Power sockets and tips for writing a children’s story

What I’ve just realized is that pre-censorship can modify a writer’s approach in more than one way. On a superficial level, the main concern seems to be the topic of the story. An experienced writer will know that dealing with themes such as death, violence, sex, drug use is likely to lead to rejection. Quality and marketability are intertwined in contemporary literature, and sometimes the latter alone is enough to invest in the production of a “mass-market” book. On the contrary, quality that may not sell tends to be problematic. So the children’s author needs to identify her own position in the “literary economy”. The more awarness of that, the better.

However, it’s been really interesting for me to find out yet more ways in which a children’s writer can be influenced when confronting the blank page. My research highlights how the publishing market, as a part of the culture industry, establishes different boundaries in order to favour marketability. Even the very existence of age groups can be seen as one of these boundaries, since Young Adult means “suitable for 13 upwards” but also “we’re defining reading as an age-controlled activity, therefore we are enabled to decide what a teeanger is capable of reading and the target of the books we are producing”. And that’s eerie, if I think that I read “Anna Karenina” when I was 15.

Moreover, when a writer begins a story, besides considering theme and age group, she’s aware – or she should be – that production costs can sway a publisher’s final decision. Books like “Cathy’s book” or “Building Stories” by Chris Ware are really rare, and the main boundary to creativity can actually be the budget. As I assemble my fake dossier for the MA dissertation, I feel it works well because it engages the reader in reordering the story, an activity teenagers enjoy*. But I also know that it would never be published in the real world. A fake dossier made up of loose sheets, pictures, letters and cds, would cost a fortune to produce and, with no guarantee of reader response – since it is a new form – it simply wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

We could add language, setting and conventions (what is a children’s book?) to the list of boundaries a children’s writer must face. You are usually not allowed to employ strong or difficult language, for example, or locations that appear too “exotic”. It must be said that for English-speaking people “exotic” seems to mean anything coming from outside of their geographical borders. I once heard a British editor talk about picture books in England and she was very concerned about the representation of power sockets on walls. “What if an American illustrator includes an American power socket in the image? How are British children going to understand that it’s a power socket?”. Honestly, I laughed. I really think that adults can sometimes underestimate children’s ability to decode the world. Also, I’m not sure how limiting the range of children's experience will help them improve their skills.

In conclusion, being a children’s writer means coming up with a good story, writing it with competence, trying to be original while avoiding all the obstacles to marketability, and considering children’s abilities as perceived by adults. An interesting lesson for whoever thinks that writing for children is a stroll in Wonderland...

*Heath and Wolf, 2012