Bonus Episode #2: Felicia Low-Jimenez on Co-Writing Sherlock Sam
Summary Keywords
comics, books, reading, comic, story, kids, illustrations, Singapore, writing, sherlock, publishing, characters, publish, content, creators, print, bit, Sentosa, question, illustrators
00:04 Host, Loh Chin Ee
You are likely to have heard about Sherlock Holmes, a fictional private detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Dolye in the late-1800s. You may have watched the 2009 movie directed by Guy Ritchie, starring Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock and Jude Law as his able assistant, Watson. Or you may have drooled over Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock in the TV series that aired from 2010 to 2017. If that describes you, you are likely to be above the age of 20. Now, if you’re between the ages of 8 to 16 and live in Singapore you’re more likely to know Sherlock Sam, Singapore’s greatest kid detective. He’s only 10 but together with his Supper Club, he is often asked to solve mysteries in Singapore and around the world.
00:59 Host, Loh Chin Ee
I’m Loh Chin Ee. Welcome to the How We Read podcast. In this bonus episode, I interview Felicia Jimenez-Low, one half of the fantastic duo that write The Adventures of Sherlock Sam. Together with Adan Jimenez, husband, fellow comic reader and co-creator, Felicia has authored 16 books about Sherlock Tan Cher Lock, a.k.a Sherlock Sam.
01:24 Felicia Low-Jimenez
Hi, everyone. My name is Felicia Low. I am the co-writer of the Sherlock Sam series of mystery novels for kids, and I'm also the publisher at Difference Engine, a local independent comics publisher. The books that are my favorite change as I grow up, so to speak. When I was a kid, I loved reading, like, mystery novels like Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Famous Five, Secret Seven. Also like fantasy, stuff like The Magical Faraway Tree. Right now, I think I gravitate a lot towards, like, science fiction and fantasy. I think because it kind of helps me make sense of the very strange world that we're living in right now. It's hard to pick a favorite book, but favorite writers are like Ken Liu, N. K. Jemisin, comic writer Jonathan Hickman and maybe F.C. Yee?
02:12 Host, Loh Chin Ee
How did Felicia start writing children’s books?
02:15 Felicia Low-Jimenez
Writing for children was kind of an accident. I've always written stories ever since I was a kid in primary school and secondary school, and later on I wrote a lot of fanfiction. I started writing for kids because at that time I was working for our publisher Epigram Books in marketing and rights, and they had kind of like an open call. And they invited writers to pitch for a story about a chubby boy detective running around Singapore solving mysteries. And my husband, who had written books before, decided that, you know, maybe it would be a good idea for both of us to pitch together because initially, maybe he was intending to pitch by himself. That's kind of how I started writing for kids. It wasn't something that I planned for when I was planning, like, my writing career.
02:59 Host, Loh Chin Ee
The first Sherlock Sam book titled Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong was published in 2012. Felicia describes how she and the team at Epigram Books came up with the idea of a pudgy boy detective solving mysteries in Singapore.
03:15 Felicia Low-Jimenez
The editor at that time, I think it was just one of many ideas that she came up with, and initially, right, our Sherlock Sam was supposed to be a story about Sherlock Sam and his sister, Wendy. But when Adan and I came on board, we kind of changed it about, so instead of just Sherlock and his sister, we created Watson the robot, and we made it more of like a Scooby-Doo and Famous Five adventure. So it's more team effort, versus like the initial idea that Epigram had to have it as, like, a more traditional Sherlock and Watson kind of storyline.
03:48 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Being able to step into the shoes of children and to see the world from their perspectives is really important when it comes to writing stories for children.
04:00 Felicia Low-Jimenez
We we don't write stories with, like, a moral in mind or a need to educate in some ways. I think in some ways, Adan and I are still very kiddish with our likes and our dislikes, and our hobbies and stuff like that. A lot of times, the storyline in Sherlock Sam is very random and it's very surprising for kids. The idea of mysteries is also very appealing to kids. They try and solve the mystery alongside Sherlock Sam, Watson and the rest of the Supper Club, which is something that we've heard from kids is very fun for them. Now the challenge for us is to actually stump kids when we are writing, and they're getting a lot smarter. And we're running out of storylines already. Kids don’t articulate it this way, right? They don't really say, like, “oh, I can see myself in the stories.” But then when we listen to them, they'll say things like, “oh, I'm just like Sherlock Sam”, or “Jimmy is just like me”, or “I want to be as cool as Wendy and Eliza.” And it kind of makes me in particular feel really good because when I was growing up, I never had those kinds of local titles and local characters that I could identify with.
05:01 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Sherlock Sam and his Supper Club have explored various parts of Singapore, from Fort Canning to Pulau Ubin. They have even ventured overseas to nearby Penang, Korea and Tokyo, and as far New York. Felicia shares about how they generate ideas for each new book.
05:19 Felicia Low-Jimenez
Very, very randomly. Right now, we have a pretty good rhythm. We know when we're supposed to start writing, we know when we're supposed to brainstorm, so we can kind of sit down and plan for it. But at the same time, like throughout the year, right, like, we'll learn about random things. Like for example, we'll have a joke that we suddenly want to tell, and then we'll figure out a way to craft an entire story around that one joke. And usually the joke is not very funny, according to our editor. *laughs* But yeah, we brainstorm usually by going out, looking at new places around Singapore, listening to kids that we talk to when we still could do workshops and stuff like that. Going out and doing research was very important and that was kind of, like, a lot more difficult this year.
06:05 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Chin Ee: Writing is hard physical work. Felica and Adan get into scraps when they are exploring, just as the children in their books do.
06:13 Felicia Low-Jimenez
A lot of times when we write, what the kids experience in the story is also what we experienced when we were doing research. When we were writing Sentosa, the book that is set in Sentosa, we went out to Sentosa in February or March, just before everything started to shut down. We didn't manage to go out to the different islands like St. John's Island, Kusu Island, and that was actually an integral part of the story, so we actually had to make up quite a fair bit of stuff in this particular book. But in previous books, right, like if you see the kids running around in Pulau Ubin or at MacRitchie, it’s because Adan and I ran around in Pulau Ubin and at MacRitchie, and we fell down and we got lost. And those are the experiences that the kids will have in the story too.
06:56 Host, Loh Chin Ee
As with many children’s books, the illustrations do as much work as the words to draw the reader into the story. We do judge a book by its cover, and children often recognize the iconic illustrations of Sherlock Sam.
07:09 Felicia Low-Jimenez
We work with a really amazing Illustrator, Andrew Tan, or his nickname is Drewscape. Epigram, our publisher, decided that they wanted it to be a prose novel but with some spot illustrations in the story. They were the ones that selected Andrew. Adan and I were really happy because we knew Drew from even before that and we knew, like, he was very artistic, and he brought a lot of dedication to the work. Because Drew is also very familiar with the comics medium, he understood that we wanted the illustrations in the story not just to replicate scenes in the story, but to kind of be like a little extension of the scene of the story. So sometimes the illustration in Sherlock Sam, you might find Jimmy doing something strange in a particular scene that we don't mention in the story. It's just a little nugget for kids to look at and enjoy. Other times, we're a little bit more deliberate. Like one time we hid one of the characters, Officer Siva, in multiple scenes in the book, and then we tried to get kids to look for Officer Siva. Andrew did a really good job. Sometimes all you see is like the edge of his shoe. Even though it's like three or four years later, we still get kids emailing us, asking us if they managed to find all the right instances of Officer Siva in that particular book. Illustrations, I think, are a really important part of children's books because it allows kids to visualize the characters and, in some ways, to literally see themselves as the characters.
08:33 Host, Loh Chin Ee
What do children tell Felicia about what they like about Sherlock Sam?
08:38 Felicia Low-Jimenez
A lot of what we hear from kids is that it's really fun to read. They enjoy solving the mysteries along with Sherlock Sam, Watson. They really like the illustrations as well. A lot of times kids identify with the way Sherlock looks or with the way the rest of the characters, like, act and behave as well. They really like it when Jimmy, one of the characters, falls down a lot and never ever gets hurt. They just find it, like, hilarious. They enjoy just being able to read a Sherlock Sam book and kind of lose themselves in the story, and not have to worry about whether or not, you know, they're learning anything specific from it. What we hope is that they do learn things that is very random, and it kind of like compels them to go out and read more and, like, find out more about like weird signing stuff or weird movie stuff and things like that.
09:24 Host, Loh Chin Ee
In the 1980s, there was The Bookworm Club, a book series about a group of Singaporean schoolchildren with memorable names like Smarty, Sam Seng and Mimi. It was highly popular with Singapore children, who had few books with local characters they could identify with. The publishing scene for this age group is much more vibrant today. Other than Sherlock Sam, there’s Danger Dan by Mother-daughter duo Lesley-Anne and Monica Lim, Amos Lee by Adeline Foo, and Sengkang Snoopers by Peter Tan. Having series books with characters and places they can identify with are a real draw for children. It’s also a way for readers from other parts of the world to learn about Singapore. Beyond Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, the Secret Seven and Famous Five, I’m glad to say that Singaporean children can boast of their very own made-in-Singapore The Adventures of Sherlock Sam.
10:25 Host, Loh Chin Ee
Thank you for listening to the How We Read podcast bonus episode. Swipe on the cover art to see show notes with links and references. We’re available on all major podcast apps. Please subscribe to be notified of new episodes. For more information, please visit lohchinee.com.