Hooked From Page One: The First Page & Interview: ELANORA AND THE SALT MARSH MYSTERY by Kathleen Jae

ELANORA AND THE SALT MARSH MYSTERY

by Kathleen Jae

After a series of terrifying events, Elanora is transported to a strange neighborhood where the only way to get about is by water and the only food to eat is the grasses of the marsh. When she discovers that the water level in her new home is falling, she suspects humans are the cause and puts together a plan to save the creatures who live there.
Will Elanora persuade the colony and swimmers to overcome their fear of the unknown and embark on a dangerous journey to their new home?
PRAISE
Elanora and the Salt Marsh Mystery features interesting animal characters with distinctive character traits and personalities who can absorb the middle-grade reader. The salt marsh environment is sufficiently detailed to become a character on its own, with its ebbs and flows. The self-contained world created stands on its own with a microcosm of both conflict and friendship… A child or even an adult reader of this book can identify with and applaud the book’s characters… all in all a very good read.

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Elanora the Questioner

Dangers lurk both high and low,

Marauders, curs, moggies too.

When darkness comes, we must not go,

And wait for light’s renew!

lanora’s mother uttered the verse daily, just as her

mother’s mother had told it to her, so who was Elanora to

question it? It gave her shivers when she heard the serious way

her mother told it, as if every menacing creature mentioned

in the verse were waiting just outside their burrow, ready to

pounce on them for daring to leave the safety of their home.

The first time her mother recited it, Elanora was busy studying

the stripes on the back of her sister Vala. All of them had

these same stripes, even her mother, but Elanora thought them

quite unnecessary. “One…two…three…” she counted, poking

hard at each line, until her sister screamed for her to stop. Elanora

was quietly scolded, as it was normally a time for rest. She

promised herself to ask her mother about the stripes at feasting

time, for she had an almost vital need to know things.

“Please tell me now—why do we have these silly stripes on

our backs?” Elanora asked her mother this question after they

The First Page: The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?

Kathleen Jae: When I think back, this is the very first thing I typed. I mean, it took a little while to work out the animal names that critters in Elanora’s world would use and to make it rhyme, but I always knew I wanted the verse to be the first words readers would see. These are the beasts of Elanora’s world, the enemies that she and her family had to contend with.

The other bit of information I wanted to convey right away is that Elanora is a curious youngster. Her questions might vex others, but it was her way of making sense of everything in her environment.

TFP: In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?

KJ: The book went through five complete drafts, and along the way I added a subplot and additional characters here and there. But the only thing I changed on the first page is when Elanora pokes her sister’s back while counting her stripes. I tried to describe the animals in the book and would sometimes give them names that were similar to what humans have given them, but because I didn’t want them calling each other these human-made names, I realized I would have to describe them better. Middle-grade readers are quite clever, and I knew they would be able to imagine Elanora’s world.

TFP: Was there ever a time after the book was published that you wished you had changed something on the first page?

KJ: No, after I added the information about the stripes, I thought the first page would work much better.

TFP: What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?

KJ: Elanora and the Salt Marsh Mystery is my first novel and since then I’ve written another one that is a different genre. I have started research for the sequel to Elanora, and because so much happens at the end of this book, the first page of the next book has to be pretty much perfect. I always knew how the first book would begin, but this time not so much.

The first page of a novel is extremely important. Elanora’s world is a treacherous one, so I chose to create a verse to reflect that, and I thought it important enough to be the first words of the book. Two other things I thought important for the reader to know right away is she has stripes on her back, which is a characteristic of chipmunks, and she is extremely curious. So right away, a reader suspects Elanora is a chipmunk, is very curious, and must always be alert for enemies in the air and on the ground.

I also believe that two people given the same material will write a different first page. The words I think should be included on the first page are personal to me. Another writer will wonder how I ever came up with a rubbish first page and create a completely different one. I am sure a more experienced writer would be able to eloquently explain the mechanics of how to write a fabulous first page. But in the end the words that appear on the first page of your book should make the reader want to turn to the second page.

Kathleen Jae has been writing in one form or another for almost twenty-five years. Her greatest success story is her daughter, Katie, whom she refers to as “my hero,” and their journey is chronicled in Kathleen’s first book, From Prompting to Shaping to Letting Go: My Love Affair With ABA and How Being a “Bad Mom” Helped My Daughter With Autism Succeed. In past lives the author has been a proofreader, editor, newspaper reporter and columnist, newsletter writer for a wildlife organization and writer of stage plays and screenplays. She considers her six-year stint as a home-based behavioral program director in the ’90s her most difficult, albeit important, job and is counting the days until all autism-related ABA therapy positions go the way of the dodo. Two of Kathleen’s short stories made it to the finals of the 2017 Florida Writers Association Royal Palm Literary Award competition.