Peter Brown: My Creative Process Is Messy
Peter Brown is the author and illustrator of many bestselling children’s books, including Children Make Terrible Pets and The Curious Garden. He is the recipient of a Caldecott Honor for Creepy Carrots!, two E.B. White Read Aloud Awards, a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book award, and a Children’s Choice Award for Illustrator of the Year.
Peter’s website is http://www.peterbrownstudio.com. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Peter Brown
In this post, Peter discusses the third title in his middle-grade Wild Robot series, what surprised him in the publishing process this time around, and more.
Name: Peter Brown
Literary agent: Paul Rodeen, Rodeen Literary
Book title: The Wild Robot Protects
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company BFYR
Release date: September 26, 2023
Genre/category: Middle-Grade Science Fiction
Previous titles: The Wild Robot, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, The Curious Garden, Children Make Terrible Pets, to name a few
Elevator pitch for the book: Roz, the wild robot, goes on an adventure to the far north in order to protect her home island from a mysterious form of pollution.
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What prompted you to write this book?
The Wild Robot Protects is the third book in the Wild Robot series of middle-grade novels. In the preceding books, Roz the robot learns how to survive in the wilderness and in civilization, and along the way she learns all kinds of lessons about nature and technology and society and relationships. She even learns how to communicate with animals. Roz is such a fascinating character and allows me to explore such a wide range of subjects that I really had no choice but to write more about her.
In this book, I wanted to explore issues relating to the environment. We’re all growing increasingly worried about environmental crises like climate change and rising sea levels and pollution. The problems we face are so big that most of us feel powerless to do anything about them. So we do what we can and hope for the best.
Climate change doesn’t only affect us, of course, it affects every habitat, and animals who cannot adapt are going extinct at an alarming rate. With those heavy thoughts in mind, I began imagining a story in which a mysterious form of pollution threatens the wild robot’s home island. Instead of simply hoping for the best, Roz decides to solve the problem, herself. The task seems impossible, but she’s willing to risk everything on the slim chance that she might be able to save her friends and her family and her home.
She sets out on a long journey to the far north, to find the source of the pollution and stop it. On her journey, Roz encounters an amazing variety of northern wildlife, and we get a glimpse at how different animals think and feel and adapt to their rapidly changing world.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
My creative process is messy. It’s hard to say exactly how much time I spend on any of my books, but I probably spent about a year mapping the plot of The Wild Robot Protects, and then about a year writing it, and then about 5 months creating the illustrations. These books don’t happen fast, but it’s worth the time to get them right.
The big story ideas didn’t change much throughout the process. I always knew this would be about Roz traveling to the far north on a mission to stop a mysterious form of pollution. What changed were the details. The story involves many unfamiliar settings and technologies, and I was constantly trying to simplify the details so the story would suit a wide range of readers. Sometimes my changes were straightforward, like removing unnecessary words to streamline a complicated scene.
However, there were many instances when I had to completely redesign a futuristic setting or piece of technology, which meant spending a lot of extra time researching and thinking and writing. Slowly, methodically, I smoothed out all the tricky details, and I feel pretty confident that readers young and old will enjoy the finished story.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
As I’ve been working on this third book in the series, the biggest surprise has been watching the first book slowly climb the bestseller list. The Wild Robot was published in 2016, and after all that time, it just recently became a #1 NY Times Bestseller.
Obviously, that was incredible news, and I am filled with gratitude for all the booksellers, educators, and fans who’ve shared The Wild Robot with others. But it definitely adds a degree of pressure that I hadn’t expected. Interest in these books seems to be growing, and I don’t want to let readers down!
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
When it comes to writing my novels, I expect a long, arduous process, and that’s what I got, once again. But the process seems to work. If I do the research, and map out the story, and grind through the writing, and keep it simple, and revise, and revise, and revise…I end up with a story that I’m proud of. And that’s all any writer can hope for.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
After reading The Wild Robot Protects I hope readers will have a greater appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things on Earth. Land, ocean, sky, plants, animals, humanity, they all make up a single global ecosystem. A threat to any of it is a threat to all of it. Together, we must find ways to effectively protect our planet, and that starts by having honest conversations about the state of the world.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
My best advice for writers is to read their writing aloud to themselves (if they don’t already). I find that all kinds of problems are revealed when I hear how my writing sounds out loud, and once I’ve identified those problems I can then go about resolving them. As I write, I read my stories aloud again and again, making revisions after each reading, and the writing gradually gets better, until I finally give up, and it’s done.