How The Good Guys Agency Began: the first idea, the first draft, and what changed

The eager morning came in through the window, the sunlight poured across the desk and illuminated the blank page in his notebook. A heavy pen sat at the ready while the fingers of steam curled up from his tea.

He sat down and cracked his knuckles one by one. Pop, pop, pop. He took one satisfied sip, placed the mug beside the keyboard, and began.

The words came easily to him. Each sentence yielded the next one , and the paragraphs flowed faster than he could think. The characters were fully realized. They knew what to do. All he had to do was keep up.

Then one of them said something he hadn't planned, it was ridiculous and refreshing. The thought of it tickled him into a chuckle that cut the silence of the room. He shook his head grinning, and kept typing.

The tea cooled and the sun had passed him by. He didn't notice. The story had taken him somewhere else entirely.

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Step 1 - The Idea

That is how The Good Guys Agency was born. And if you believe that you will believe this. Writing is an easy endeavor. It is always rewarding and you never want to give up. A blank page is the safest space for people who suffer from imposter syndrome. Oh, and unicorns are real

Of course writing is actually a painful, excruciating yet addicting process. 26 letters on your keyboard act as puzzle pieces waiting to be assembled . All that is required is some imagination, patience and a good cup of tea.

Shortly after I self-published The Elephant in the Classroom, I heard from David Miles of Bushel & Peck Books. David had helped me lay out the pages of Elephant and guided me through the whole self-publishing process, so he knew the book about as well as I did. What he kept coming back to was its voice. He loved the warmth of Mr. Elephant and the way he showed up for his colleagues, cheering them on and helping them hold onto their passion for teaching.

David had been thinking about a book series that would teach good lessons and give boys strong role models, and he saw in Mr. Elephant and his fellow teachers the tone he'd been looking for. He asked if I'd be interested in building something new together.

It was flattering to say the least. When I published Elephant I didn't think it would launch a writing career but this new opportunity changed everything.

Step 2 - The Premise

I first had to come up with a premise for the series. We wanted to create a world that would serve as the glue from book to book. An early idea I had was a bunch of kids ran a company called Kids Inc. and they produced things like Kindness, Bravery, etc. The CEO character would then give a tour of the factory which would include a stop in the world of the historical figure's life.

We dropped that idea pretty quickly. We didn't want readers to come away thinking great values were products to buy and sell. It also had a lot of moving parts that would be hard to explain quickly in a short chapter book.

From there, we focused on capturing real experiences kids have and connecting them to the lives of historical figures. We tried out a few names along the way, including The Great Kid Society and Boy Extraordinaires. The second one felt limiting, though. I wanted these books to be for every kid.

We'd already ruled out a company, but we still wanted something official the kids could rally around. One idea was to have them start their own newspaper or magazine. Even as a writer, I wanted something more active than that. I wanted the kids out in the world, doing things. So we made it an agency, and The Good Guys Agency was born.

Step 3 - The Historical Figures

The most challenging part of the process was identifying the list of figures who could anchor an entire book. Before jumping in I put together criteria to guide the conversation. Here is what we came up with:

• Popularity: Must be well known.  I feel like if we pepper in a few ‘mega names’ such as Abraham Lincoln/Walt Disney, we can also pursue figures that are popular but may be new and exciting to readers.

• Diversity: I think we should look to find all kinds of diversity.  This includes the figure’s field of work.  I also don’t want every minority that we choose to have a story that centers on their race.  I think it important to reflect that they had accomplishments on their own merit.

• Skeletons: Harder than you think.  But nothing too controversial in their past.  For example, Thomas Jefferson. He was a genius that was a premier architect of America but also owned slaves.  I personally don’t think that dims the value of his achievements (as it was a lot of his designs that ultimately led to the 13th amendment and civil rights act).  With that said, perhaps we stay away from that drama in favor of other figures.

• Visual Theme: Could this character give fun, unique and exciting material for the illustrator to work with.

• Personal Interest

• Connection to Virtue

• Conflict: This isn’t a deal breaker but I find the figures who faced conflict as interesting figures for kids to learn from.

Test it out...think of a figure and see if they satisfy each requirement. What you'll find is the list shrinks rather quickly.

Step 4 - The Draft

The first order was for four books. We identified Mr. Rogers, Jackie Robinson, Milton Hershey and Ludwig van Beethoven as a diverse group of 'heroes'.

The first draft of the first book had to do some heavy lifting. We had to create the world, establish the need for the virtue and cue up the adventure.

Next, I had to build the pieces that would carry from one installment to the next: the treehouse, the Book of the Future, Imagination Station, the Kid Cruiser, and the agency itself. None of them came to me right away. Each one went through rounds of sketches, rewrites, and conversations with David before it found its place. Some started out as something completely different, and others only showed up once I was deep into drafting and realized the story needed them. Over time, they stopped feeling like a list of ideas and started feeling like a real world, a place the kids could come home to at the start of every book and set out from on every new adventure.

We also decided that the first two and last two chapters of each book would be in prose while the imaginary world with the historical figure would be in a graphic novel format. While I got started on flushing out the first draft, David had his eye on finding an illustrator.

Not before long he found Ricardo!

Step 5 - Bringing It To Life

In the margins of my draft I would make notes for Ricardo to take and run. This was the easiest part of the process. He was able to take my vision and bring it to life in ways that I couldn't fully see myself.

One of my favorite things about the books are how bright and colorful they are.

So no, writing isn't the serene scene from the top of this post. It's months of false starts, scrapped ideas, and drafts that don't work until suddenly they do. But every so often, there's a morning when the words come easily and a character says something that makes you laugh out loud in an empty room. Those mornings make the rest of it worth it.

Four books have turned into six, and every time a kid tells me which Good Guys adventure is their favorite, I'm reminded why I keep putting those 26 puzzle pieces together. Grab a cup of tea and stick around. There's plenty more to share. (Unicorns are still not real...but I'm always open to possibilities).