How to Write a Story: Schools Version

I will shortly go into my kids’ primary school to tell a class of children about my career as a writer.

Before anyone starts looking up the Childline number, let me add that this is not my career as KJ Charles, purveyor of bonking with body count to the discerning romancer, but an alternate existence in which I wrote a children’s book. Yes, I know that one book doesn’t make a career, and this one certainly didn’t, but my kids brought it in to show their teachers, and this is the local state school and they take what they can get.

So I have been asked to do ‘how to write a story’ workshops with year 4, which is to say eight-year-olds. Since I actually have an eight-year-old, who was sitting there when I got the “invitation” (“do feel free to say no, just pop a note in your son’s homework book”, the letter said, with just a mere breath of horse’s-head-in-the-bed implication), I thought I’d ask her opinion.

Me: What would you like to ask a writer if one came into your class?

Daughter: That would be awesome! I’d ask loads of things! I’d love to meet a writer!

Me: … I live in the same house as you. I gave birth to you. I’m standing right here.

Daughter: Yeah, but, you know. [dismissive wave]

Me: Right, well, if you met a writer who wasn’t your mum, what would awesome things would you ask them?

/pause/

Daughter: Where do you get your ideas?

Me: Go to your room.

Further polling of eight-year-olds, a renewable resource around here, suggests that this is honestly the first thing they all want to know. (Second is “Who is your inspirational figure?” which is a question they are ordered to answer on a termly basis, and have been trained to chant at any adult school visitor, so I’m going to have to think of an answer that isn’t “my mortgage lender”.)

Unfortunately, “Where do you get your ideas?” is an impossible question. Looking at my published novels, my inspiration from my work to date is:

  • A child’s misunderstanding of a folk-rhyme
  • A private joke in a Sherlock Holmes story
  • A mix-up involving office staff with easily confused names
  • An apocryphal anecdote about Queen Victoria
  • Watching my aunt paint
  • A villainous character’s backstory
  • Random arrangement of alphabet fridge magnets
  • A single background line in a short story (which spawned an entire trilogy)
  • A thing I read about pottery.

This is the problem. If I could come up with a genuine, effective “how to write a story” that worked I wouldn’t be telling it to eight-year-olds in North London, because I’d have published it, made a fortune, and moved us to the countryside. I can’t tell you why those particular things snagged my imagination or how they fermented into plots, and then into stories, with characters. I have written often on this subject because I find it endlessly fascinating how ideas bubble up from the subconscious swamp, but I’m no closer to knowing why, let alone being able to make it happen on demand.

ThinkOfEngland72webThe truth is, there are no ‘ideas’. Books don’t (usually) emerge from the subconscious swamp like Luke Skywalker’s dripping X-Wing, more or less ready to fly. Think of England sprang from me getting told to do exactly that (at work, obviously) and daydreaming about the circumstances in which one would use that phrase in a romance. But that specifically inspired one single scene. The characters, the plot, the setting, all of the rest of it—they were from somewhere else. Where? Dunno. It’s a swamp down there.

I know what I’m going to do with the kids. I’m going to give them three things (eg a chair, a cat and a book) and ask them to note down the outline of the scene or story that suggests to them. And then we’re going to look at what I predict will be a dozen different scenes, from a wizard’s lair to a computer lab run by cats to a Book-Winged Cat Monster hitting its enemy with a chair (I’ve met some of these kids before). And I’m going to tell them that they each have unique, different perspectives, they each have all the ideas they’ll ever need, and the only reason they might feel unimaginative is that they’re so used to the unique wonder of their own imagination that they don’t see it.

Because the problem with “How do you get your ideas?” is it suggests there’s a source of great ideas that writers ‘get’. Whereas in fact the only difference between writers and non-writers is that when these things drift like methane clouds across the subconscious swamp, writers stop to ask themselves, “And then what happened?”

And write down their conclusions, of course. But that’s a workshop for another day.

___________

KJ will doubtless be recounting the full horror of the schools visit on Twitter @kj_charles. Her new book, Rag and Bone, is out on 1 March. Blog, books, free reads and newsletter here.

10 Responses

  1. Anastasia
    Anastasia at |

    I really don’t get the appeal of “Where do you get your ideas” question – I mean, isn’t it obvious? In author interviews it always seems like a filler question, meaning the interviewer had no idea what else to ask.
    I’d rather ask about specific books, plots and characters if it was a writer I’m familiar with.

    Reply
    1. KJ Charles
      KJ Charles at |

      Oh, I hate that question. I always end up mumbling ‘dunno’ bcause if I answer I sound like a space cadet.

      Reply
  2. Lis
    Lis at |

    You have explained something to me! My mother was a writer. She used to infuriate me when I told her anecdotes about my day at school, or later at work. However well I told the story, she always asked, ‘And then what happened?’

    Reply
    1. KJ Charles
      KJ Charles at |

      Well, on the one hand, it’s always a valid question. and on the other, that’s *really annoying*.

      Reply
  3. helenajust
    helenajust at |

    I remember very clearly as a child having whole imaginary conversations in my head as I walked along, or thought about what I’d really like to say to Miss X (a teacher), etc.. (And I still do.) Also, don’t these children play “let’s pretend” with cars or dolls or their pets? I used to listen to my nieces building whole scenarios: “and then you said… and I said…and we went…”. I suspect that the children may not realise that being a writer is linked to that type of thing, stories you make up in one way or another but actually written down and refined.

    I do hope that they have time in their lives for a private life and just playing. Seems to me that many children thee days are so busy with different organised activities that just don’t get any time to themselves, and when they do they don’t know what to do.

    Reply
    1. KJ Charles
      KJ Charles at |

      Yes, I’ve done that all my life as well. It maddens me when I see children faced with some ghastly task (“Write a story that begins with a descriptive paragraph. Make sure you use plenty of connectives”) and blaming themselves that they can’t think of anything. I’ve seen my son crying that he hasn’t got any imagination, and this is a kid who can take a handful of cotton reels into an epic story of alliance, rebellion and all out war. Bah.

      Reply
  4. Cody Kennedy
    Cody Kennedy at |

    Great post, KJ.

    Reply
  5. lennanadams
    lennanadams at |

    Loved this! I wish I could be there to hear your talk, and what the kids’ stories/scenes are like. I recently did a similar talk at my 10 yr olds’ school about illustration – I thought it was really hard and am not sure I got much solid info across to the kids but my daughter was super proud, so there is that. 🙂 Good luck!

    Reply
  6. Brigid Marlin
    Brigid Marlin at |

    As a visionary painter I get asked this question over and over. I have evolved my answer, which never fails to please (or at least, shut them up) I say, “I just lower the bucket.” That’s what it feels like; just send down a bucket into the dark interior and deal with what comes up. Sometimes something powerful forces its way up, other times you have to winch hard to get the bucket up, but one thing never fails -if you sit down to work, and make yourself do the first few brushstrokes, something will emerge. It is making yourself start that is so difficult!

    Reply
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