Making of Dotty Doughnut - Part 1
On writing Dotty
My fourth authored book - Dotty Doughnut (Orchard Books) - is coming to bookshops in two weeks time! There is a lot I’d like to tell you about it, but let me start from the beginning. This first post shares how the book was born.
I wish writing picture books gets easier as my bibliography grew. Probably that’s the case for the likes of Julia Donaldson, but, alas, I’m not her. You’ve probably heard of “sophomore slump” (where artists struggle to replicate their initial success with their second album/book/film etc). Well…my sophomore slump was nothing compared to the “senior-year” slump. Writing was definitely the hardest part of making the story about a deep-fried confection.
The Prompts
Dotty Doughnut started as prompts my editors gave me. After I finished Pearl and Her Bunch in 2023, I was reluctant to do another food-based story but they wanted me to… So they gave me some prompts and asked me to give them a go. The prompts were “doughnut” and “sushi” (and “insects”, I can’t remember why).
I went home and mulled over for a couple of week and went back to them with one or two ideas for each prompts. I also came up with an idea about a little choux puff story. They liked bits of each ideas so they suggested “combining [them] for the ultimate mash-up” and the doughnut was their favourite character.
The First Draft
After a week of mulling over, I sent my editors the first draft. I wrote to them:
I liked the "what's inside that counts" theme but I didn't want to use a filled doughnut as I [couldn’t] quite visualise how to show it's filled. So I went for an old fashion ring doughnut. (I do feel a bit sorry for simple doughnuts in those fancy doughnut shops like Crosstown and Doughnut Time. Don't you?) I think it makes better contrast against all these fancy doughnuts.
Yes, I did say “I do feel a bit sorry for simple doughnuts”… I think the ability to empathise with food is my superpower.
Anyway, I always believe “write what you know” is the key to a good story. I mean, I don’t really know what it’s like to be a doughnut, but I know what wanting to be someone else feels like.
Do you remember Little Miss Sunshine, a 2006 indie road trip film in which a family determine to get their young daughter (Abigail Breslin) into the finals of a beauty pageantry? I love the film! My favourite scene is where the girl’s moody teenage brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) snaps.
Dwayne : You know what? Fuck beauty contests. Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. You know, school, then college, then work, fuck that. And fuck the air force academy. If I wanna fly, I'll find a way to fly. You do what you love, and fuck the rest.
I’m telling you this because growing up this is how I often felt (and still do sometimes). I had never been seriously bullied but I had never been popular either. I was just nice but I felt it wasn’t good enough.
I continued in the email to my editors:
The story is about kindness and confidence that comes from within but also reclaiming niceness. A critic[ism] on extravert-centred society, if you like. "Nice" use to be one of highest compliments but nowadays you needs to be "fantastic" "charismatic" or "extra". It's depressing for introverts like me.
The first draft went like this:
Dotty the ring doughnut gets thrown away by the baker (because she has made a massive mess of herself trying to decorate herself) and she meets a seagull at the bin yard behind the bakery. The seagull takes her for a ride to a seaside to show her that people love simple ring doughnuts there.
Genius!, or so I thought…