Great Starts by Alex English

This week has been a busy one for me and my fellow Bath Spa graduates as it's been the release of Bookshelf, the anthology of extracts of our work produced on the MA Writing for Young People course. It's the culmination of a lot of hard graft and I feel very proud of what we've produced.

A shameless plug for the 2018 MAWYP anthology!

The anthology consists of the first two thousand words of each student's manuscript for children or young adults and, after weeks of hard work with the rest of the team, I've at last got round to reading these twenty-six brilliant little nuggets of writing. It was hugely enjoyable, but it also got me thinking – what does make a great beginning to a children's (or indeed any) novel?

This is what hooks me when I read, and it's what I look at when I'm editing work too:

1. Whose story is it?

It sounds obvious, but I want to know straight away who my protagonist is. Whose side am I on? If I like them, that's even better. And please don't overwhelm me with zillions of characters from the get-go, feed them in gradually so my feeble mind can cope.

2. Where am I?

I don't mean starting with swathes of description, a few simple details are enough, but I need to feel grounded somewhere pretty much straight away. If there's a sense of the wider world then that's great too. Whatever you choose to include, just make it specific – the tick of the grandfather clock in the eastern hall, Grandpa's drawer of mermaids' purses and scallop shells or a screeching wind rattling the orphanage shutters all help to set the scene in a few words.  

3. Is anything actually happening?

Again, this seems obvious, but something needs to be happening in the first chapter. Characters shouldn't just sit and talk, they should talk while they're doing something interesting. Let them have that argument while they're trying to break into the castle, or let them try to hide that secret from their mother while she's cutting their hair. It's a whole lot more fun to write, and more fun to read too. 

4. What's at stake?

A sense of something deeply important being at risk for a character keeps me on the edge of my seat and therefore keeps me reading. This doesn't need to be life and death (of course it could be, depending on the genre), but it needs to mean life and death to the character. 

5. Is there a sense of mystery?

This might be a personal one, and I don't think this is essential for every story, but a sense of foreboding, of something not-quite-right lurking just beneath the surface or questions to be answered draws me in every time! I am an absolute sucker for a dark family secret, a secret map, an ominous portent or the appearance of a mysterious stranger.    

What do you think makes a great first few pages? Have I missed anything off my checklist? And do please read the Bookshelf anthology, I'm hugely proud of my MA classmates and I hope you'll agree that our hard work has paid off.

Alex English is a graduate of Bath Spa University's MA Writing for Young People. Her picture books Yuck said the Yak, Pirates Don't Drive Diggers and Mine Mine Mine said the Porcupine are published by Maverick Arts Publishing and she has more forthcoming from Bloomsbury and Faber & Faber.
www.alexenglish.co.uk

The Most Difficult Part of Writing - Val Tyler

The Most Difficult Part of Writing  - Val Tyler

I am sitting at my computer staring at a blank screen.

This is the most difficult part of writing… the beginning.

I have no idea how to start.

The view beyond my desk is inviting. I should be walking the hills with my dog, absorbing the fresh air and tranquility while reveling in the pure joy of living in the midst of so much beauty.

But I cannot.

Instead, I am sitting in front of a blank screen because I have an idea. It’s not much really, just a picture in my head. I’ve had it for some time. It won’t shift.

I see a tall dark lad - one could call his expression brooding. I don’t think it was before, but it is now, much like the scene through my window. Perhaps my dark sky is reflected in his black eyes, except I can see no beauty in the resentment he is feeling. There is no tranquility in his frustration.

He walks with an easy stride so as not to betray his feelings. If they cared enough to notice, his former friends might realise how he is feeling; and if resentment and frustration were his only emotions, being found out wouldn’t be so bad. But he has a deep, shameful secret.

He feels humiliated.

People see his little sister scuttling by his side. These days she is always close by - there is no one else to look after her – and so instead of hanging with his friends, he child-minds a small, innocent, vulnerable girl each and every day.

She is his humiliation. It eats away at his dignity. It lowers his self-esteem and fires his resentment and frustration to the point of fury. White hot, pounding fury.

But that is not the worst of it. He feels guilty.

His little sister is almost running by his side, trying to keep up. He knows he should slow down, take her hand, maybe even say something comforting, but he cannot. Any show of tenderness might make him crack. Then all the confusion, misery and overwhelming fear will explode out of him and they would know.

They would know everything.

That’s it. That’s the picture I have. It’s not tangible. I cannot show it to you because it doesn’t exist anywhere except in my head. I have to do justice to the events that brought him so low. I have a fair idea how he might get through it – although I’m not sure he does.

But there is more. There is something I know that he doesn’t. I didn’t know it when I first saw him walking, but I know it now. If he knew, it would break him. The reality would overwhelm him.

I need to write this down as much as I need to breathe.

It is my joy and my curse.

I cannot go outside, I cannot play with my dog; I have to write.

I must do him justice. I must tell his story and yet, my screen is blank.

This is the hardest part of writing…

…the beginning.