children's books tend to be edgier than most you avoid wrapping things up neatly with a bow. Once you've laid out simply what happens in the book, then it's off to the races. It means they brought other experiences to an event in the book that reminded them of something. It doesn't mean they misunderstood the story. They seem to be very stoic little guys but it is how you interpret them: Is one guy more right than the other? We know what we think about these guys, but I'm always surprised to find that people have opinions of characters and that it can change drastically from person to person. It's great! Even in this book, Sam and Dave's relationship can be seen in different ways. It must be interesting to hear some of those reactions to your stories. You don't want to seem lazy or arty, as if to say, “You guys figure it out! I don't know what's going on.” You have to be very specific about what it is that you want to say. It's a fine line though, because you don't want to come off as someone who doesn't feel like giving them all the answers. With your stories’ intentionally ambiguous endings, do you feel that it allows your audience to find their own way? They are not just there to entertain us while all the important text is happening. Kids learn to read more critically they realize these pictures have a reason. So if the pictures give out some information that the text doesn’t, there's a secret from the person reading it or maybe even from the person who wrote it. If they're being read to by an adult, I feel that the pictures are the kids’ territory. And that allows kids to be proud of a sixth sense they have. And they can back it up because it turns out that things aren't quite right. You can validate that insecurity they have when they see that final page. Once we explain what has happened, it is a reassurance that they were right all along. On a tour, I was showing the book to some kids, and when the boys seemed to be back home, the kids listening to the story saw the differences and they were confused. So it is left open, but it also feels complete.Īn interesting thing it brings up is that if the text doesn't state something, then the readers have to look at the pictures. The boys are already in the house, looking at who knows what, because they are not home either. But the dog is given one extra page to take a look around and realize that they are not home. They’re thinking, “Wow, that was pretty spectacular! We've been looking for something interesting to happen all day and that was certainly it.” So they walk back inside for milk and cookies and that is the end. We leave it to the viewer to realize that this is not home. Toward the end the text just says, “They landed in some soft dirt.” A lot of the objects look the same, but there are small differences and we don't say it in the text. Would you say this story is left open-ended?

JON COBLYN WELLESSELY HOW TO

Mac always has an ending in mind, but we were trying to figure out how to make it clear and direct and also as dreamy as we wanted. In this book, it was especially tricky because we had dug the hole and we couldn't get out! So we're at the bottom of the page and now what? Of course it wasn’t written as haphazardly as that. You're just following what it is that got you excited about it in the first place. There are things that feel right for the premise and things that feel like you might be taking it in the wrong direction. That was a big part of writing and illustrating it. What drives a large part of the story is how is it going to end, how is it going to solve itself. It's an interesting point in the story structure. Yes, a lot of the stories I come up with do involve a search, until I reach a point where I wonder how am I going to solve this. That so perfectly describes Sam & Dave Dig a Hole. You've said that you keep coming back to the idea of a search for something, where you end up hitting rock-bottom.

Jon coblyn wellessely