I was invited to take part in Loughborough University’s 2nd Literary Salon by Kerry Featherstone, lecturer in English. Industry professionals were invited: Walker Books and the literary agents from DKW, and another author – Maxine Linnell. The subject of the Salon was: Writing YA Fiction. We were each invited to speak, followed by a Q and A session, and, at the end of the evening, there was a Round Table. The audience comprised students, lecturers, authors and anyone in the local area interested in Teen/YA fiction. There was a great turn out and an interested and involved audience, with lots of discussions.
My talk focussed on the realities, good and bad, of being a children’s writer in the modern world, what an average advance might be, royalties, the changes in the publishing industry, and my experiences of being a teen/YA writer. I tried to give a balanced view on how difficult it is to make a living from writing, how a children’s writer today has to wear very many hats, know the industry and know how it works, while not neglecting the most important aspect of being an author: writing a book. I was a little surprised by how many students of creative writing were unaware of the realities of being a children’s writer.
I hope I didn’t put them off wanting to be writers!
The round table discussions focussed on various issues, including age banding in children’s books, the changing reading habits of children and teenagers, and diversity in children’s books. Bali Rai joined the round table and talked about how he and Malorie Blackman have been discussing the lack of diversity in children’s literature for many years, and how little has changed in that time. I’ve blogged about diversity in Teen/YA lit here on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure here and on The Edge Blog here, and for Teen Librarian Monthly here. Reading David Thorpe’s interesting post on yesterday’s blog, made me wonder about the diversity in the ethnicity of the children who had entered the 500 word story writing competition where 118,632 entries were received.
The Literary Salon was a very good event for students who were interested in pursuing a career in writing. They got to meet a publisher, agents and writers, and to put questions to them. It was the kind of event I would have loved to have gone to when I first started writing and knew so little about the publishing world.
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If you’d asked me what I’d expect to be working on five years ago, I definitely wouldn’t have said ‘I’ll be retelling Tess of the d’Urbervilles for children.’ I might have shuddered at the very idea of compressing a book I loved so much into 6,500 words. I’d have thought of Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, and worse, Bowdler!
But I’m in good company. Michael Rosen retold Romeo and Juliet, and recently Philip Pullman published his version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I knew the publishers of the Real Reads series from another connection, and sitting in their garden one day I gulped and said ‘I’d like to do one of those’ - and then wondered what I’d let myself in for.
When I looked at the books I began to see the point, and the skilful way these little books lead readers from the shallows into deeper, perhaps more satisfying waters. Gill Tavner, who tackled Dickens, Jane Austen and more greats for Real Reads, puts it this way:
‘I have long thought that there must be a way of making the qualities of ‘classics’ accessible to most readers, but I was unconvinced that abridging was the answer. As a mother of two young children, I have endured the pain of reading abridged fairy tales and Disney films. These often machine-gun the reader with a list of events. Rarely do they offer the reader an opportunity to develop interest in or appreciation of varied vocabulary, style or themes. Do abridged versions need to be like this? Surely there is a way to make an abridged version an enjoyable and enriching rather than simply informative reading experience? Surely this is an important distinction if we aim to nurture keen, confident readers?’
The format for Real Reads includes a list of the main characters, questions to follow up the story, a list of follow-up books, films and websites, the historical context of the book and some thoughts about what readers might find if they braved the whole thing. There are also some lovely illustrations. The books were originally intended for children aged about 8-11, but they sell well to readers of English as a Second Language, and to adults who want a way into difficult books - I’ve just ordered a copy of the Ramayana, for example, as I just can’t get into reading the whole thing.
I was lucky - I got to choose my writer and which books I’d like to do. Tess of the d’Urbervilles was the first, and perhaps the easiest. I had to retell the story in a way which makes it come alive, and with something of Hardy’s style. My usual writing voice is about as far away from Hardy’s as you could get, so it was quite a challenge.
But I learned a lot from the process. First, I learned to step a long way back from the story, not to immerse myself in it. What were the key themes, the journeys of the characters? What was essential? What made it live? Those are important questions to ask of any book.
Then I realised that I couldn’t go through chapter by chapter summing them up as I went. That would end up as a list of events, not a story. I had to put the book aside and tell Tess’s story from her humble beginnings to her tragic arrest for murder. And I had to think of Hardy’s feelings about Tess. He used a sub-title for the book - ‘A Pure Woman’. He clearly didn’t think Tess is to blame for what happens to her, but blamed a society with double standards. Angel Clare, who becomes Tess’s husband, has had an affair, but he leaves Tess when she admits to the same.
There were some tricky issues too - like the scene where Alec d’Urberville rapes Tess in the forest. How could I write that essential scene for a children’s book? Hardy isn’t explicit, but he’s clear enough. I watched all the films and TV series for some help - but the directors fudged the issue, or came down on one side or the other. Here’s how I did it:
'Alec got lost in the wood. Tess was exhausted, and he helped her to lie down on the ground and covered her with his coat, while he went off to find his bearings.
When he came back, she was asleep. Alec could just make out her face in the dark. He knelt beside her, his cheek next to hers. He could still see a tear on her face.
As her people would say, it was to be. This was the last they would see of the Tess who left home to try her fortune.
A chasm was to divide her from that former self.'
The last sentence is direct from Hardy’s book. The scene’s very close to his own.
The Mayor of Casterbridge was the most difficult of the Hardy novels to retell - it’s so rich in plot, so much happens, that I felt I had to butcher some of the story to get it into the word count. But I learned so much about editing, about looking at a book from a long way back, and from very close up, from the work I did on Hardy’s books. I still love the originals. But I’m quite proud of what I’ve done with them.
‘What are your books about?’ That’s a question I often get asked when I say I’m a novelist writing for, or about, young adults. My first book, Vintage, is easy to describe. Vintage is about a 17 year old girl living in 2010 who swaps places with a seventeen year old living in 1962. That seems to satisfy, and interest people, including adults who were around in 1962!
The second book, Closer, is harder to describe. In the blurb on the back we chose to focus on Mel, the main character - on who she is, her gritty and quirky take on the world, and on her finding the courage to speak out. But I was a bit naive if I thought it would stop there. As soon as the book came out, the reviews on Amazon and in magazines spelt out the story - Closer is about a girl whose stepfather gets too close. It involves sexual abuse.
Some parents have said that they don’t think their children are ready to read it, and I can understand that. Some young people have said they don’t want to read about incest or abuse (yukk!, as one graphically put it). But the feedback I’ve had from those who read it is that they find Closer inspiring, compelling and not remotely explicit. And some of the best feedback has been from teachers and social workers who have said that it’s realistic - better than reading a case study, one said. I have to admit I'm really proud of that.
There’s something about ‘issue’ books which puts me off too. If I feel I’m being asked to think in a particular way, if I feel lectured or taught, it’s a huge turnoff. I want to be told a story. I want to find a way of getting inside someone else’s world and knowing something I’d never otherwise have known. I want to be gripped, to have to read on, and to be satisfied by the ending even if it doesn’t give me all the answers. I want to be interested in the characters and where they’re going. I want to make my own mind up.
I've learned so much from reading novels about difficult times in their characters' lives. Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar comes to mind, and Roddy Doyle's The Woman who walked into Doors. Most recently, Patrick Ness wrote so movingly about grief in A Monster Calls. When something new comes up in my life, whether it's working out how to knit socks or how to find a way through grief, I'll reach for a book, or the internet, or a friend - or all three.
It’s a conundrum, how to pose questions about an issue without giving easy answers - and then how to describe the book without giving away the story. I wrote Closer partly because I’d read the YA novels I could find at that time about sexual abuse, and the outcome in the stories was often disastrous. I knew from my work as a psychotherapist that this wasn't always the case, or it didn't have to be.
I imagined a reader, possibly young, who read these books and had gone through something like Mel’s experience - or had a friend going through it. I wanted her, or him, to have a story where there are no monsters, and where there’s a way through. I feel passionately about that. And when sexual abuse has been so much around in the news in the last few months, we need ways of making sense of it, and stories about coming through.
So that's my first blog for ABBA - phew!
But I still don’t know how to say what Closer is about...
Bloomsbury has published my story about Facebook in their series Wired Up for reluctant readers. It's called Breaking the Rules.
I've retold three Thomas Hardy novels for Real Reads - The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. They're read by 9-13s, and by adults learning English as a foreign language.
By Maxine Linnell
Guest Blogger
What happens when life crashes in the path of what we think we know about ourselves – and about life itself? What happens to the writing - can it go on, and how will it change?
That’s what has happened to me – and what I’m waiting to find out.
I was a late developer as a writer, finding so many things got in the way. I started to write seriously five years ago,
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Hi - enjoyed your post - are you Sue Clarke's friend Maxine? I'm Celia who lives down the road from her - we seem to have both turned to children's writing at the same time, roughly, so I've heard about you from her (if you're the right one!)
Greetings!
Celia
Hi Celia
Yes, of course, such coincidences!
Give her a wave and a hug from me.
Maxine.