“Place” in stories: where reality & our characters collide – by Rowena House

Years ago, I was lucky enough to interview David Almond for the SCBWI’s Words & Pictures online magazine, and asked him about the philosophical themes in his books. His answer gave me a great insight into the importance of the concrete realities of place.

He said, “The danger of talking about transcendence or spirituality is that they can’t exist without reality. The important thing about my work is the realism in it … The language that I use is very ordinary. It isn’t abstract. It’s very solid, I think. There are lots of nouns and verbs.  You can’t write abstractions. You have to write reality. You have to write stories about dust and dirt.”

Dust and dirt: the stuff of place.

His words were a great relief to me as place is pretty much where I have to start a story. In the intervening years I’ve built up a body of notes as to why this might be so, the gist of which I’ll share with you here.

•        Realism (even in fantasy) makes characters believable;

•        Realistic characters exist in time and space;

•        Place therefore grounds characters.

•        Also, every scene needs a setting. Physical, sensory descriptions ease us into thinking about the most important story questions: why is my character here (motivation) and what is s/he going to do next (intent)?

Whatever the genre, place is never accidental. It is the unique setting that shapes how our characters experience the events of this story, and where they create its outcomes.

Place also establishes genre. If we’re on a space ship, we’re likely to be in SciFi territory, a battlefield denotes action, a wizard’s castle fantasy etc.

But “place” as a writing tool is far more than a rounded description of the physical setting –the sights, sounds, smells, textures and tastes etc. It includes the fluidity of things, their states of flux in time and space, foreshadowing or echoing the changes and conflicts of the story.

If our word choices create a particular tone and mood, then we’re talking about “voice” as well, which instantly moulds reader expectations. No one who’s read Thomas Hardy’s opening description of Egdon Heath in The Return of the Native could possibly expect a romantic comedy to follow.

When I began writing I allowed place to dictate my stories. Travelling the world as a journalist, then on a gap year, I let places inspire me, and followed ideas wherever they led. I’d love to have the luxury of time (and money!) to travel in this way again, and write “found” stories, but instead, I’ve consciously adopted a character-centred approach to place.

By this I mean that I try my hardest to forget that I’m telling a story. Once I’ve researched a place, I live it through my main character. It exists exclusively as their subjective experience of it. I see it only through their eyes and feels it through their skin.

This approach helps no end when deciding what details a character would notice about this place at this particular point in time. They certainly won’t notice or describe anything familiar, for example.

It also forces me to decide early on how a character’s perceptions are coloured by their state of mind. Are they in some kind of emotion turmoil or struggling with inner conflicts, repressed or acknowledged? Are they grieving or in shock, guilt-ridden or in denial, facing a complex life decision or experiencing a sense of foreboding. How does their physical wellbeing or lack of it impact on the way they interact with this setting at this point in the story?

A cocky young policeman won’t see a dark alleyway in the same way as the wily old criminal he’s chasing, for example, or in the same way as a bond trader with cocaine in his pocket, or the terrified trafficked girl with a gang master hot on her heels and the battery signal on her phone flashing empty.

Whatever the viewpoint character’s state of mind, if they react to a significant setting with apt and original language, the depth and realism of their stories will inevitably be enriched.

A year or so after that interview with David Almond, I discussed using place at the openings of stories with a local adult writing group I occasionally teach, using these four examples:

            Hilary Mantel’s opening to Bring up the Bodies

•        Falcons

•        Wiltshire, September 1535

•        His children are falling from the sky. He watches from horseback, acres of England stretching behind him; they drop, gilt-winged, each with a blood-filled gaze. Grace Cromwell hovers in thin air.

            Three early sentences from Annie Enright’s The Gathering

•        You cannot libel the dead, I think, you can only console them.

•        So I offer Liam this picture: my two daughters running on the sandy rim of a stony beach, under a slow, turbulent sky, the shoulders of their coats shrugging behind them. Then I erase it.

Lee Child’s The Affair

•        The Pentagon is the world’s largest office building, six and a half million square feet, thirty thousand people, more than seventeen miles of corridors, but it was built with just three street doors, each one of them opening into a guarded pedestrian lobby. I chose the south east option, the main concourse entrance, the one nearest the metro and the bus station, because I wanted plenty of civilian workers around, preferably a whole long unending stream of them, for insurance purposes, mostly against getting shot on sight. Arrests go bad all the time, some accidentally, sometimes on purpose, so I wanted witnesses.

Joanna’s Trollope’s A Village Affair

On the day contracts were exchanged on the house, Alice Jordan put all three children in the car and went to visit it. Natasha made her usual seven-year-old fuss about her seat-belt, and James was crying because he had lost the toy man who rode his toy stunt motorbike, but the baby lay peaceably in his carrycot and was pleased to be joggling gently along while a fascinating pattern of bare branches flickered through the slanting back window of the car onto his round upturned face.

For me, each opening is extraordinarily rich.

Mantel’s is at once vividly English yet also deeply anti-religious, with the lightness of sight and movement shot through with that visceral ‘blood-filled gaze’ of the falcons, who are also Cromwell’s dead children. With intense economy, Mantel creates an overwhelming mental landscape that is, at the same time, utterly in the moment and also symbolic, poignant and beautiful. We are inside a mind transcending loss by a conscious act of will: he is freeing the souls of his dead women-folk not just from human existence but from God. No purgatory for them; no judgement or guilt, just lightness and air and the hunt. And by freeing them, he frees himself. Perhaps.

Movement is also inherent in Enright’s running, turbulent sky. Her place is roughly textured (sandy, stony) but her narrator’s mental landscape is detached, a ‘picture’ offered to a dead man. ‘Then I erase it.’

Child’s analytical narrator explains as he observes. His movement – the unending stream of witnesses – is part of the plan; nothing is left to chance. These are the rational words of a dangerous man with a tactical plan. How different from Trollope’s mother, boxed in with her noisy children, with only the baby enviably free to experience the flickering images outside. The make and model of the car don’t matter to the mother, whereas Lee Child’s Jack Reacher would have noted them both.

In each case the author has, by marrying the simple, observable realities of place – David Almond’s dust and dirt – with their character’s subjective perceptions and purposes, drawn the reader into that mysterious state where imagined stories are both believable and meaningful.

@HouseRowena

 

 

Notebook Nirvana - Lu Hersey

Practically any writing class – or creative writing handbook –  is going to tell you to make it your number one priority to always have a notebook with you. At all times. You never know when inspiration will strike (though having consulted with many fellow writers, that might be very inconveniently when you’re in the shower, or running for the bus….but you get the idea). Notebooks are, apparently, essential.

It’s true that almost all writers are obsessed with them. Many of us are total stationery nerds, spending happy hours staring at notebook cover designs and covetously feeling the paper inside. (texture is important. It might be a different kind of texture preference for each writer, but it’s important!)

Some writers change their notebook each year. Others have a different notebook for each book they write. Some prefer lined paper to keep it neat, and some, like me, choose plain pages so they can scribble and doodle and make a big mess. (David Almond is a fan of the plain page, so I’m in good company there.)

I was in the Henge shop at Avebury a while back with two writer friends – and it turned out they’d both bought the same notebook the year before. I felt a bit left out. And yes, I later ordered one in the same design. Here it is…

As it happens, this notebook didn’t work for me. The cover is wonderful, but the pages are lined. It’s hard to ignore lines, but I find it even harder to keep within them...so sadly, it’s still only part used.

A lot of writers go for the Moleskine - Hemingway’s favourite. It’s true it has handy pockets for tickets and memorabilia, all held in place with a strong elasticated band round the outside. You can choose your favourite size and colour (mostly red or black), and whether you want lined pages or not. Or a mix. They look great when shelved next to each other in a uniform collection. (shelving is another thing with writers, by the way. You can’t have enough bookshelves. Ever.) So all in all, the Moleskine sounds perfect, right?

For many writers, yes – but it’s the very ‘specialness’ of these (they’re quite expensive) that makes me too scared to write anything in them. It’s okay if you’re like William Blake and can keep the same notebook for twenty years by writing things very small, and being fastidious. But that’s not me.

Anyway, it got to a point where notebook experimentation meant I had so many notebooks, I didn’t know which one I was meant to be using for what. This confusion of notebooks meant I rarely wrote anything in any of them. Not having time to find the right one, I ended up almost always using my laptop.

Meanwhile my room was littered with notebooks. One for recording dreams, one each for all my different book ideas, and separate notebooks for personal experience. Many of them are not even half full - some even less.

The tip of my notebook iceberg

Then something wonderful happened. Paul Magrs, novel writer and creative workshop leader, was asking for readers to give him feedback on a new creative writing handbook he’d written. I seized the opportunity, and offered to be a read The Novel Within You. (Hopefully this will be published very soon as it’s EXCELLENT!  A wonderful mix of funny anecdotes, autobiography and extremely useful tips and ideas).

Anyway, one thing Paul recommends, which really stood out for me, is the idea of a  universal notebook. Write, draw, do what you like – but all in the SAME notebook – and make it cheap and practical so you’re not afraid to use it.

Brilliant! Even before I’d finished reading the book, I found my ideal notebook in Wilkinsons. It’s cheap. It has a plastic cover, so I don’t have to worry about spilling stuff on it. It has a nice strong band to hold it together, so I can keep a pen tucked inside -  and it adapts well to the interior of my bag (it takes a hardy notebook to withstand this nightmare environment). Not only that, the pages are plain and just the right texture.

Notebook heaven.

I now write everything in one notebook, which is always with me. I don’t have to be self-conscious about it, as no one will see it. To do lists, shopping lists, book ideas, whole chapters, blog ideas, notes from the evening course I’m doing – everything! And I fill them (repeat – FILL THEM!) at regular intervals.

So if you’re suffering from fear of messing up your writing journal, take a leaf out of my notebook (sorry). Go for cheap and cheerful, and just don’t worry about what you write in it. It’s yours, no one else will see it, and you can write/scribble/draw whatever you like...

Lu Hersey
twitter: @LuWrites
Author page: Lu Hersey
Blog: Lu Writes
Current book: Deep Water

The First Rule Of Death Club by Steve Gladwin

There are many different entrances to the land of the dead.

Death is not a thing we joke about, but perhaps we should do it more. A few years ago, through a project called Are You Having A Laugh, I tried a fresh approach with year 6 children in Powys. I spent a morning entertaining them with daft stories and clown routines, before, in the afternoon, telling them three stories, each of which contained a loss of some sort. All I did after I’d told the last story, was to ask the class why the stories I'd told in the morning, and those they’d just heard - were different. This led to the simplest of discussion, after which they composed stories and drawings of the Green Children, (from Kevin Crossley Holland's adaptation) and the sad giants, (An African myth of the Mensi people) they’d heard about. The schools all said how much they appreciated the gentle approach and how easy it would be to take it further in their own work.

Some may be more daunting than others!

Miss Bertram copyright Rose Foran - The Raven's Call 2016

Just recently I have come rather late to a particular party. Now too often such things will follow a familiar and frustrating pattern. You know the sort of thing - you arrive to find only lemonade and a giant bottle of lager so cheap that the bottle could double as a weapon, the buffet has long been picked over and, utterly starving, you reach out for the last piece of raspberry pavlova, (insert personal preference!), only to find that some big bloke with tattoos has first dibs on it. Well yes, I have been to parties like that, but the party I’ve joined has thankfully none of those features because this particular party is ‘reading children’s books’ You, of course, have all been there from the start feasting, on a regular series of tit bits, with a full range of wine and spirits to call on as well as the cheap lager.

As I said in my last blog, I read an awful lot when I was a child and have done so intermittently since. In recent years of course I’ve Rowlinged and Pullmaned, and on several joyful occasions, Almonded, (but more about that in a while). Only in the last year however, have I made a serious return to those towering shelves of childhood with their sometimes dog-eared books. Apart from the usual sources I have been considerably aided by the wonderful Charney and Folly Farm invention of book swaps in which, in return for foisting my gaily coloured flimsy on unsuspecting fellow authors, In return I have come away with a huge bag of swag. Recent adventures have taken me across trackless siberian wastes,  or had me listening to the whispering of grass. I have gone through seven hells of care home and trod the shining sands of Pembrokeshire. To everyone involved, much thanks, but at the same time I have chased books recommended by fellow authors and ones I’ve just happened to come across.

 - while others may seem far more familiar.

There are those which may appear to be well trodden, familiar walkways -

So many of those books - whether given, borrowed or swapped- deal with the theme of loss, - just as my own book The Seven does - and each one deals with it in a different way. Sometimes the land or the ruler is so cruel that it might be a pleasure to die and escape both. Or a character you cannot imagine being dead suddenly and shockingly is. Even in the books where death doesn't lie raw and bleeding, there may be the shadow of the lost sibling or parent.


Death is of course ever present from the moment we are born to grow (hopefully gently) rather than suddenly towards it. However what being a reawakened lover of children’s books, (yes I know - where have I been?), has made me realise, is just how many wonderful and sensitive books there are out there dealing with it. 

In a previous blog, I discussed the idea of an author’s intent - when he or she chooses to adapt a myth or traditional tale - and how it might differ from say a storyteller, who might find the audience who feel that they own that story, sitting unsmiling with folded arms in front of them as they perform. I suggested the idea that as long as the original intent is in some way ‘honourable’, the story can take any amount of ‘mucking about with’. There was an interesting discussion following my blog and I’ve thought about it a lot since. Among the thoughts I’ve had, is of course that it also depends on whether we have anything new to say. When it comes to the theme of death I’ve come to the conclusion surprisingly, that there may be multiple new things to say and ways to express them.

The book I’ve just finished is David Almond's A Song For Ella Grey. Yes as usual I’ve come late to the party, but this time - and perhaps even more gladly - I have come late to the wake.

How do you go about putting fresh clothes on a myth so old that it is part of the land it was born in, as much as the language? Perhaps one way of doing it is to give the story a new birth in a new land.

How do you write something new about love when so many words have already flowed? And how can there be a new way of capturing that particular combination of joy and pain? Perhaps you literally put a new mask on it, so that - as Brecht would have it - both the character and you the reader, peer out not through unfamiliar eyes.

- while there are those which may take an entire lifetime.

And how on earth do you write something new about death when all the grief and tears have been swallowed, washed and wrung out? Just maybe, like David Almond, and so many more of you, you create a world or a feeling so moving and believable, that for the short blessed time you inhabit it, you come to no longer fear it, and when at last you come away from it, and time returns once more to it’s natural state, you are forever changed, and despite all the loss and grief, you would not have it any other way.

The first rule of Death Club is that we talk about it far more than we think and the authors of children’s books do it better than anyone.  

'You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself

Buddha

Diversity in Children´s Books - Maeve Friel

I am sure that everyone reading this is aware that Guardian Teen Books recently celebrated a week focussing on diversity in books for children.

By diversity, they mean “books by and about all kinds of people… boys, girls, all different colours, all different races and religions, all different sexualities and all different disabilities and anything else you can think of – so our books don’t leave anyone out.”

Benjamin Zephaniah whose Terror Kid is the Guardian Teen Book Club choice says:

“I love diversity. I love multiculturalism… It makes Britain´s music interesting. It makes our food interesting. It makes our literature interesting and it makes for a more interesting country …   To me it’s not about black, white, Asian; it’s about literature for everybody.”

And there you have it: the criterion must be the quality of the literature. I see little value in writing or publishing books to satisfy some sort of quota to reflect the percentages of ethnic or racial populations or other minorities.

The Guardian published a list of 50 books chosen to represent all manner of cultural diversity, from the amazing Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman to Oranges in No Man´s Land by Elizabeth Laird.

Here are a few of my favourite books that are outstanding in every way and that also open windows on to different ways of seeing the world.

The Arrival, by Shaun Tan, is a wordless book about the experience of emigration/immigration, following the lonely journey of a man to a new country where everything is different and inexplicable. (He signed my copy when he spoke at a Children´s Books Ireland conference a few years ago and it is one of most treasured possessions.)

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, is a graphic novel based on her experiences during the cultural and political upheaval of the Iranian revolution after the overthrown of the Shah.  This is a real eye-opener from the first pages showing tiny girls swathed in unfamiliar and unwanted veils in their school playground.

My Dad´s A Birdman, by David Almond, illustrated joyfully and colourfully by Polly Dunbar, is a terrific book about a young girl and her dad who is so overwhelmed with grief that he goes off the rails. It is suffused with love and tenderness and faith in the act of flying as Dad and daughter take part in a madcap and magical contest to sprout wings and fly across the river.  

Wonder by R.J. Palacio is the story of Auggie, a boy with a shocking facial disfigurement who is
starting 5^th grade after years of home schooling: imagine how he is dreading it -  “I won´t describe what I look like. Whatever you´re thinking, it´s probably worse.

I would like to add two more joyful books to the mix:

From Tangerine Books, a wonderful picture book, Larry and Friends,  by Ecuadorian illustrator Carla Torres in collaboration with Belgian/Venezuelan writer Nat Jasper celebrating the modern melting pot that is New York.

Larry, the New York dog, holds a party for all his amazing immigrant friends among them Magpa the pig from Poland who became a tightrope artist, Laila the Iranian entomologist, Edgar the Colombian alligator street musician, Ulises, the Greek cook and  a host of other talented and tolerant newcomers to the city – all apparently based on real people and how they met up.  

The book project was successfully funded by kickstarter – see more about it here.

As you can see, the illustrations are divine - this is Layla, the Iranian entomologist who works at the museum.

And finally, another great classic is The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1963), possibly one of the earliest American picture books to feature a young African-American hero – although this is never mentioned in the text. It simply tells the story of a young four year old boy discovering snow in the city for the first time. 

www,maevefriel.com
www.maevefriel.com/blog
You can also find me on Twitter @MaeveFriel

BOOKSELLER SUNDAYS: What greater pleasure? – Eve Griffiths at The Bookcase, Lowdham

The second in our new series of Sunday guest blogs by booksellers who work with children’s authors. These guest blogs are designed to show life behind the scenes of a crucial but neglected relationship – the one between a writer and a bookseller. These days, such relationships are more intense and more important, as increasing numbers of authors go on the road to promote children’s books – a goal shared by the booksellers who will contribute to this series.

The Bookcase is a ‘small independent bookshop with a big imagination’ situated in the village of Lowdham, eight miles north of Nottingham. The Bookcase’s proprietor is Jane Streeter (second from right), who runs the shop with a friendly team: Louise Haines, Jo Blaney, myself, Marion Turner and Kendall Turner (pictured left to right above).

Three years ago I (as one of the assistants) began a reading group at our local village school. This coincided with our 10th Annual Book Festival. So, to celebrate, I went in once a month until we had read 10 books. The 12 children read each book and then wrote a review, which formed the basis of a display at our book festival. We read all sorts – from contemporary authors to Enid Blyton and Richmal Crompton – and one poetry book. I have used a few different poetry books, but the first was Carol Ann Duffy’s The Hat, which was very timely as I’d handed it out to the children just before she was announced as the Poet Laureate! We’ve also used Gervase Phinn’s There’s an Alien in the Classroom, and others over the three years we’ve been involved in the project.


Each month I went into school so that we could have a discussion, which made the youngsters feel very grown up!


The idea became so popular that I have been approached by other schools, so this year I am working in four schools – always with Year 6 children. The group is aimed at the more able readers. (The thinking behind this is that so much is done to encourage the less able readers: those who are keen readers need some sort of outlet for their enthusiasm.)


This year, I have found a real difference in ability from one school to another. Not only is the reading ability markedly higher in one school, but the children are much more mature. This makes it harder for me to choose appropriate books, so I’m always keen to hear of the experiences of others who work with children of a similar age.


Michael Morpurgo is, of course, unfailingly popular, but I’ve also had real success with Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother and Morris Gleitzman’s Once. In both cases, several of the children have gone on to read the sequels. We have offered a discount to reading group members who have ordered sequels.


After Christmas I will be discussing David Almond’s Skellig with two schools and Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones with our most able readers and Once with the fourth group.

After reading your blog, I have ordered a copy of Penny Dolan’s A Boy Called M O U S E to consider as one of next half-term’s books. With four schools to visit, I see each group once only per half-term, now. I really enjoy having one poetry book to discuss, and each member is expected to read aloud a poem of their choice. There is always one group member – usually a boy – who chooses the shortest in the book, so they then have to read a poem of my choosing!


One of the greatest joys I have experienced is a group of reading enthusiasts clamouring to tell you how much they have enjoyed a book. What greater pleasure can there be than to have introduced children to a book they love and an author they want to read again!

Please let me know of any really popular choices!

Eve Griffiths, The Bookcase

The Bookcase’s website: http://www.thebookcase.co.uk/

Watch out for Independent Booksellers Week a campaign celebrating independents on the high street, which this year takes place between 30th June and 7th July.