Writing for Children: Advice from Sally Nicholls

Sally Nicholls is a British children’s author who has written award-winning novels such as Ways to Live Forever, Season of Secrets and All Fall Down. At Bath Spa University, we were lucky to hear her share her experiences in writing.

She was very approachable, so I will refer to her as Sally in this article

Her Writing Process

Sally stressed that her process is by no means the only or “right” one, and that many writers work in different ways.

Inspiration

She starts with an idea and often no plot.

She said that most stories have a plot that is very simple:

1. Somebody wants something
2. They try to get it
3. What happens…?

There are the additions of an antagonist and subplots, but basically, this is it.

 Filling in the blanks

Usually Sally has a few scenes in mind, so she writes them out. She is also aware of the overall structure. For example, in Close Your Pretty Eyes, she knew that the main character, Olivia, would want to defeat the ghost (step 1), that she'd try to defeat it using various strategies (step 2), and that she would defeat the ghost in the end (step 3). What Sally didn't know was how Olivia would defeat the ghost and how damaged she'd be after the battle.

What to do when you get stuck

1.      Go out somewhere with a pen and paper and just write, perhaps about what is around you. Just write anything. Pen to paper. Go.





You can write anywhere--on the bus, on a park bench, on a river stream at your local rainforest... 

2.     Leave it on the backburner. I was particularly fond of this advice. Richard Carlson references this principle in his book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (click here for my article on this book). It means that if you’re stuck on a problem, go away and do something else for a while—a day, a week, a month—and hold the problem in your mind without trying to solve it consciously. Then a different, often more intelligent, part of your mind will work on it for you. Otherwise known as the ‘sleep on it’ method.

3.      Add in a subplot. However, this might not be ideal for beginners because it might get confusing. 
4.      Find the character’s voice by creating a few chapters where the character talks about themselves (eg. their likes, dislikes, and interests). Or they might take the reader on a tour around their home. There are other methods of exploring character as well, like thinking about their appearance and how this character would enter a room (their mannerisms, etc).  

More on character

Sally thinks of the idea for her story before she thinks about the characters (though, as she said, other authors have the opposite approach). For example, in Ways to Live Forever, a book about a boy with Leukaemia who tries to do all the things on his bucket list before he dies, Sally knew that the boy would have to be fairly scientifically minded so that the book wouldn’t be too depressing. She knew she wanted to make her readers laugh, so the boy would have to have a sense of humour. He should approach the list as if it were quest, so he would have to have a sense of adventure. Other aspects of his character happened more organically.

Researching her stories

For her books about children with specific illnesses, Sally looked at blogs from parents of children with the particular illness to get a sense of the behaviours the child might have.

 How she got into Children’s writing

She’d always known that she liked to write stories, but towards the end of her final year of studying Literature and Psychology, she started to fret about the specific career path she might take. She was flipping through a booklet about MA options (an MA is like Masters degree), diligently writing down a lot of boring courses she could do. Then she flipped the page and found an MA in Children’s Writing. This caught her attention for a few reasons:

1. She had always read and loved children’s novels.
2. You could have so much fun with writing for children. You can add in fairies and all sorts of fantastical elements.
3. She likes that 8-12 year old age group because children of that age are so in flux and are still deciding who they are, whereas adults are more or less set in their ideas about their own identity and life plan, etc.
4. When you write for young people, you are writing in a voice that is different from your own, and that can feel quite liberating.

Final look at story ideas

Sally had an idea for a story. It would be set in Edwardian times. She pitched it to the editor but he rejected it, saying that the publishers were after a modern, emotion-driven story.
She felt stumped. Then she asked herself, ‘What are the books I like and have always secretly wanted to write?’ She thought about it on and off for about a week. She came up with a few different books (including Casson Family: Saffy's Angel by Hilary McKay and Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute). Thinking about what she liked about each of them (eg. plot aspects, use of humour, characters), she crafted a novel with those same elements.

Read Your Work Aloud

Her final tip was to read aloud. She stressed this a lot. It’s a good way of picking up on awkward phrasing or unnecessary words (I know we hear that advice all the time in class, but it’s a good reminder to actually do it).

Drafting

She would write without restraint, then in her redrafts, often reduce the word count to about a third of its original length. Occasionally the words that were cut would make it back into the novel, but most of the time it would stay out. Some of her author friends have recommended a program called Scrivener, which is used to write and store large writings such as a novel. This was recommended to me in another workshop, see here footnotes from that workshop on Young Adult Writing.

Sally writes a few novels at a time. Justine, the author from the other workshop, did this as well. I like this method because then if you don’t feel like working on a particular story one day or if you’re stuck, you can be editing or working on another story. Great for multi-taskers.

Follow Sally on Twitter @Sally_Nicholls