Change The World With Words

I hope you’re enjoying my Ten Things series. This month I’m learning from one of the best: J K Rowling. This is what I’ve learned from reading (and re-reading) her books, studying her writing, and observing her rise to fame.

1. Don’t write for a specific age group

I’ve mentioned this before, in my post Three (Unconventional) Tips For Children’s Writers. The Harry Potter books are a great example of stories that appeal to people of all ages. The books have been re-packaged, with the covers of the adult versions designed for a more mature audience, but apparently this was to save the blushes of those adults who didn’t want to be seen reading a book obviously designed for children. The stories themselves haven’t been changed at all.

Many authors would argue that you need to know your potential audience in order to pitch your book to an editor.  And they would, of course, be right. I like this way of looking at it, taken from the ebook, How to Write a Children’s Book In 14 Days:

“In some ways it’s better to take Louis Sachar’s advice (the author of Holes); just write your book and let its market find it. However, the length and format of children’s books do differ for various age groups and types of readers. And you really do need to know what these differences are, if only to make certain you don’t waste time writing one type of book when you meant to write another.”

In other words, be aware of what you’re writing (for marketing purposes) but then just write a great story that would be enjoyed by anyone (for creative purposes).

2. Weave in back story

You can pick up any Harry Potter book, read it and get all the information you need to understand the story. Reading them in order will create a richer understanding of the finer plot points, but it’s not essential.

Each can stand alone, in part, because of the skilful way the important details of the previous books are naturally included in the story. There are no big chunks of information, and no awkward dialogue sequences where characters sound like they’re needlessly recapping previous events they both already know about.

Rowling uses carefully chosen details to fill in the background to current situations. She also exposes the thoughts of the point of view character (Harry) in a way that enables us to absorb all the back story we need. Read the opening pages of any of the books and you’ll start to see what I mean.

3. Build a believable world

The wizarding world is portrayed so carefully and consistently that it becomes incredibly ‘real’ to the reader. As Francis Bridger puts it in A Charmed Life: The Spirituality of Potterworld:

“Hogwarts represents far more in Potterworld than just an eccentric educational establishment. It represents more, too than just the stage on which the stories are set.”

Hogwarts becomes very real to the reader, as do other eccentricities of the wizard world. Spells, potions, quidditch, and talking portraits are all, somehow, totally believable. It’s this skilful world-building that has my kids and me having semi-serious conversations around questions such as:

“Which spell would you use to defeat Voldemort, and why?” or

“Which Hogwarts house would the sorting hat put you in, and is it the one you’d want to be in?” 

We know it’s fiction (really, we do) but it’s fiction that’s real enough to get us thinking about all kinds of scenarios we know we’ll never be in. (Or will we? All good fictional situations can, after all, be representative of other things.)

4. Write about universal themes

There are some things that apply to every tween and teen, whether you’re a wizard or a Muggle. These universal themes are there in the Harry Potter books, however unusually they play out.

This paragraph, (also from How to Write a Children’s Book) sums it up:

“The Harry Potter series does this extremely well. Harry is different and his special ‘gifts’ single him out for negative attention from Draco Malfoy and his henchmen; a classic case of bullying. Hermione is singled out as not being a pure wizard; she has Muggle blood in her veins. Likewise, Ron comes from such a large family that money is tight. Rowling incorporates the classic causes of bullying ‐ racism, snobbery and jealousy ‐ into the magical world of Hogwarts. This allows her readers to strongly identify with the main character regardless of setting.”

5. Friendship is important

A huge appeal of the books is not the fantasy elements, or even the plot, but the relationships. The friendship between the three main characters is so strongly drawn, we feel part of it. They could be three characters doing anything, in any genre of books, and we’d still get the same warm fuzzy feeling from their friendship, and the same anxious discomfort when they fight among themselves.

6. No character is ever all good or all evil

Harry is a very well-rounded character. He has a temper. He breaks rules. He doesn’t always think things through. Hermione can be an insufferable know-it-all, and Ron is an insensitive idiot at times.

The evil, death eater Malfoys love each other, and dote on their son Draco. Even Voldemort  killed his father (perhaps) partly out of love (or was it just revenge?) for his mother.

7. Keep notes about your story

If you’ve seen Rowling interviewed, you may have noticed that she can answer questions about all kinds of obscure things that crop up in the books with total confidence and authority.

Apparently she keeps copious notes on everything from the background of her characters through to the root patterns of willow trees. I’ve only just started doing this. Now if something crops up in my story I make a note of it and do some research to fill in the background. If only I could get my notes organised into some kind of easily accessible system, it would be flawless. Suggestions welcome.

8. Names matter

Rowling puts a lot of thought into naming her characters. It’s not hard to see someone named Draco Malfoy as a villain, or Albus Dumbledore as a wise but eccentric old professor, and Lord Voldemort was never going to be a good guy.

There are deeper meanings behind so many of the names that the only really surprising thing is that the hero himself has such a common one. Check out some of the meanings behind the names of Harry Potter characters here.

9. Use the bad times

Rowling has been reported as saying that if her personal life hadn’t been so miserable at the time, Harry Potter might never have happened. Certainly, when times are bad, losing yourself in your art can be a wonderful and very productive way of dealing with it.

Next time you have a bad experience/day/fight with your spouse, don’t hit the whiskey bottle or the Haagen-Dazs. Hit the keyboard and escape from reality and into a really good story.

10. Keep giving back

Rowling has written at least two great little supplementary books Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in aid of British charity event Comic Relief, and continues to do other charitable work with various agencies.

Former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has suggested that Rowling has also done more for children’s literacy than any other modern children’s author.  I may not have Rowling’s bank balance, and you probably don’t either. But as writers, we make money doing something we love. The least we can do is give a little back.

See more Ten Things posts here.

Image from blingcheese.com.   

“You must write for children in the same way as you do for adults, only better.”
~Maxim Gorky

Several years ago I took a course in writing for children through the UK based Academy of Children’s Writers. I got lots of good writing tips, about immersing myself in good children’s literature and writing about my passions, and some advice that I’ve since totally disregarded.

I’ve just returned to writing for children after years of aiming my writing purely at an adult audience.  Along the way I’ve read a lot of children’s books (I have, after all, been raising two children), and there are some changes I’m making to the way I write for children. You may or may not agree, but this is how I’ve decided to do it, and these are my writing tips for other aspiring children’s writers:

Don’t aim your writing at a particular age group

My writing tutor told me to have a clear idea of the age group I wanted to write for before I started a story. There are good technical, and commercial, reasons to follow this advice. Your hero, for example, is supposed to be at the upper range of the age group you’re writing for, as children like to read about a hero the same age or older than them. Also it really helps when trying to sell a first novel if you can tell the publisher exactly where your manuscript might fit into his list.

However, writing for a specific age group, or even writing specifically for children, can be restrictive. As Susan Cooper puts it in her book, Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children:

“[children} aren’t a different species. They are us, a little while ago.”

Seeing children as a different species (or even as several sub-species, divided neatly into age groups) is what causes us to commit a common mistake that many writers make when they try writing for children. We try too hard to ‘get on their level’ and, consequently end up talking down to them.

Good stories are good stories. This has never been more evident than during the rise and rise of the now uber famous boy wizard, Harry Potter. The Harry Potter books have now been re-packaged, with different covers on the ‘adult’ versions, to appeal to a more mature audience – but not one word of the text has been changed. The stories already appeal to readers everywhere, regardless of how many years they’ve been on the planet.

Write the story you want to tell and don’t worry too much about ‘aiming’ it at a particular age group.

Tellingly Susan Cooper goes on to say:

“Most of us, mind you, have no idea whether we are writing books for children or for adults. We write the book that wants to be written, and let our publishers tell us what it is.”

Don’t use simple language

I was also told by my tutor to use simple language in writing for children. He even had some formulae worked out.  I believe the child’s age plus five = the maximum amount of words to be used in a sentence. Now I don’t doubt that some of my sentences were too long (I do tend to go on a bit). But I’ve since decided that clarity is what’s important in any kind of writing, and clarity comes from good writing not short sentences.

Don’t get me wrong. Short sentences are often a feature of great, clear writing for any age group. I love short sentences, but using language effectively sometimes leads to longer ones.

Lucy Boston once wrote, ” I believe children, even the youngest, love good language, and that they see, feel, understand and communicate more, not less, than grown-ups. Therefore I never write down to them, but try to evoke that new brilliant awareness that is their world.”

If we, as writers, are hoping to instil a love of language in young minds, shouldn’t we use language to its fullest? Shouldn’t we try to be poetic, and lyrical, and use amazing, original metaphors and similes and imagery? Shouldn’t we make up beautiful evocative new words just for the fun of it? (It worked for Shakespeare, and Dr Seuss).

Even a very young child who listens to a read-aloud book with wonderful language will take that wonderful language at face value. He will assume that is how language should be.  He will be one imaginative and articulate child.

Don’t use simple vocabulary

Surely I’m not alone in thinking that a constantly expanding vocabulary is one of the many benefits of reading? I love it when my kids ask the meaning of a word and I’m able to explain it to them. I still often ask (as my own mother did) “what’s the sentence?” in order to put the word in context for them.

And in the absence of an immediately available adult? They can always look it up.  Your kids book shelf is a great place to keep a good dictionary (It can be a children’s one for younger kids, but don’t assume that a child can’t understand the definitions in an adult one).

Figuring out the meaning of an unfamiliar word in context is also a natural part of the reading process. What I like even more than the question “Mom, what does X mean?” is “Mom, does X mean Y?” A child who reads widely doesn’t have to remember definitions of difficult words. The meaning seeps in naturally through the contexts of the stories they read.

So don’t feel you have to stick to words you would expect a child to have come across before. That’s what adults, dictionaries and the problem-solving section of the brain are there for.

This blog is all about changing the world with your writing. Introducing children to ageless themes, wonderful language and new vocabulary surely involves changing their worlds for the better. As I get back into writing for children I’ll be sharing what I learn. Please subscribe if you want to stay in touch.