Writing for Children

I foolishly forgot to take a notebook and pen along to the ‘Writing for Children’ session I went to this morning at the local library. It was fun and interesting, and triggered a bunch of interesting thoughts and reflections for me. It was weird that I think there were only two or maybe three males in attendance. So I guess there aren’t as many men in Kapiti interested in writing for children or else they were all at home looking after the kids like Matt was :-) Random points I liked (alas horrendously misquoted and paraphrased): - It is increasingly difficult to distinguish between children/young adults/adults books. Lots of books blur the boundaries and good books appeal to everyone. However, one great observation that struck a chord with me was that there tends to be a difference in perspective. Adult books have a broad perspective and tend to examine wider, complex sociological issues as well as the personal. Young Adult books are more aimed at teens and have a narrower, more inward focus – emphasis on self-discovery, growing up and learning who you are and your place in the world. Children’s books have a broad focus – looking at the adult world through kids' eyes. Common feature is to show both that children have insight that adults sometimes lack (eg. Emperor’s New Clothes) but also can lack the understanding or ability to fully process everything. - Writing about growing up is also about the loss of childhood or the Fall from childhood. - Don’t try to write for a specific gender, age group etc. Write for a reader. - Notion of children’s books is a relatively recent invention – references to writers reading their parents books as soon as they were able. Uncensored reading. Children pick up what they know and the rest happily goes over their heads. - Interesting debate about whether books should be marketed at boys and girls. Don’t label books/readers. I liked the reference to the blokey farmer boy who confessed to reading (addictively) his mum’s Jodi Piccoult books. - Depressing realities of tiny royalty cheques. - Teen writing – not writing about issues, writing about dilemmas. - Don’t underestimate young readers – there are patient readers, there are readers who like introspection and deeper issues. - There will always be criticism and sometimes controversy you don’t see. Take bricks with bouquets. - There were questions about whether kids preferred realism or fantasy. There was a lot of discussion but ultimately the answer seemed to be largely ‘both’, and ‘depends on the reader’. It was also nice to hear that even experienced and successful writers were saying it takes a lot of time, hard work and commitment to write a novel. It makes me feel better when published authors say they have hard times too. Less encouraging – tales of two writers who got their first ever submissions published. I am also envious of the days when editors brought in starting out writers and gave them a one-on-one teaching/critiquing session about their writing. Er, maybe Jenni will mention anything cool I've left out. She, like a proper writer, had a notebook and pen. :-)