Thanks to Joy Lawn for the opportunity to write a guest post about Like a Gannet for her blog Paperbark Words.
In a previous interview, someone had asked me about my favourite part of Like a Gannet. On reflection, I realised it was the extended gannet metaphor that I loved most and had most enjoyed writing. So when Joy asked me to do a guest post I decided to explore this extended metaphor a bit more.
The gannet is such an important part of the story, representing how we can feel awkward or out of place in some areas of life, but find our flow and confidence in others. I love how the gannet’s transformation — clumsy on land but magnificent out at sea — mirrors Francie’s journey, and I love being able to share more about how this idea took shape. I have included a small excerpt from the blog here as well as a link to the full post down below.
I wanted to show this unbridled joy and exuberance in Francie, the main character, when she was doing what she loves – swimming at her local pool. Comparing her to different water birds, like a duck, swan and cormorant, was a way to show Francie’s wonderful imagination and just how confident she was feeling in the water.
So confident, that when she sees her cousins diving like gannets off the high diving board, she wants to do it too.
So, the idea of being like a gannet really came from Francie and I thought it could be an effective literary device to create an extended metaphor throughout the whole story. It could help create this idea of Francie wanting to be like a gannet for young readers, while also helping to create a point of difference for this first experience story.
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When my publisher wanted an extra beat in the story I used this as an opportunity to strengthen the metaphor even more. I had Francie push ‘back through the squawking, jostling flock’ which was a great way to, not only show the crowd of children and how they were behaving, but also how Francie was feeling at this moment. And to learn a bit about gannet behaviour in the gannetry at the same time!
Then the line ‘Do gannets blush?’ again shows the reader how Francie is feeling. But I really love this line because the gannet has a rosy buff-yellow coloured head – almost like a blush.
The final line in the extended metaphor comes right at the end. To show Francie’s joy, I had written ‘Francie hooted.’ The sentiment was perfect, but it felt too owl-like. So I researched gannet calls, looking for something that was a better fit, and I found out that one of the noises a gannet makes is urrah. I was thrilled because urrah is so much like ‘hurrah’ and it expresses exactly how Francie is feeling at that moment! So no, it’s definitely not a typo. It’s the last hurrah of the extended metaphor in Like a Gannet!