K.M. Peyton, Linda Newbery, Yvonne Coppard and Nikki Gamble launching WCF at Just Imagine Bookshop in Chelmsford |
Writing Children's Fiction has a
three part structure. Part one takes a broad-ish sweep. It's entitled Reflections on writing children's fiction and allows the joint
authors to ponder questions such inclusiveness and breakthrough books as well as offering a clear explanation of the
available fiction-publishing categories – including Hi-Lo fiction and packaged stories. Linda Newbery recalls a conference
when she found herself having tea with three “Lucy Daniels” -
writers of the Animal's Ark series for the packager Working Partners.
Her description of life for an author commissioned by a packaging
company reminded me of the development of series in the pulp and
magazine arenas – Sexton Blakes, for instance or the D.C Thomson fiction-franchising offices (which I studied in Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory).
It's a reversal of the usual creative relationship between writer and
editor -- with the customer as final arbiter. Plots and characters are
brainstormed in-house but I can't help assuming that if sales figures
for any individual Animal Ark title are significantly below the norm
that the particular writer will be unlikely to be hired again.
This is writing as a job and one of the
most attractive aspects of Writing Children' Fiction is the
balance struck between its inclusive approach to the un-published
writer – “If you think of yourself as a writer and you do write,
then you're a writer” – and its lack of sympathy with any creative
preciousness. “It's helpful to think of writing as a job of work,
and to know that if you simply get on with it you'll finish it.”
This comes from the third Workshop section under the heading
“Fostering a Professional Approach.” There are hints, tips and exercises together with sensible advice about the desirability
of an agent and the possible pitfalls of self-epublishing. Caution is
possibly taken a little too far and there's quite an odd passage
which presents the Kindle and the ereader as the enemy of libraries,
when personally I would point the finger of blame at local authority
(and central government) cutbacks. Generally, however, Writing
Children's Fiction avoids the temptation to pit any one section
of the children's fiction community against another.
The middle Tips and Tales section of comment by
established, commercially published writers is varied and generally
encouraging. Michael Morpurgo's top tips include practical
suggestions such as making yourself comfortable while writing. “Do
what I do, what Robert Louis Stevenson did, write on your bed,
pillows piled up behind you, relaxed, at ease with yourself. Then you
can go to sleep easily too – a very useful writing technique, I
find.” Yes! But it's Frank Cotterell-Boyce who offers the truest
encouragement. “You've resigned yourself to the idea that this one
didn't quite come off (but at least you tried). Just then I promise
you, often, and completely out of the blue a streak of lightening
will hit you […] and illuminate some new pathway, some hidden
secret spring inside your story. The water you've hauled up from that
well will turn to wine. And you'll drink that wine and feel like
singing.”
Oh, walk with me, FCB!
Julia Jones
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