There is, in fact, no master plan, but this is what is happening: I'm growing.
No, I'm not referring to the physiological impact of the morning oatmeal cookie (butterscotch!). I'm referring to my spheres of interest, the books I'm reading, the ways I'm paying attention to the news, the bravado I displayed when I buckled down to learn how to throw a clay pot on a wheel (to learn, not to master; hardly master), the expanding repertoire in the kitchen. Hisham Matar's
The Return has taught me some of the history, geography, and politics of Libya (and disappeared dissidents). Rebecca Mead has taught me
Middlemarch and George Eliot. Katie Roiphe has taught me John Updike, Maurice Sendak, Dylan Thomas, and James Salter (among others). Scott Anderson, with his glorious
New York Times Magazine essay, has taught me the antecedents of contemporary Middle East. Viet Thanh Nguyen is teaching me, with his Pulitzer winning
The Sympathizer, the Vietnamese experience of war.
The world is complex. The news requires perspective. Life is once. I'm going deeper.
What is it that distinguishes a book written for adults where children are the main characters and one written for children, where children are the main characters?
When I am writing for children or teenagers at the back of my mind is always this question of the difference between the two.
Here are the opening sentences of
In The Country of Men by Hisham Matar, which was shortlisted for the Man-Booker Prize and the Guardian First Book Award. The narrator is recalling a time when he was nine years old:
"I recall now that last summer before I was sent away. It was 1979 and the sun was everywhere. Tripoli lay brilliant and still beneath it. Every person, animal and and went in desperate search for shade, those occasional grey patches of mercy carved into the white of everything."
The novel describes the gradual discovery by the child of his father's involvement in anti-revolutionary activity and what this means, and his desperate love for his mother.
Here are the opening sentences of
The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks, which controversially won the Carnegie Medal in 2014:
"10.00 a.m."This is what I know. I'm in a low-ceilnged rectangular building made entirely of whitewashed concrete. It's about twelve metres wide and eighteen metres long. A corridor runs down the middle of the building, with a smaller corridor leading off to a lift shaft just over halfway down. There are six little rooms along the main corridor, three on either side."
Much has been written about Brooks' book and whether it is suitable for children, so I'm not going to stray into that territory. You might consider that I have chosen a non-typical example, but many children's books deal with uncomfortable themes and issues.
Both of these openings are physical descriptions which imply a sense of claustrophobia. They perfectly set the scene for what is to follow, which only gets worse.
The two books have several more things in common:
- there is no happy ending in either of them;
- very unpleasant things happen along the way;
- the main character is not conventionally likeable.
You can see other parallels from these extracts: the language in both is direct, the sentences straightforward. These stylistic points are undoubtedly a requirement for writing for children. But one can equally find instances of quite 'literary' writing in books for children, for example in the earlier novels of, say, Philip Pullman, such as
A Ruby in the Smoke.
The Bunker Diary deals with important psychological and philosophical themes, that are uncomfortable to contemplate. So does Matar's book.
One aspect which perhaps distinguishes
In The Country of Men (and other novels for adults) from most novels written for children is the retrospective angle: the narrator is now about 25 years old, and the narrative eventually catches up with him. This is less common in writing for children.
Another aspect that might signify a difference is non-linear storytelling, in which the narrative darts around in time. This is, again, less common in writing for children (however I did use this technique in my new novel Stormteller and, whilst I can't think of one at the moment, I'm sure I've read other children's books which do this).
The other observations to make about the difference between them are the setting (Gaddafi's Libya compared to contemporary London) and the degree of sophistication in the form of prior knowledge or experience that is assumed in the writing of Matar's book.
So to answer my original question, all other thngs being equal, the main aspect I am monitoring as I write for children rather than for adults is constantly gauging that level so it is pitched correctly.
I'd be very interested to know what you think about this topic?
David Thorpe is the author of Stormteller and Hybrids.
A guest blog from Olivia Scott-Berry from Penguin's teen site, Spinebreakers
I’ve never wanted to hate but couldn’t help loving so many people all at the same time.
Every now and then an event comes along and you think, you know what? My biology homework can wait, Masterchef can be recorded, dinner is reheatable- It’s a Wednesday night, but I’m going out! (It’s a phenomenon I like to call ‘the dilemma of the sixth-former’)
The Penguin General Bloggers' event then, was something pretty special. Imagine this: you receive an email telling you that seven of the most brilliant authors are going to be giving readings, and that you will get to talk to them afterwards and there are going to be goody bags. Can you honestly tell me that you would have said no, I have to finish this sheet on quadrat sampling?
Arriving at the event, I knew that I had made the right choice between my education and my passion for books, because not only were the free books stacked high, but the room was packed with people each with their own unique take on the publishing world- editors, bloggers, authors- people who I was really excited to talk to and hear their experiences and get some advice.
It was probably one of the most daunting things I’ve ever done as a Spinebreakers - by definition we are readers, which is an activity that calls for quiet and aloneness and the kind of imagination that thrives in that environment more than any other- but it was gratifying to see that the authors were just as true to their sixteen-year-old bookworm selves as I was and acknowledged the paradox of the modern author’s duties. (Not that any of that showed in their amazing readings!)
Equally gratifying was the real interest people took in Spinebreakers and what we do, and I only hope that I represented us well to this group of amazing people, who, after all, were not just composed of authors, but of bloggers too. It was incredibly humbling but also inspiring to see all these people who do what we do at Spinebreakers but to a whole other level, and who do it so well (as you can probably tell from the fact that I’ve written up my report the very next morning without going on iplayer once!)
If you’re anything like me, you probably want to hear all about the books, but I thinkthat whatI took away from last night was the knowledge that I can allow myself to meet the authors- it is not a sacrilege and it could in fact enrich the whole experience (even now I am itching to reread Anatomy of a Disappearance after hearing it in Hisham Matar’s own voice). So I’m going to compromise and tell you a little bit about the books (which you must read, all of them!), and a little bit about the authors:
Wild Abandon, Joe Dunthorne
If you ever wanted to know what it’s like to grow up in a modern commune, it sounds like (I haven’t read it yet- even the Penguin editors are waiting anxiously for their proofs to arrive) Wild Abandon will be the perfect book for you, and if you didn’t- you will now just to hear Joe Dunthorne’s comic take on it. The man himself? Two words: Funny. Shorts. (Get yourself down to one of his poetry readings now).
Landfall, Helen Gordon<
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