9780415317856_the_routledge_creative_writing_coursebook

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www.ATIBOOK.irChidren's fiction 133writing books exclusively for children, and whose award-winning novel The CuriousIncident of the Dog in the Night-time has been marketed for both adults and a youngteenage readership, does see a difference between children’s books and so-calledcrossover fiction. He uses the distinction between ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ fiction to explainit.Genre fiction says: ‘Forget the gas bill. Forget the office politics. Pretendyou’re a spy. Pretend you’re a courtesan. Pretend you’re the owner of acrumbling gothic mansion on this worryingly foggy promontory.’ Literaryfiction says: ‘Bad luck. You’re stuck with who you are, just as thesepeople are stuck with who they are…’ I don’t mean literary fiction isbetter than genre fiction… nor that the distinction is a rigid one…some ofthe best novels—Jane Eyre, The Woman In White—have a foot in bothcamps…. When I was writing for children, I was writing genre fiction. Itwas like making a good chair However beautiful it looked, it needed fourlegs of the same length, it had to be the right height, and it had to becomfortable…. With The Curious Incident I was trying to do somethingdifferent…the book has a simple language, a carefully shaped plot andinvites you to enter somebody else’s life. And these, I think, are theaspects of the book that appeal to most younger readers.(Haddon, Observer, II April 2004)Although the distinctions are not rigid ones, Mark Haddon does see writing for childrenas a special type of genre. It needed to do certain things writing for adults did not. TheCurious Incident was something different from his previous books. While it invites youto share someone else’s experience (an essential quality in all good fiction writing) andwhile it is written in simple language, he makes no apologies for its adult theme:It isn’t entirely comfortable. It’s about how little separates us from thosewe turn away from in the street. It’s about how badly we communicatewith one another It’s about accepting that every life is narrow and that ouronly escape from this is not to run away (to another country anotherrelationship, a slimmer; more confident self) but to learn to love thepeople we are and the world in which we find ourselves.(Ibid)The truths the story delivers are harsh for adults—generally speaking these are adultsinterested in other relationships, slimmer selves. Christopher, aged fifteen, the maincharacter of the novel, is in a position where adults and their understanding of the worldcould cause him very serious distress. How they see him and how he sees them is goingto be decisive. In Philip Pullman’s stories the same situation applies. Crossover fictionfrequently points to a major crisis in child-adult relationships, which would explain itsincreasing appeal to both types of reader.I shall come back to this point later, but let us start by thinking about what Haddonmeans by ‘making a good chair’. Whether or not it appeals to adults, fiction written forchildren has to work, and its judges, its readers, have to agree; there can be no
www.ATIBOOK.irThe routledge creative writing coursebook 134compromise. So it’s therefore important that we reflect on what it is that goes into themaking of a good story for children, one that stands up to the test of readability.Reading for PleasureIn fiction for children, a character’s grasp of his or her own world in place and time isgoing to be the central issue for every young reader. Is this grasp strong and deliberate orweak? The characters’ experience in a story must be imaginable to those children whoare reading, must be part of a world they can inhabit. But that doesn’t mean it has to be aknown and familiar every-day form of reality. As we shall see, a great many children’sbooks contain references to magic. (As another branch of its enquiry, the present chapterincludes an extended section on that very subject.) But before we reach that point, weneed to consider other basic issues. Writing for children (I mainly limit myself to the tento fifteen age range) requires an understanding of how children read when they read forpleasure, what they look for, what is it they enjoy. As with other types of audience, thecombination of expectation and surprise will serve as one useful measure of thatenjoyment.Writing for Younger ReadersIn much new writing for younger readers we can already see how escape fantasy, theworld of elsewhere, clashes with here and now, the world of the ordinary. Both have theirmarkers (characters, objects, actions, events) as a fiction develops, and one of the signs ofreading pleasure is recognising such narrative markers or counters in a story.Some picture stories for very young children offer vivid examples. In MargaretMahy’s The Lion in the Meadow, a mother is coping with a restless youngster as well as anew baby. This is a very familiar situation for children—as well as for the adultstoryteller-reader. It’s also worth adding at this point that when a story is being read to achild, the adult storytellers own interest is something every writer for children mustcultivate. The adult reading the story aloud needs to be able to feel—and to show—his orher own sense of enjoyment. Children learn the feeling of pleasure by hearing it first inthe reading voice.So there has to be something in it for adults as well, as there is in The Lion in theMeadow. The little boy is telling his Mum that he’s seen a lion in the meadow outside.She’s busy with the baby and tries to distract him. Inside this matchbox, she tells him, is atiny dragon. Take it outside and let it go. As it grows it will frighten the lion away. Hedoes as she says, with the result that the frightened lion runs indoors and hides in thebroom cupboard—a place that reminds us there are even more chores to be done—andstays there, eventually becoming a regular new member of the family. Now domesticated,the lion behaves more like a large, friendly cat. While the fantasy world’s presence isn’tdenied, the pictures nevertheless show a typical cluttered kitchen, a house interior, potsand pans, untidiness.The parent reader will see a child trying to attract attention to himself away from thenew baby, and being successfully distracted. This reader will probably enjoy the storybecause its counters—matchbox, broom cupboard, kitchen—fit his or her understandingof how children need distracting games. The child’s enjoyment, however, will
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www.ATIBOOK.irFirst published 2006
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www.ATIBOOK.irGlossary 190a piece o
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