Don’s Comments (group member since Oct 09, 2016)

Don’s comments from the K I D L I T Creators group.

For Secrets of the Heartlands, Book 2 of the Lion City Adventures series, I wrote about the old housing estates of Singapore. The neighbourhoods where people have lived and raised families and kept their communities alive with fun and food and family gatherings. It was a celebration of everyday life and everyday people.

But for Island of Legends, Book 3, I wanted to explore another side of Singapore. Its superheroes. The stuff of legends!

When you’re young, superhero stories are particularly captivating. They feature interesting characters, blessed with a special power or two, or a rare talent, doing their best to be helpful to others, even to the point of making a really big sacrifice.

What makes such a story work is not the special power that the superhero has. Instead, it’s the scale of the challenge that she has to tackle. How big is the danger? How dangerous is the journey? What will happen if she fails?

For children, it’s a lot more fun to encounter superheroes who might not be that super themselves. Characters who fumble, panic, get distracted, make silly jokes. But by the end of the book, we want to see that they’ve managed to pull their act together and finish their adventure, solve the mystery, win the prize.

It’s also a real joy to read about superheroes that come from our own communities. We feel like we are part of their world, and we actually own them in some way.

Princess Radin Mas Ayu, for example, who lived about five hundred years ago, was known during her time for her beauty. But she’s now remembered across the ages for her bravery instead, because at the top of the hill, where Fort Canning is today, she tried to save her father from some treacherous enemies in the royal court.

Or take the example of the young boy who came up with the idea to build a long wall made of banana stems, so that the killer swordfish would get stuck in them when they tried to attack the fishermen. With his clever invention he managed to save an entire village from the savage attacks.

Or take another example, the magical turtle of Kusu Island, which appeared one day during a terrible storm and saved two old friends who were lost out at sea and had no hope of getting back safely.

These might look like humble folk tales, but at the heart of it they are truly superhero stories. Our very own superhero stories!
Children need superheroes that they can relate to. That they can identify with. That they understand, and feel like they have a connection to in some way. It’s so much fun to insert my jokes here and there too.
This is how we help keep the legends alive for another generation!

When you write a story, it’s always an exciting experience if you’re writing about the things you know and love. The words come faster, the feelings are more vivid, the ideas just soar right out of your head and onto the page. They take on a life of their own. Your book writes itself.

Secrets of the Heartlands, Book 2 of the Lion City Adventures series, is packed with so many things about old Singapore that I honestly love. Yes, it close to wrote itself. What you love is what makes you feel alive. And once you are inspired by this buzz in your head, it shows in your creativity.

Ask any involved parent, he or she will readily confirm that they spend a lot of time sharing stories with their children. You can tell stories about your grandparents. Your childhood. What you did with your friends in school. What you did during your school breaks and festival days. The places around Singapore that you looked forward to visiting, and the ones that you didn’t. Each one is massively fascinating in its own way.

Here’s one story in Secrets of the Heartlands that I love: the story of the Quests, Singapore’s very first pop star band. In 1961, some students at Queenstown Secondary Technical School started a music group to play rock ’n’ roll. Their school’s newsletter was called “The Quest”. This became the name of their new band. They eventually performed in packed halls in Malaysia, Brunei and Hong Kong. Teenagers turned up to scream and dance and sing along. What a great success story. Love it!

Here’s another story in the book that I love: the story of Singapore’s own Cinema King. In the early 1900s, Lim Nee Soon was a rich land owner in the north of Singapore. His son Lim Chong Pang loved movies, and ended up opening cinemas in this area. People were so amazed by his success, they nicknamed him “Cinema King”.

Also, Lim Nee Soon and Lim Chong Pang might be the most amazing father-and-son duo to have Singapore estates named after them. Love it!

Children really pick up on stories like this. When they see or hear about or read about people who are exceptionally passionate about a cause, they feel energised. They also remember the feeling afterwards. It helps to motivate them.

Once your children have the confidence to ask questions and develop their own talents, they’ll enjoy the learning process. They’ll develop into confident and clever people. And their schoolwork will get better. So it’s worth it.

In the meantime, just share with them these stories. So that they can grow to love the Secrets of our Heartlands. So that they can dare to create their own adventures. They’ll love it!

Every successful writer has a unique voice. A writing style that you can recognise. A creative and artistic signature. It’s made up of many things — vocabulary, the rhythm of the words, the types of descriptions, the way the setting is created, the way the characters are introduced and developed, even the way you add the funny parts.

Once you find your voice, once you figure out your own unique way of writing about all these things, that’s when your best work comes out of you. You no longer spend your time struggling to string together generic phrases and stock sentences. Instead, you just allow your storytelling voice to take over. The result is that your stories sparkle. Your books are special. What a joy that is.

But how do you find your voice? Here’s a simple tip.

Take a legend or folk tale, something you’re familiar with, something that you’re sure others will also know well. See how you might rewrite this in your own style.

Ask yourself: how would you make the characters in the legend more interesting, and also more fascinating? How would you tweak the story events to make them more gripping? To create a greater sense of drama?

How would you bring out the sparkle and mystery and adventure, so that readers get lost in your telling, and they start to realise that perhaps they might even enjoy your version the best?

This is what I did with the legends of Singapore for the third Lion City Adventures book. You might have already heard about Badang the hero, perhaps the strongest man in Singapore’s history. Well, if you read this book you’ll get to enjoy my very own version of this. And also my own version of how the coast of Singapore was once attacked by killer swordfish. And also my version of how some enemies from up north came to attack Singapore many hundreds of years ago but we were saved by a great wall that protected the city.

As a writer, I believe that the heroes in folk tales and legends are here to inspire us. They make sure that we rise to the challenge and bring out the most exceptional and emotionally resonant ideas that lie within us. When we create from the best of our ability, like this, that’s when we truly discover our creative potential, and that’s how memorable stories are written.

It’s quite a simple process, once you’re willing to try it. You’ll be inspired to work on your own stories even more. You’ll be able to share your art with all of us. Can you imagine how exciting that feels?

Enjoy these legends and pass on the experience to others if you can, the way these stories have been shared with you. Stories come to life when they bring us together like this.

Write your own legends. Or draw them. Or create songs about them. The Lion City Adventuring Club would be so proud of you.