Children are fickle, aren’t they? One day they like grapes, the next they can’t stand them and it’s all about blueberries. Then avocado. Then back to grapes, but only green ones. It feels the same with bedtime reading. How do you manage to hold a child’s attention? That was the subject of tonight’s input, led by Maggie Bolton.
Maggie’s emphasis was very much on the importance of the people in your story. “No wooden characters” (don’t tell Pinocchio). In her own words, based on her experience, “Don’t waste a good plot with characters that are two dimensional”.
What brings more than one dimension to a character? Understanding that they are more than a device to move a plot on. They should have a personality and a history, that makes the reader interested in them, for example:
- What do they love and hate?
- What is their problem?
- What do they want or need – quite often, these may not be the same thing.
Where to start? Maggie recommends spending time getting the name right. It needs to fit the time of the story and maybe even give some clue to personality. She reminded us that we were considering younger readers – the importance of not having too many names that are similar, starting with the same letter or are difficult to pronounce. This seemed like good advice, for adults, let alone children.
There was some discussion on how much physical description of characters should be given. Do you leave the reader’s imagination to its own devices or do children want some of the work done for them – they don’t want to work too hard. Striking a balance between the two can be tricky.
We spent some time individually thinking about character names and descriptions, inspired by a random collection of photographs Maggie had brought in. I chose a guinea pig. I decided to call it NikNok, a fidgety character who could do a thing well, but only for 30 seconds before it has to repeat whatever it is doing. And it goes on about trolls a lot. (I don’t know where I get this stuff from).
Maggie then spoke about the importance of dialogue, which can either move the plot on or tell you something about the characters. Of course, it isn’t just what characters say but how they say it. Maggie gave us a selection of phrases and asked us to come up with two versions of dialogue using the same phrase. Looking back over my notes, I quite like my attempt, which I was too shy to read out, so here it is:
FIRST VERSION
CHARACTER 1: That’s just unbelievable.
CHARACTER 2: Ah’m telling you, that’s whit happened.
CHARACTER 1: Go through it again.
CHARACTER 2: Well, I was walking along the road.
CHARACTER 1: Uh huh.
CHARACTER 2: Minding me ain when ah heard this voice shouting ‘help’.
CHARACTER 1: ‘Help’?
CHARACTER 2: Aye – an’ I saw the window for the flat above the chemist’s was open, so ah shoutit – ‘Who’s that?’
CHARACTER 1: Yeah?
CHARACTER 2: And a wee voice shouts back ‘Help’. So ah climb in. Then I walked forward and fell through this hole in the flair. Into the chemists! So the guy that was shouting for help – I think he was in there tanning the place – he asks me for a punt up so he could get out. So ah did that, but he ran off when he heard yous coming. I know it looks bad, like.
SECOND VERSION
CHARACTER 1: Whit d’you think to that diddy that gave us a punt oot the chemists. The polis wull’ve huckled him. Daftie – one minute you’re walking along minding your own business, the next you’re in the jail. That’s just unbelievable.
Overall, Maggie had clearly put a lot of time and effort into her evening, and I certainly learnt something from it, as I am sure others did.
In other news the competition winners were announced for the short story for a women’s magazine, judged by Kate Blackadder. The results were:
1st – Planning on Rannoch Hill by Matt Richardson
2nd – City Girls by Patricia Thomson
3rd – Weekend Away by Carolyn O’Hara
(Apologies for any misspelt names)
Finally, we were reminded about the Christmas Night Out at Waterstones on December 14th. Carrie has raffle tickets in support of this, so please bring your wallets and purses to the next session, which will be a panel night hearing from those who have travelled along different routes towards publishing.
Andy Fairlie