I got a call from the new editor at Simon Scribbles yesterday. There’s another activity book project in the air, and if all goes well, I’ll get to help with it! Funny thing, though: It’s another movie tie-in, but I may not get to read the script. Hm. Puzzling biz, eh?
Categories: Children's writing
Hey Jen. Sounds interesting to try to make tie-in activities without seeing the script. Are you psychic? Last Thursday we had our functional field trial. Made brownbag lunches, discussed nutrition. Did three activities from two wonderful books I have- Hollywood Head Scratchers and Still Sleuthing. Found a typo. An apology is the mark of a gentlewan. I enlarged the hidden loot puzzle and the girls had to correctly follow it hanging on the wall, we used different colored highlighters for each item. Visual tracking and direction following are skills they need to work on. We went to the Nancy Drew movie- it’s good. One of you puzzles is the answer to what Biedermeyer asked Nancy to teach his grandchildren. I had the girls listen for it and wanted them to tell me the answer after the movie. I think that line of dialog got cut! The other adult and I didn’t hear it and the girls , dare I say it, didn’t have a clue!
Gentlewan? Nu-uh!
Naturally, I went and looked–at the book and my manuscript–to see if it was my error or someone else’s.
By the way, we’re talking about Coded Quote 1 on page 21 of Still Sleuthing.
If this were a typo it would be the second one I’m aware of, but I don’t think it can technically be called a typo. The dot that is before the two dashes–making the “m” seem to be a “w”–is really the “e” before the “m.” Got that? If you make that a “w” then the word becomes G-E-N-T-L-W-A-N, and there’s an extra space down below for another letter.
There’s a spacing issue, though. The “e” is closer to the “m” than it should be, hence the confusion. In case the puzzles aren’t tricky enough!
Typo #1 is on page 21 (how’s that for a coincidence?) of Hollywood Head Scratchers.
There’s a “you” that should be a “your.” I make that error all the time, so I assumed it was mine, but guess what?! It’s not! My manuscript says “your”!
Not that it matters. I’ll gladly accept responsibility for both. I’m just happy to have been able to do the books.
As for the quote not being in the movie. Bummer! I *still* haven’t seen it, and I was eager to see if all the quotes I used were actually in the movie. I asked the editor about this, and got a thumbs up to use quotes. But I would guess that the movie was in post-production when I wrote the book, which means scenes were still being cut and spliced. Maybe they even shot new scenes in pick-ups. I don’t know.
So now I have to decide if I want to use quotes in future puzzles. I use so many it’s a little daunting to contemplate giving them up.
When I finally see the movie, I’ll take a list of the quotes I used and mark which ones are in the movie, which ones have altered wording, and which ones aren’t in it at all. Yeah, I’m that curious (anal?).
Add that to the knowledge that I need to draw craft diagrams because there aren’t photo illustrations. That will certainly influence future activities.
What do you all think about the quote issue? Use them or don’t use them?
Oops! My bad on the gentlewan. You should definitely keep using quotes, The other quotes that I had noticed in the books were in the movie. I’m not sure that I was aware of every quote you used. Anyway, I think the books are great fun and the girls had a good time.
Hey, I was convinced until I went back and looked at the manuscript. The spacing in the book is off just enough to play tricks.
The most important thing, though, is that the girls had a good time. Everything else is gravy–whatever that means.