Ged Adamson's SHARK DOG

Ged Adamson is on a roll! He visits again to share the creative process behind his newest title, SHARK DOG!
Fantastic Beasts!
Ged Adamson
     My picture books can roughly be divided into two basic categories:

1. Odd Happenings
2. Strange Creatures

     It’s definitely to the latter category that my character Shark Dog belongs. He’s a strange creature indeed - half shark and half dog. But with his eager curiosity and lovable friendliness, it’s the dog side that seems to dominate. Who knows what weird evolutionary meanderings led to such an extraordinary animal?       Ideas like Shark Dog usually come from a single quick drawing. I spend a big amount of time doodling things, an activity usually fuelled by coffee. The coffee isn’t essential, but like most people, I find it stimulates the thought process. Certainly, Douglas, another of my odd dog characters, was born in the same way: a scribble in a sketchbook in the café down the road. My immediate thought in both the cases of Douglas and Shark Dog was the same: could I build a story around this one doodle? But my approach to the two characters was different.
      With Douglas, I started to think of scenarios. He’s short-sighted so he’s taken to the eye doctor and he gets glasses. What happens to him then? Hmm.
      How about he starts to not just see the world more clearly but his mind and imagination open up to knowledge and ideas? He then wants to lead other dogs to enlightenment. Like a canine Timothy Leary. He holds a meeting but then the dogs’ owners organise a protest. As you can see, the story started to get out of hand. My editor at Random House, the fabulous Lee Wade, said I should have a rethink. Strip it back but keep it funny. There has to be some truth in there. When people get glasses, they suddenly see the world clearly. This is a beautiful and amazing thing in itself. Douglas doesn’t have to have a mind-altering epiphany!
      With Shark Dog though, my process was different. I thought about story of course but my focus was the feel and style of the book. I wanted to create a world around the main character that had a certain look and humour to it.
      I decided that Shark Dog would be discovered by explorers. But how should these explorers look? I thought the best and most fun way to present them would be to have them dressed in a kind of 1960s/70s style. Nowadays, travelers and explorers are kitted out head to foot in expensive, for-the-purpose, hi-vis outfits. But in the days of Jaques Cousteau and Chris Bonnington, utility gear would be mixed up with ‘normal’ clothes. So this is the look I gave to the father and son who discover Shark Dog.       This old-school theme runs through the book. For example, on a visit to the beach, the trio are shown arriving in a Morris Minor Traveller - a  car I remember being fascinated with as a little kid because, to me, it looked like a Tudor house on wheels.        In another scene, Shark Dog looks forlornly through the window of a travel agents - the kind of travel agency you don’t see on the high street anymore, with a big model plane and a display of sand and shells.       So the idea was to present the main characters’ world as something from the past. All my books have this element to a certain extent but, in Shark Dog!, I wanted to make this old school-ness a feature.
      There’s definitely a story and a message in Shark Dog! but my main aim was that children would be intrigued by this funny looking animal and laugh at his exploits and adventures in the world of humans. The idea is always ‘how would Shark Dog act in this situation?’ rather than ‘how will Shark Dog fit into this storyline?’
      You could say that the story is kind of a ‘vehicle’ in the same way you would use this term to describe a movie. 
      This continues into the next Shark Dog book, Shark Dog And The School Trip Rescue. The title sums up what happens: there’s a school trip and Shark Dog comes along for the ride, ultimately saving the day!       I think my attraction to writing characters that are odd or different is simply due to feeling this way myself at times. Everyone has felt like a fish out of water at some point, and it’s interesting to see how we adapt in those situations. In the next Shark Dog book, we see him use both his doggy-ness and sharky-ness to help someone in distress. It’s often our differences - rather than our similarities - that educate and entertain us. What would we learn if everybody thought and looked the same?
      So next time you desperately want to fit in but can’t, think of Shark Dog and and rejoice, because, after all, we’re secretly, every one of us, the oddest creatures.       Learn more about Shark Dog at these blogs!