Thursday, June 25, 2015

Story Starters With YA Author Lamar Giles


Last weekend, I attended a local SCBWI event (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) in Richmond, Va. Among the three excellent panelists was YA author, and 2015 Edgar Award Nominee, Lamar Giles.

Lamar did a super-fun Mad-Lib-style exercise with us called Story Starters, where he and the audience create a unique opening line by committee. Once the line’s created, the writers/illustrators in the audience have 15 minutes to write or sketch whatever that line inspires.

The sentence we came up with was "Alice never wants to hurt anyone again, but the robots won’t end the experiment."  Here's what I came up with in 15 minutes: 


I liked the sketch so much, that I went ahead and did a more finished version at home:


The cool part was that Lamar was pretty excited to share what everyone did on his blog, so I happily sent him both the sketch and the finished piece. Much to my surprise, not only did he post my images, but wrote up a pretty great review of my work as well. You check it out here: http://www.lrgiles.com/story-starters-scott-dubar-illustrator/ And for everyone interested YA fiction, definately check out Lamar's books Fake ID, and Endangered.




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