Working in Wonderland
Cliff McNish talks to Anita Loughrey about the differences between writing for children and writing for adults.
In some way children's and Young Adult books are all about first experiences - first day at school, first pet, first test of conscience, first love. They're all about becoming something, maturing; and mostly the children win through, they blossom.
Whereas adult stories are primarily about withstanding life. They're about enduring what life throws at us, about coping, and we tend to like those stories that show adults doing so with dignity and a certain steadfastness, which means the action and emotions are very different.
Romantically, for example, it's no longer usually about that first kiss and rush of hormones. It's about the loss of that love, or finding second love, which is harder, and adult characters are often not blossoming but surviving.
My favourite thing about writing for children is the return to innocence. A way back to that purity you had as a child, when all your experiences are so vivid, you are so open to them, and exuberance hasn't yet been tempered by grim age and a certain world-weariness. I'm trying to create my own Wonderland all the time.
Adult readers, as well as writers, are trying to find their way back to their own Wonderlands. You only have to look at a synopsis of the average adult novel to realise a stark truth: that we still love to read about child-like characters. By which I mean those characters who are not too bowed down by life's worries, they are finding that innocence and bravery and purity of purpose they had as children all over again.
A Wonderland, by the way, isn't 'what you think a child aged 10-15 would find interesting nowadays in a story'. It's what you find exciting now as an adult. Don't self-edit. Just come up with a creation that excites you. If you want to write a children's book, it will find its own way to become that.
Populate it exclusively with things you want in it. That way you'll be passionate about it. And please, please, try to be as original as you can. If you create a goblin, it needs to be different to any other goblin to stand a chance.
Try always to come up with your own vision. In my ghost novel Breathe, I created the Nightmare Passage, an endless plain of wind that drags the souls of children along forever. It's the most original part of the book and the part people almost always remember most, though it only features in about 20 pages of the entire novel.
At the moment, I'm writing a new novel aimed at teens, and I've also been dabbling on and off with both adult horror writing and children's picture books. It's amazing to go between the two. A lovely heart-warming story for children, with minor twists, can become devastatingly scary. The actual 'writing' for children is not even slightly different from the 'writing' for adults. People often point out what are seen as the 'obvious' differences: vocabulary, level of complexity and a nagging need to write a 'happy' ending for kids, to 'give them hope'.
If you really believe these shibboleths, I'd like to challenge you. Yes, to vocabulary with younger children, obviously, but there is almost no difference between top end YA and adult fiction as far as plot or language are concerned.
The proof of that is the fact that Frances Hardinge won the adult British Fantasy A ward for her so-called YA novel Cuckoo Song, and a few years ago Margo Lanagan' s Tender Morsels, originally marketed as YA, won the World Fantasy Award.
Actually, I would argue that the plot of the best novels aimed at eight year olds upwards, like JK Rowling's Horrible Potties series (only joking, Jo!), often have as many plot complexities and twists as your average adult fantasy novel. Kids can handle all sorts of narrative trickery.
And as for happy endings ... the truth is (shush) that the majority of adults like happy, closed endings to stories about as much as kids. It's true, it's true.
And who are the readers out there able to handle dark stuff? The adults? Sure. Some. But a lot of middle-aged adults I know really don't read that sort of thing any more. They prefer safer writerly climbs. Newsnight is bad enough (for me anyway; I hide behind the sofa). It's kids - especially teens - who love to immerse themselves in the darker side and, trust me, they can take any kind of ending you give them as long as its well-crafted.
A great children's book makes me - an adult - want to read it over and over again. Alexis Deacon's Beegu is a picture book that is a perfect mixture of tenderness, warmth, humour and a positive message about the love children offer.
Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is a perfect way to turn the ordinary world into a dangerous fantasy one, while Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is a book I come back to time and time again, because the author manages to create the ultimate true boy hero, someone you admire from the depths of your soul.
Who doesn't want to create characters like that? ls that latter SF novel for teens or adults? It's truly for both. All the great children's books are for everyone.
I've often reread Ender's Game when I want to be reminded what delivers characters we love. I'd recommend you do the same: take your very favourite books and analyse in detail what the author does to make you so impressed. lt will teach you far more than any standard guide.
So, if you want to write for children, there's nothing you shouldn't do. Finish a piece of work, put your heart into it, write without self-editing, and only then get the opinions of others. As soon as you self-edit you end up losing your nerve and writing, at best, the commonplace. Anyone can write that.
Be brave, throw it out to the world. Then cringingly edit if you have to. (And I've been there many times!)
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