In most children's books, I found that monsters all have similar characteristics - hairy, big, colourful, sharp teeth, big eyes etc. I want mine to look different from that: almost human looking, a shadow figure, ghost-like, sinister, and evil looking without it being too detailed to show that it is just a figment of the main character's imagination and that it doesn't really exist - that it isn't something you can touch or get rid of physically.
After sketching the rough layout of my book, it suddenly occurred to me that the shadow demons in Disney's The Princess and the Frog - the scheming, greedy, serious, frightening and sinister personality of these shadows and how they look was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for for my monster. Can I just say I absolutely adore princess and the frog! :-)
Before coming up with how my character in my story gets better, I first need to educate myself further about how people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia and similar illnesses are treated:-
Successful treatment of schizophrenia depends on a combination of factors - medication alone is not enough. It is important to:
educate yourself about the illness
communicate with your doctors and therapists
have a strong support system
make healthy lifestyle choices
set meaningful goals for yourself
stick to treatment plan
manage stress
try to get plenty of sleep
avoid alcohol and drugs
get regular exercise
do things that make you feel good about yourself
find ways to be involved with others
turn to trusted friends and family members
Support makes and immense difference in the outlook for schizophrenia - especially the support of family and close friends. Supportive therapy can teach you how to challenge delusional beliefs, ignore voices in your head, protect against relapse and motivate yourself.
I came across a song on my phone titled 'Schizophrenia' by Jukebox the Ghost - because schizophrenia have a relationship with paranoia, I decided to read the lyrics and try to understand what the song is trying to say about it for inspiration:-
Yes I can, no I can't, Yes I can, no I can't, Yes I can, no I can't, Yes I can I swear to it, That's just how my brain works.
Yes it is, no it isn't, Yes it is, not it isn't, Yes it is, no it isn't, Yes it is I know that, I know it sounds absurd but
We first met in the summer of my twenty-second year, I got scared and they appeared out of thin air.
Here they come, here they come, Here they come, here they come, Here they come, here they come, They're after me. I don't know anything.
They got guns, they got knives, They got guns, they got knives, They got guns, they got knives and spies, I am no informant.
We first met in the summer of my twenty-second year, I got scared and they appeared out of thin air...
They knew my name, They screamed and screamed, They knew everything.
You could say that I'm well liked But I'll never be friendless...
You could say that I'm alright Or you could say schizophrenic...
This song is about the inner battle with one's mind - when someone is diagnosed with schizophrenia, it is usually because they have hallucinations or are hearing voices. In this song, the character says he had his first hallucinations in the summer when he was 22. He was scared, mainly because his hallucinations appeared out of thin air with guns and knives. They also knew everything about him; because they were, to put it simply, part of his imagination. He also mentions that he could 'never be friendless', saying that his hallucinations will be his friends. Nearing the end of the song, he admits that he's schizophrenic. IDEA:
I like the idea of my main character hearing voices - from someone or something who isn't even there - a character made up by her/his imagination
character meets this ghost/monster thing (a personification of fear) that first appeared out of thin air - no one else can see, because it is just a figment of her imagination - it whispers false words to the character and makes him/her paranoid about things, makes him/her think and see things like how the monster tells him/her.
first few pages of illustration could be done in two colours - a dark colour (maybe just keep everything greyscale) with a different colour to highlight character and his/her hallucinations.
as he/she gets better, pages gradually turns full colour to show that the monster is:-
weakening, have less control of the characters mind (what he/she thinks and what she thinks she's seeing)
show that the character is happier, is free - that their world is more colourful
Story idea (based on information collected - statistics and the emotions people feel):
Page 1&2: (name) didn't know why but everywhere he/she goes, there always seem to be a monster not far behind
Page 3&4: There was a monster in his/her bedroom that made him/her scared of the dark
Page 5&6: There was a monster at his/her school that made it harder for him/her to have fun
Page 7&8: There was a monster on the bus that made him/her very uncomfortable
Page 9&10: There was a monster at the shops that made him/her scared of the shop keeper
Page 11&12: There was a monster on the side of the swimming pool that made him/her think that something bad was going to happen
Page 13&14: There was a monster at the hospital that made him/her nervous of the doctors
Page 15&16: and there was even a monster at the hairdressers that made him/her worry about really silly things
Page 17&18: One day as he/she walked the dog, he/she noticed that all the monsters were following her.
Page 19&20: He/she did not understand and he/she was not happy. So enough was enough!
Page 21&22:
Title ideas:
(name) and the monsters
I'm not afraid!
Monsters have dreams too
My monster friends
Monsters are friends
My time with the monsters
I'm seeing monsters
I'm being followed by monsters
Stop following me!
Save me from the monsters!
Monsters are just like people
Monsters aren't scary
They're after me!
Monsters aren't bad after all
They're out to get me!
I'm not afraid anymore
My monsters and me
Monsters are sometimes a bit like you and me
The monsters and me
The feedback I got from my peers about my idea so far was that they liked the theme, the idea of the monster as the thing that makes the character think and see differently and the way the story is written. I was suggested that my main character could be an adult instead of a child but keeping the story quite simple like how it would be written for a child for an engaging read - a little bit like this video by Matthew Johnstone about depression (a similar topic to what I am doing), in the sense that its primarily targeted towards adults but the illustration and how the story is told is like how it would be done for a younger audience:
They also suggested to maybe explore more with the different mental illnesses and maybe try to incorporate it in the story - quite a contrast to what other people said in the previous review session.
Matt once told me to challenge myself - to try and create illustrations different to what I have done so far and what I am used to - happy, cutesy stuff - this is why I chose the paranoia/mental illness topic to focus on as it's good opportunity to do just that. However, after I presented my findings and ideas in the peer review session (about making a book that's more serious and different to what I have done in the previous module), my peers thought that maybe making a book about this sort of thing might be challenging to do as it is quite a sensitive subject - that there might be a risk of maybe offending some people if not careful. My peers suggested that maybe I look at something more child friendly that touches the fear/paranoia theme such as fairytales and monsters.
I went away from this review session with one main question on my mind: What are children afraid of? Common childhood anxieties and fears:
Infant/toddler:
loud noises or sudden movements
large looming objects
strangers
separation
changes in the house
Fears during pre-school years:
the dark - things under the bed, the closet
noises at night
masks
monsters and ghosts
animals such as dogs
During school years:
Snakes and spiders
storms and natural disasters
being home alone
fear of teacher who is angry
scary news/tv shows
injury, illness, doctors
fear of failure/rejection
Sources: children.webmd.com on childhood fears and anxieties
IDEA:
Picture book with children as target audience
illustrations supported by text/story
a story about a little kid who sees monster everywhere he/she goes e.g:
the shop
the bus
swimming pool
the park
school
doctors
own room
that makes him/her scared about something e.g:
the dark
people
kid gets fed up, confronts them and learns that the monsters only wanted to (the one at the swimming pool) learn to swim, (the one at school) read etc and that there's nothing to be afraid of anymore
After the peer feedback on study task 1 where we collected information about the three different places, people thought the story about being paranoid of the 3 men (who each received phone calls at the same time) and people thinking we were spies were most interesting. From this I then decided to base my next research on the themes of paranoia and spies.
I came up with a couple of questions under each themes to further research:
Paranoia:
what is paranoia?
why do people get paranoid?
what makes people paranoid?
how does it make people feel?
How to ease the feeling/stop being paranoid?
Spies:
What do spies look like?
what do kids think spies look like?
what do kids think spies do and how they do this?
how to be a spy? - how kids think someone becomes a spy
is it okay to spy on someone?
How could I find the answers to these questions?
Primary research:
to find out what kids think spies look like, do etc, I could get a group of kids together and interview them - I think the answers and ideas they'd come up with would be quite interesting and fun and therefore would make a quite interesting and entertaining book.
I could conduct a questionnaire - for example, this would enable me to find the percentage of people who think spying is okay and is not.
again I could interview people to find out what they think paranoia is, the affect it has on people etc.
Secondary research:
Internet and books - using the internet and visiting the library for books to collect existing information - I think this would be a much more useful tool to find the answers to the paranoia questions instead of the spies one because they aren't as specific or more focused.
