(Click here to go to the first blogpost about this project)
For the sake of organising things - here's some essential numbers we'll have to keep in mind.
Target Audience
Fairy-tales, myths and legends have been used in books and movies many times before and in many shapes. Disney, who are perhaps the most known company for making movie-adaptations of well-known folktales, generally have a primary target audience of 4-12 year old. (x)
Disney has a friendly and popular style of storytelling, and this seems to be a safe and suitable route for ourselves to follow for our book. We are aiming towards both boys and girls, but will focus on adapting the story and style for children between 6-10 years old. The style should be suitable for children older than pre-schoolers but younger than pre-teens, and have visuals that appeal to both boys and girls - and none of them exclusively. It should also be entertaining, friendly and familiar for parents. Although the setting will possibly be of most interest to people in the same geographic region, it should be enjoyable for those who are unfamiliar with the setting and story.
Book length & format
Print-formats are flexible and can be cut into pretty much any shape. Electronic tablets, on the other hand... not so much. Which is why we are using the friendly format of an iPad for our book. The pages will be made in a full 2480x3307pixels for print, which is the same width as an A4 sheet of paper but slightly shorter. This format it can be downsized to fit into an e-book for tablets perfectly. We are aiming to have around 25 full page illustrations, all double-page but with large neutral spaces where text will be overlaying the illustration (see setup example).
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Example of one double-page with nearly maximum amount of text(more on this below). Note that the illustration's focus point and the text-areas should be moved around from page to page for the sake of variation.
Picture: Sonja Langskjaer.
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Words/timing:
Obviously the writing style and pacing should be adapted so that the target audience can easily read and understand the story themselves. Each double-page should have no more than 90 words, with about 7 words per line (up to 20 lines) this is for easy readability (this is modeled on a handful of Roald Dahl books published by Puffin Publisher UK - with a similar format and target audience.)
For reference: It should take an adult less than 50 seconds to narrate the text on each double-page.
In total: With an average of 60 words per page and an approximated 25 pages, that means the script must be a maximum of 1500 words and fit into less than 450 lines (again, maximum!)
The amount of text per page depends on how much is happening in the narrative - a slow paragraph will not need to be illustrated as much as a fast-paced paragraph. Also illustrations alone can be used to emphasize certain events - for example a big event might have an entire double-page to itself and only one single sentence of text.
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| Text from "Tuftefolket på Sandflæsa" from Asbjoernsen and Moes Norwegian Folk Tales from around 1845. Text is not suitable for target audience - too old-fashioned! |
This example is of a single page with maximum possible amount of text for one double-page. This is 127 words on 19 lines. Font (Arial) is a placeholder. Font size: 26. Line-spacing: 36
As you can see this can quickly become difficult and boring for a young child to read. So because of this there should preferably not be much more than half this amount of words, and even then there should be plenty of line-breaks and pauses.
As you can see this can quickly become difficult and boring for a young child to read. So because of this there should preferably not be much more than half this amount of words, and even then there should be plenty of line-breaks and pauses.
Next time - research. Looking for inspiration for the setting, characters, story, history etc.
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