Ian Johnstone's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"
Rings, Wardrobes and Magic Mushrooms
Here's a little blog post I have just written about creating magical objects. I wrote it for MG Strikes Back (www.middlegradestrikesback.blogspot.c...) - a great new blog supporting and celebrating middle grade fiction - so the whole article is there, but here's a taste...
Rings, Wardrobes and Magic Mushrooms
Magical Objects in Middle Grade Fiction
I am lucky enough to be spending quite a bit of time in schools at the moment, talking to children about creating magic in writing. One of the first things I ask them to do is to shout out their favourite magical object in any book they’ve read. I stand poised to write the answers on the whiteboard and often there’s a hesitation – not because no one can think of an answer, but because they’re wondering where to start. A fraction of a second later, when I hear that first cry of “Harry’s wand!” or "the Wishing Chair!" the flood gates open and the workshop is carried away on a tide of fantastical artifacts.
Often the first in that flood are those from the titles of the classics, like the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the ring of The Lord of the Rings and the Faraway Tree in, well, The Magic Faraway Tree. Sometimes there are other iconic objects from the classics like the magic mushroom in Alice in Wonderland, the grandfather clock in Tom's Midnight Garden and the book in The Neverending Story. Usually there are more recent ones like the Alethiometer in His Dark Materials or Percy Jackson’s sword, Riptide. Sometimes we get lost in the wondrous inventory of a single title, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I’ll be kept busy at the whiteboard with chocolate waterfalls, Television Chocolate, Everlasting Gobstoppers and the like. Of course one title – or set of titles – offers the best hunting ground, and normally the session contains a deluge of objects from the pages of Harry Potter, from the Invisibility Cloak and broomsticks, to the Marauder’s Map and Horcruxes. Very soon I am running out of whiteboard space, and I call for mercy.
And then we look at my scrawl, and congratulate ourselves on knowing an awful lot of magic. I try to make my fledgling magicians feel even more chuffed with themselves by telling them that if I had done the same thing with a room full of adults, the list would be no longer (perhaps shorter), and it would contain many of the same artifacts. Why? Because literature for this agegroup – our very own Middle Grade – excels at magical objects. Middle Grade is the heartland of the fantastical Thing. This is where we find the looking glasses and glass elevators and boxes of Turkish delight that fire our imaginations and refuse to leave us, that create an impression so vivid and fond that they enter our very definition of magic. Try it on your parents, I tell them, try it on your teacher! Ask them to name their favourite magical objects, and I wager that many if not most of them will come from books written for you.
Isn’t that exciting, I say, that it is the books written for you that create some of the most powerful magic. What does that say about your imaginations? Your capacity to create magic in your minds?
And isn’t that exciting for us, we who write some of these books, and work with them, and teach them, and read them with our children. Of course all this raises the question, why is Middle Grade so good at creating these magical objects? And how does it do it?
Read the rest of the post here: http://middlegradestrikesback.blogspo...
Rings, Wardrobes and Magic Mushrooms
Magical Objects in Middle Grade Fiction
I am lucky enough to be spending quite a bit of time in schools at the moment, talking to children about creating magic in writing. One of the first things I ask them to do is to shout out their favourite magical object in any book they’ve read. I stand poised to write the answers on the whiteboard and often there’s a hesitation – not because no one can think of an answer, but because they’re wondering where to start. A fraction of a second later, when I hear that first cry of “Harry’s wand!” or "the Wishing Chair!" the flood gates open and the workshop is carried away on a tide of fantastical artifacts.
Often the first in that flood are those from the titles of the classics, like the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the ring of The Lord of the Rings and the Faraway Tree in, well, The Magic Faraway Tree. Sometimes there are other iconic objects from the classics like the magic mushroom in Alice in Wonderland, the grandfather clock in Tom's Midnight Garden and the book in The Neverending Story. Usually there are more recent ones like the Alethiometer in His Dark Materials or Percy Jackson’s sword, Riptide. Sometimes we get lost in the wondrous inventory of a single title, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I’ll be kept busy at the whiteboard with chocolate waterfalls, Television Chocolate, Everlasting Gobstoppers and the like. Of course one title – or set of titles – offers the best hunting ground, and normally the session contains a deluge of objects from the pages of Harry Potter, from the Invisibility Cloak and broomsticks, to the Marauder’s Map and Horcruxes. Very soon I am running out of whiteboard space, and I call for mercy.
And then we look at my scrawl, and congratulate ourselves on knowing an awful lot of magic. I try to make my fledgling magicians feel even more chuffed with themselves by telling them that if I had done the same thing with a room full of adults, the list would be no longer (perhaps shorter), and it would contain many of the same artifacts. Why? Because literature for this agegroup – our very own Middle Grade – excels at magical objects. Middle Grade is the heartland of the fantastical Thing. This is where we find the looking glasses and glass elevators and boxes of Turkish delight that fire our imaginations and refuse to leave us, that create an impression so vivid and fond that they enter our very definition of magic. Try it on your parents, I tell them, try it on your teacher! Ask them to name their favourite magical objects, and I wager that many if not most of them will come from books written for you.
Isn’t that exciting, I say, that it is the books written for you that create some of the most powerful magic. What does that say about your imaginations? Your capacity to create magic in your minds?
And isn’t that exciting for us, we who write some of these books, and work with them, and teach them, and read them with our children. Of course all this raises the question, why is Middle Grade so good at creating these magical objects? And how does it do it?
Read the rest of the post here: http://middlegradestrikesback.blogspo...
