Background information about the book
Giving Henni and Leo their voice
Heike Brandt was writing Leo’s story in English, when her native language is German - but her English is so good that you forget that fact. Still, for Leo she created a convincing character who learned English from an American neighbour when he was very young, and also speaks some French and Turkish language.
Both authors had to get the right ‘look’ for the voice of their character. It had to look casual, as if the words were pouring straight from the brain onto the screen. Elizabeth would sometimes make it look as if Henni was rushing – making spelling mistakes. Sometimes it was like writing poetry – leaving off the first letter, playing with punctuation, leaving gaps. She was careful about which word would be given emphasis by being the last in the line.
‘It was hard when one author asked the other for a new piece of information to be included in a tightly worded email. It could take ages trying to restore the flow of an email.’
Working with the editor and publisher
Elizabeth says, ‘The editor went through every word, every letter, whittling away at the too-long text. Editors are intent on getting things correct, but this isn’t a correct book. Kids wouldn’t get all their spelling and punctuation right in emails. I don’t want too much neatening up.’ (The Editor says, ‘But it has to make sense! And do you really need so many exclamation marks?')
The designer chose different typefaces for Henni and Leo, to make it easy to distinguish the characters. Henni’s emails are in Metaplus Book, and Leo’s emails are in Courier.
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| Elizabeth Honey and Heike Brandt working with publisher Rosalind Price
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Editor Sue Flockhart carefully working through the last changes in To The Boy in Berlin |
