The Princess in Black books follow mild-mannered Princess Magnolia, who loves hanging with her friends, including Duff the goat boy, a crew of princesses also named after flowers, and her unicorn Frimplepants. But whenever a monster attacks the goat pasture, she dives into her secret tunnel, makes a quick change, and emerges as the Princess in Black, a superhero ready to drive the monsters back into Monsterland. She's had five book-length adventures so far, with a sixth due out in September.
Shannon and Dean Hale, the married duo behind the series of transitional chapter books, talk about the series' origins, the books' audience, and their collaborative process.
How did you guys start writing the Princess in Black series?
Shannon: Since this is a superhero book series, you need a proper origin story. When our oldest daughter was four, she was wearing this butterfly skirt, and she was pointing to the different colors, and she said, "mama, pink is a girl color, and purple is a girl color, and yellow is a girl color, but not black." My first reaction was, where does she get this? She's only four, and people are already telling her that certain colors are gendered? I said, "Girls can wear black. I wear black," and she looked at me like I didn't really count as a girl. I was a mama. And then I said, "Batgirl wears black," and I thought that would convince her. Then she said, "Princesses don't wear black."
So that was the spark. How did you go about creating the character and world of Princess Magnolia?
Shannon: It was very important to me that it was not an either/or scenario. She likes wearing pink dresses and glass slippers and having tea parties. And she likes to be in a cape and mask fighting monsters. And she doesn't have to chose.
Do you ever worry that a story about a princess will appeal more to girls than to boys?
Dean: That a book is about girls does not necessarily mean it's a book for girls.
Shannon: Who doesn't like a story of a monster-battling hero? But make it about a girl, in fact a princess. And that could help boys find from a very early age that they can enjoy stories about girls and, hopefully, not grow up under the weight of that limitation.
These books are great for new readers. They're easy to read, but they also help build reading skills. How conscious are you of that?
Shannon: I try to use a lot of compound words. Because it's a way to have a big word that can be broken down. And they're so fun. Whenever we use words that might not be familiar, we make sure that we repeat them at least once somewhere else, usually three times, just to help to reinforce that word or concept. And most of the time these books are read with adults. So it might be an opportunity for the parent to say, this is what this means.
How does your collaboration work? Do you write together? Is it easier or harder to write these books than the books you each write alone?
Dean: It helps going into it knowing who the boss is. We established that it was Shannon. We've collaborated on a lot of books now. What I've noticed ends up happening is that one of us becomes more attached to a certain character or story. And we become sort of a steward of that chunk.
Shannon: We do extensive chapter by chapter outlines. We do that by spending a lot of time going on walks or sitting in a room together and hashing out ideas. That's a big part of the process. That could take a month. Then, we divvy up the chapters and figure out who's going to write the first draft of each one. Then we put it all together. And usually I'll do the first pass in revision, read through it.
Dean: You mean take away all of my awesome ideas. Then I'll put them back in, in the next draft.
Shannon: He just overwrites just a little bit.
Dean: But it's hilarious...
So what's next? At the end of ‘The Princess in Black and the Science Fair Scare,' due out in September, there's a cool surprise. Can we look forward to more princesses becoming superheros?
Shannon: We're just going to have a whole kingdom of superheroes. It's not going to stop.
