Young Scribblers -- Heroines who write by Sheena Wilkinson

Recently I read a review of a novel where the reviewer said she didn’t like books about writers because she always assumed they were autobiographical. This piqued my interest, partly because I’m almost at the end of a first draft where the main character is not only a writer, but a middle-aged writer suffering some of the vicissitudes in her career that I’ve been through myself, but mainly because I have always liked reading about writers. 

As a bookish child I didn’t often see myself in books – fictional characters were too busy solving mysteries, galloping their ponies, falling into adventure or playing tricks on Mam’zelle to bother much with sitting quietly with a book, my own favourite pastime. So when I did encounter heroines who liked not only to read but also to write, they had a special resonance for me. And now that I think about it, it makes sense that writers might identify with, and therefore write, characters who also wrote. 

So before this all gets a bit meta, here are some of my favourite young fictional writers.

Elizabeth Farrell, in House-at-the-Corner by Enid Blyton. Lizzie is plain and bespectacled, overshadowed by more obviously attractive siblings. But she has a talent for telling stories, and is delighted when she is published in a local newspaper -- though sorry that they don't print her name. Blyton  explores the sensitive Lizzie's pride as well disappointments and rejections, and of course, when the family fortunes falter, it is Lizzie's piggy bank, full of her writerly earnings, which help to make things right.

Of course one must include Jo March! Like Lizzie, Jo has grand ambitions, but like Lizzie (and also her creator, Louisa May Alcott) she has to content herself with writing what will sell, even if her sensationalist stories are disparaged by her friend and mentor, and eventual lover, Professor Bhaer.  I was never a fan of the gothic or sensationalist myself, much preferring cosier stories (like Little Women) so I don't know that I would have been a fan of Jo's stories, but Jo herself, inky-fingered and apt to lose herself in her stories, was a definite kindred spirit. As for Amy burning her manuscript -- I couldn't have forgiven that! 

And talking of kindred spirits, we must have Anne Shirley! Though a lot of Anne's storytelling happens inside her head, we do see her show promise as a writer. The most memorable scene is when she wins first prize in a short story competition -- much to her shock, since she doesn't remember entering it. But bosom friend Diana, not herself gifted with much imagination, has entered on her behalf, adding the important detail that the heroine's cake was so successful because she used Rollings Reliable Baking Powder -- Anne feels she will disgraced for life, but it's not the last time someone has had to compromise the purity of their artistic vision.

Montgomery's Emily of New Moon is the real writer in her oeuvre. I discovered Emily as an adult but I'd have loved her as a child reader, because she takes her writing so seriously.  

As does Harriet the Spy, in Louise Fitzhugh's book of that name.  On the very first page Harriet is frustrated with her friend Sport because he doesn't have 'get' how to play her imaginary game which involves making up a fictional town. I LOVED Harriet. I identified with her frustration -- I could never get other kids to join in with my made-up games and when they did they DIDN'T DO IT THE WAY I WANTED. I wasn't so sure about walking round the neighbourhood spying on people but I certainly understood her need to have her notebook with her at all times. Even today, on the rare occasions when I decide to have a break from writing, I usually end up buying a new notebook and I think of Harriet, the spy unmasked, her notebook confiscated, buying a new one on the way to school.

And there are others. There is Arthur Ransome's Dorothea, with her stories of the mysterious outlaw; Darrell Rivers, who writes a pantomime in In the Fifth at Malory Towers and is thrilled at its success; Jo Bettany who not only writes a school story but has it successfully published by the end of the term (like Françoise Sagan and S. E. Hinton she is still in her teens), the precursor to a long career as a novelist (as well as having eleven children). 

But perhaps my favourite young writer is one you may not know by name, but she deserves to be better known. Alison, the heroine of Joanna Cannan's I Wrote a Pony Book. Alison is fattish  and bookish and hates games. When her horrid English teacher goads her into her writing a book herself 'since you know so much about it', her friends Harry and Hop try to get in on the action. They are fundamentally unsuited to collaborating and Harry and Hop are argumentative and have the imaginations of cheeses, so it doesn't amount to anything (apart from one of the funniest scenes in children's literature). Undeterred, Alison, believing the edict to 'write what you know' writes a pony book, The Price of a Pony which is eventually published. You might call it fanciful but of course Joanna Cannan was the mother of the Pullein-Thompson sisters, who were also published in their teens, and it's also one of the funniest books I have ever read. 

As a young writer myself I loved meeting these scribbling heroines, and now that I call them to mind, there are more of them than I thought. So I must disagree with that reviewer who doesn't like books about writers. I love them!