Book Pen Pals (Part 2) by Sophia Bennett

They've been at it again.

Year 8. Writing. Two schools of them now. Lots more questions to answer.

I’m an Author Pen Pal. If you want to see how it all started, check out my December post here.

These are some of the questions Year 8s ask writers if they get half a chance. And some of my answers.

      How long have you been writing for? 

There are lots of answers to that question. I’ve been writing since I was six or seven, when I wrote my first book, ‘Harry the Horse’. But a lot of that was school writing and business writing. I’ve been writing books for about twenty years, but half of that time I wasn’t published. I’ve been writing books and getting paid for it for ten years, almost exactly.

      Did you like English in your childhood? 

You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I loved English if it involved reading or creative writing, but didn’t enjoy it at all if we were required to criticise a book. I was never very good at it. It took many years for me to realise there’s no perfect ‘answer’ to what a book is about. You just have to learn a particular style of criticism and apply it. My favourite way to criticise books is just to read them and chat about them with friends. I still think it’s the best way to do it, but you can’t be examined very easily that way. 

When it comes to creative writing, I like it when you’re given an idea and you can just do whatever you feel like. However, I learned a lot from all the grammar and punctuation and style lessons I had. They taught me how to appreciate good writing – why it was good. I'm still grateful for that.

      What are you reading at the moment?

A book by a writer who recently died called William Goldman. It’s called ‘Adventures in the Screen Trade’ and it’s all about his life as a screenwriter and how, in Hollywood ‘nobody knows anything’. It’s full of anecdotes about famous actors and films and I’m really enjoying it.

     What is it that made you become a writer? Was it a certain book/author? 

I think what made me want to be a writer was moving to Hong Kong (on the other side of the world) when I was seven, and leaving all my schoolfriends behind. I was very lonely for a while and read a lot of books to keep myself occupied. I loved those books – by writers like E Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Joan Aiken and Noel Streatfeild – very much and wanted to do it too. 

But I didn’t have the courage to try until another book came out many many years later. That book was ‘Harry Potter’, and once I’d read it I gave up my job and started writing seriously. I didn’t get published for another 10 years, but that’s when I properly started.

     How did you get into writing? 

By doing it. Literally just that. I didn’t know anyone who was an author, or worked in publishing. I didn’t know how you were supposed to start, or what was supposed to be in a story. But I read a lot and I had all these ideas and I just practised and practised until I came up with something I thought was good. And it got rejected. And so did the next one. And so did the next one. And so did the next one. But the one after that got published and so did the next nine. (Malorie Blackman, who wrote ‘Noughts and Crosses’ among many other great books, got rejected over 80 times!)

     How did you know you wanted to be a writer? 

All those story ideas. I had to get them out somehow.

           Would you ever change your job? 

Quite possibly, if it stops paying the bills. Even writers need to eat.

          If you did change it, what would it be? 

In a perfect world, dancer.

In the real world, I’m not sure. Maybe someone who runs a B&B. I love the idea of all those people coming to stay and all the stories you’d find out about them. But that would just make me a writer again … 

1       Did you ever wish you weren’t a writer?

No. It really is the best job in the world. Not the best paid, but the best.

           If you could tell your younger writer self something, what would it be?

Practise copying other writers. Seriously. If you publish something that’s copied it’s called plagiarism. But if you just do it as a writing exercise you learn how good writers put stories, jokes and characters together. Then you can develop your own style. I didn’t really do that as I was growing up, but I think it would have been very useful if I had. 

      Also - it will happen. Incredible as it may seem, if you keep trying hard enough, you'll be a published author. 

          How can someone become a good writer? 

Read. A lot. Copy, a bit. And write as much as you can. By writing a lot of rubbish you learn to write something good one day. Also, find other people who love books and talk about stories with them.

1       Do you have any tips for English?

Short sentences are very useful.
See if you can learn a new word every day.
Read your work out loud before you submit it. It’s the best way of checking for mistakes.