Our literary underpinnings

I came back from our trip to Europe and the UK last September filled with a difficult kind of jealousy that time will not remedy. I love the country of my birth in so many ways, but I cannot help craving, especially deep down in my creative soul, the long rich past that is so visible everywhere you go over there. The tumultuous centuries old histories, the long slow burning cultural evolution that is revered and celebrated in public galleries, theatres, monuments and artworks. The roads, footpaths, parks and buildings sing with the voices of all those who have passed over, under, by and through them. Our country is so young by comparison and we are in many respects still finding our way.

When I read this article that compares the children's literature of the US with that of the UK, concluding that the British tell better children's stories because their story telling culture is rooted in fairy tales and make believe, I began to wonder what this might say about the underpinnings of our children's literature here in New Zealand.

I grew up on children's stories from both the US and UK, reading Tolkien and Cooper, Garner, Lewis and Aiken, but also Le Guin and Ingalls Wilder, EB White, Alcott and nearby neighbour L.M. Montgomery, as did many of my peers. Here in New Zealand we have a rich Maori mythology to draw on, but our history is ultimately too youthful and still dominated by the pragmatic. It's that number-eight wire, can-do attitude. In my childhood I had little in the way of local literature to read and so, of course, much of my literary diet was imported from countries that saw the world very differently from what I was able to observe out my window. But that sounds about right for an emerging nation looking to Europe and the UK, as well as to the Pacific, Asia and the New World.

On what do I now base my own writing for children? Do I lean toward the fantastic and enchanted, or the realistic derring-do? Or do I fall somewhere in between or find new and unique ground? I recently sent some samples of my work to some US agents and realised when looking over what I'd sent, that my word choice and phrasing leant towards the British. I'd used the phrase 'let him have it' when talking about an episode of bullying, which on reflection seems very English to me. And there were other examples of a UK kind of sensibility in my writing. I like magic and fairy tales, mythology and fantasy, swords and pixie dust and the supernatural. But there is plenty of realism in my writing and contemporary issues informing my work too. Yet I can't forget that our contemporary issues have a particularly New Zealand spin on them.

Many of my stories are a blend of the real and the magic. New Zealand's most famous children's author, Margaret Mahy, made a highly regarded art of writing magic-realism but I don't think I'm trying to emulate her. I think this is just the result of those widely varying outside influences. I love incorporating fairy tale elements and qualities in my shorter stories and picture books. Yet, like many New Zealand Children's writers, some of my novels tend towards the realistic, whether contemporary or historical. Our fantasy often harks back toward the European or British, with vague settings that don't really feel local and mystical elements that draw on a range of cultures. Although of course there are exceptions where fantasy sits seamlessly inside a NZ setting and at times incorporates Maori mythology.

I guess the best question might be, does it really matter? The writer of the article believed the British wrote better children's stories but perhaps that depends what you are searching for in your reading experience. As a young reader I found much to like in both kinds of stories, and I guess the different kinds of stories met different needs. There is a place for both in a young person's reading diet.

As much as I love and yearn for the cultural and historical heritage of Europe and the UK, I have grown up here. And perhaps both of those things belong in my writing. Even the longing

Some thoughts on didacticism...

When literature first began to be written with children in mind, the stories produced were generally of an improving nature: 'didactic' texts with a moral lesson, stories that set out the rules of how adults expected or wanted children to behave. Be seen and not heard, mind your manners and your elders, be kind, don't steal, poke, provoke, be proud, or rude, gobble your food and so on. Sometimes these were bible stories - parables from the testaments, old and new, that extolled virtuous behaviour. Aesop's Fables provided a more secular set of aphorisms to live by.

However the didacticism inherent in early children's literature was probably somewhat hypocritical, coming across potentially as more of a 'do as I say and not as I do' kind of literature. At the time adults were just realising that children needed books aimed specifically at them, adult literature had itself already developed well past the Bible, Torah, Quran, and other religious tomes guiding and directing adult values. Well before then, the likes of Chaucer and Shakespeare had already injected the sensational and the bawdy into their work. They were riffing on the behaviours of actual humanity rather than some ideal. By the time children were acknowledged as something other than miniature adults, adults were reading romances, westerns, and the drudgery and cruelty of Dickens. Good fiction was about the best and worst of people, warts and all. Reading had already developed into an activity offering entertainment to adults. Children however were seen as something to be molded and controlled and their reading was written accordingly.  And yet not only were adults reading literature which was definitely not 'improving,' they were often expecting more of their offspring than they were capable of themselves. 

As literature grew and evolved, so too did an understanding of the child reader, and writing for children became a more complex and richly structured endeavour. Writing morphed from being stories about what adults wanted children to know and be, and became more about subjects and issues that concerned children directly. What was going on in their lives and what was of interest to them. Reading meets a multiplicity of needs in a child - learning to read, providing information, entertainment and pleasure, tasting the world and all its variety, and learning about how language is used. It must offer more than just moral guidance.  

Didactic texts aim to teach the reader. To a certain extent all literature teaches, not just in terms of literacy but in terms of the larger underlying themes and messages. Non-fiction works clearly contain material which 'informs' but fiction also informs providing a window onto experiences that readers can find their own lessons in. Any well-written book with substance will inform and teach in some way.  

In its simplest form a good story offers an opportunity for the reader to observe the behaviour of others and decide how it applies to them. The best children's books put a child at the centre of the story. They teach critical thinking and give children the tools to solve their own problems. They deal with themes that are practical and real, even when cloaked in the guise of fantasy or science fiction, history or horror. Encouraging good behaviour is not a bad thing, but children are not just blank slates on which good rules alone must be written. Children are complex creatures, just as adults are. We want them to become independent thinkers who judge for themselves how and why to be good people. 

Children's literature has to be relevant to who they are and what they are experiencing. Life is rarely simple, or fair, and no one is perfect. Books will have a bigger impact on a child if they reflect the full richness of experience rather than some distilled advice or a blatant lecture. In less well thought out moments I have attempted to give my children lectures and it is the fastest way to make them glaze over. And if we have all managed to get through to the end they eventually remind me that they already knew what I was hectoring them about. Because the good life lessons are best engendered in context, through real life example. So where is the line between too didactic and just right? If the lesson is visible on the surface you have crossed the line. If everyone in the story learns to be a better person you have probably crossed the line. If there is nothing 'else' to the story you have crossed the line. If it feels like a parable or a fable you have probably crossed the line. If it feels like a fairy tale, a nursery rhyme or a cautionary tale you are actually probably in safer territory. And I don't mean Disney fairy tales or nursery rhymes, I mean the originals where sometimes dreadful things happened and there was no clear message or moral. And just remember - you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink.
  

(Note: Should you choose to print all or part of this post, re-post or use this material in any other way, please acknowledge me as its author, and where appropriate, provide a link to the original blog post. Thank you :) )

As long as a piece of string...

People often ask (especially children during school visits) how long it took to write a particular book. I wish I knew how many minutes and hours I spent tapping away at the keyboard on a specific story. But the creation of a story, a manuscript, a book is so often not a linear process that it is impossible to know. When do you start counting? The moment you first felt that spark of an idea? The moment things started to coalesce in your mind into something resembling (no matter how distantly) the final product? The moment you started writing it - is that those hastily scrawled words on a scrap of used envelope, or the first time you saved the document on your desk top, or lap top or i-phone or i-pad or whatever you choose to write most on? Do you include all the minutes your mind cogitates, consciously and subconsciously, on the plot and the characters or is it just the time you spend writing? And when you start writing, you don't necessarily write day in, day out until done. Sometimes the first draft is done in fits, and starts, or dribbles. Sometimes a story cannot progress because you are still too raw/ fresh/newbie as a writer. Sometimes other projects demand centre stage or just, take over. And then when you are finished you start again with editing. Sometimes the editing is an interminable grind (try countin' them minutes). Sometimes the edit is a complete rethink, or rewrite. Sometimes you throw it all away and start afresh.

I am thinking of all of this because a publisher would like to publish a manuscript I sent them recently. It is a new story. But already that moniker is a misnomer. What, really, makes it new?

People sometimes comment on my output. I am fortunate that I can devote all sorts of time to my writing (although in truth I am incredibly lazy and easily distracted - oo, look at the shiny thing on facebook, how pretty, must comment). But, like the question about how long it takes to write a book, the situation is deceptive. And is probably compounded by the fact that at times, even though I am a terrible gossip and blabbermouth, I am also very secretive. Confused? You should be! - I am a girl who can read maps (I was always navigator in our plane flying games as a child). Anyway I digress, in an easily distracted kind of way. My output, like the process of writing a book, is not always linear. So the truth is, although this story is new, it all started years and years ago. We (my sterling SO and I) went to see a movie at some time in the past I can't quite pinpoint. I don't remember which movie. What I do remember is the animated short before the main feature. It was about a tree. It included an arresting image which got my gears turning and I even remember, as we left the theatre, saying to my SO that I thought that would make a good picture book story. Some time after seeing the movie and its terrific short, I started playing around with the idea and trying to shoehorn it into a more traditional kind of format, like a fairytale. I wrote maybe 75% of a story. I still liked the idea but the result was kinda ugly. So with a minor twinge of disappointment I abandoned this new baby and went and worked on other projects. Years passed. I occasionally revisited the story but it was still wrong despite my efforts. I studied a university paper on Fairytale, Myths and Legends in 2010 as part of my Diploma in Children's Literature. Then the Goethe Institute ran a competition last year for a story in the style of a fairytale, myth or legend, from any kind of culture. I'd already written a fairytale style story for Fabostory a while back which I thought was all right but unfortunately it was ineligible as it had appeared online (and you can see it here). So I had another stab at my other fairytale, completed it and sent it in. It did not win, place or rate a mention. I had thought it had actually scrubbed up pretty well in the refit but obviously the judge(s) didn't agree. My spirits sank. Maybe it wasn't ever really going to work. Then a month ago I pulled it out again and had another go. It felt different this time. It actually looked rather fetching when I'd finished. It had a kind of poetic feel to it. Before I could change my mind I submitted it to a publisher. The day after, I wished I could take it back. And then, because I know these things can take forever I tried to forget about it. And then last Friday...

So how long does it take me to write a book? The answer is 42. And that new story? Was a lifetime in the making.

Update: When I think about it I probably spent around a week maybe two, on writing and rewriting this particular story - maybe 60 to 80 hours for around 850 words. It doesn't sound like much when put like that but those hours don't reflect the time I spent thinking about the story and its themes, time experiencing and studying examples of traditional myths and legends, or the time spent on the development of my writing skills over the years that were necessary to me finally completing the manuscript. So if I gave the answer 'a week or two' to the question 'how long did it take you to write that story' people might get the wrong idea about what it takes, and what's involved. It doesn't account for all the unquantifiables and the intangibles. So its hard to know what to say. 

Blondilocks and The Three Hairs...

My middle child had her year 12 production this week - Eating the Wolf by NZ Playwright Sarah Delahunty, (a very smart, thought provoking feminist riff on traditional fairytales). Here she is on left with castmates Ophelia and Samantha.

Fairytales seem to be the topic du jour at the moment. Here's something I prepared earlier. The Goethe Institut in Wellington are running a fairytale writing competition and this one didn't qualify for several reasons (1) I've already entered and 2) its already appeared on the internet in a slightly different edit for our 2011 Fabo Writing Challenge - watch out soon for Fabo3 coming to a blogspot near you) so I thought I'd post it here. I'm a bit of a lifelong fan of fairytales. I read and re-read them as a child/teen/adult, I've studied them as a University Student and they've had a big influence on me and my writing. I like their shades of light and dark, realism and magic, morals and madness. So here without further adieu (as I must take the dog to the vet and then get on with my writing), is a fairytale what I wrote:

Blondilocks and The Three Hairs

Once upon a time, in a faraway place, there lived a proud and important man. He had a beautiful wife, a perfect baby daughter, an important job and more power than any ordinary man could ever wish for and that, he thought, was more than enough for any man. Not long after the birth of their child, Blondilocks, the couple planned a party to celebrate her arrival. They invited everyone of importance they could think of but because they believed the Arts were a luxury they forgot to invite Gouache, Allegro and Simile: the three faeries of the Arts.

On the day of the party guests bestowed their best wishes on Blondilocks as they arrived and passed their gifts to the important man and his wife. Everyone enjoyed their glasses of water and bread without any spreads. The guests shared boring chitchat and admired the pale cream walls of the grand hall at the Mansion. The important man and his wife stood at the front door welcoming their guests, their baby cradled in her mother’s loving arms.

The sky darkened. In a flash of searing brightness three faeries suddenly stood on the doorstep.

In unison they spoke,

“Creativity cannot be denied…”

Then Gouache, dressed in a rainbow coloured gown said, “My birthday gift to your daughter is the gift of art. Her paintings will be fresh and richly imagined. They will inspire anyone who looks on them.”

“My gift is the gift of poetry,” recited Simile, clothed in black and white. “She will combine words in a way that breathes new life into them.”

“And my gift,” sang Allegro, in a cloak of shimmering blues, “is the gift of melody. Your daughter will put her poetry to music. Her songs will delight and cheer everyone who hears them.”

The three cackled in chorus, waved their wands over Blondilocks’s head, turned three times and were gone.

The important man turned to his wife. “We never needed that kind of nonsense. We can’t allow this,” he said so only she could hear. “Such things will be of no use to our daughter. She will never amount to anything. This would be the end of my job if word got out that our daughter is artistic. We must hide her away from the world.”

Meanwhile, ignored by all, a fourth faerie in a black cape who had heard the important man’s words, bestowed a final gift. “You cannot suppress the imagination forever. On her sixteenth birthday a dashing hero will come and drive young Blondilocks’s talents into the open.” The sprite breathed on Blondilocks’s head and before anyone even noticed she was there, she had gone.

When the party was over and everyone had left, the important man locked his daughter in the highest tower of his palatial home, paid a woman to take care of her and never spoke of Blondilocks again. When she realised she could not persuade her husband to change his mind, and too afraid to have another gifted child, his wife consoled herself with food and wine until she eventually died of a broken heart. The years passed and the man, satisfied with his own importance and that nothing had stood in its way, stepped down from his job and retired. He closed up his palatial mansion and moved to his apartment in the city. Now deaf and more than a little vague he had forgotten all about Blondilocks and the faeries and how many years had passed.

Young Dash drove his clapped out car through the dark forest. He’d left his home in New Yawn on the east coast days before, bored with everything and sure there must be more to life than this. He’d decided to go searching for it even though he wasn’t entirely sure what it was. With no car radio or audio books to listen to he began feeling sleepy until suddenly a shadow stepped out of the shadows. It was an old woman, hunched over with age, cloaked in a black cape. Dash slammed on the brakes as he watched her raise a knobbly thumb in the classic hitch-hiker gesture. Narrowly avoiding running her over, the car slid to a halt and Dash wound down his window.

A vicious smell blew in. Filth crusted the old woman’s cape and Dash saw enough dirt under her fingernails to grow potatoes in. But he didn’t mind. A bad smell wasn’t the worst thing. He covered his nose and said,

“Need a lift?”

The old woman shook her head.

“You kind soul. You will find what you are seeking. Take this magic hamburger,” she said passing him a small round parcel wrapped in greaseproof paper. It felt warm in Dash’s hand. “And these three hairs,” she continued, pulling three long, dark, brown ones from her left nostril. “You will know what to do with them when the time comes.” And before Dash could ask what she meant or argue about being given hairs from her nose, with a waft of bad air and an odd squirting sound the old lady was gone. Dash raised his eyebrows as he pocketed the gifts and climbed back into his car. He cranked the handle, pumped the gas pedal and took off into the gloom.

The trees closed in around him, growing taller and thicker and closer together with every passing mile. Again he felt sleepy. Dash wound the windows down to try and keep himself awake with the cold evening air. Instead a strange noise came down the road towards him and like a magnet he felt drawn towards it. Soon he found himself parking in front of an old mansion house in the middle of the overgrown forest.

A lilting sound floated down from above. Dash could not help but feel cheered. Looking up he saw a fair young woman peering from a window in the highest tower. The wonderful sound was coming from her and Dash was overwhelmed with the desire to meet her.

“Um,” he said, staring up at the smooth wall above him. He pulled the old woman’s gifts from his pocket. The package was mushed but he opened it up and the smell of the burger was so delicious he gobbled it up immediately. He felt strong but the window was too high to jump up to. Dash needed a ladder. As he looked at the three nostril hairs in his hand wishing he could reach that window, they thickened and lengthened until they were each like a rope.

“Hey that’s cool,” he said scratching his head. He still couldn’t figure out what to do next.  Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“A bit of creative thinking would have been handy,” a voice said. Dash wheeled around. The beautiful young woman stood behind him, the end of a bed-sheet rope dangling down the wall behind her.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I’ve been climbing down for years. My name’s Blondilocks. I’m the singer in a band ‘The Bones of Our Arts’ down at the local tavern. Then I teach an art class at eight. Can you give me a lift there? It’s a long way to walk.”

“Sure,” Dash said suddenly feeling very happy and he unlocked his car and opened the passenger door for her. Blondilocks climbed in.

And they drove off together into the sunset.