Imagination at Full Speed

Imagination at Full Speed

February 13, 2012 · by em · in , ,

 

I wouldn’t be the first writer to have been asked: “When are you going to write some proper books? Like, for adults?” Any children’s / YA writer reading this is now nodding vigorously and the room is shaking with the butterfly effect.

 

But that’s okay. Some people left childhood reading behind and have no desire to go back there. We can all just roll our eyes in a gigantic-sarcastic Mexican wave. What I find interesting is how hard I have to work to let my mind be as free as it needs to be to write something that will appeal to a child. Because their minds are different. Their imagination is such that while when writers hit the note the child has the imagination to fill in all the blanks, in the first place the writer has to remember what it’s like not to be so tied down in reality.

 

Take my son, who recently asked me: “Mum, how big is a thief?” “Um, it depends,” I said. “Humans come in all shapes and sizes.” He gasped, “You mean a thief is the same size AS A HUMAN??” “A thief IS a human,” I replied. He looked at me like I’d just come down in the last shower. “Mum, a thief is a creature. They’re quite small actually. Like the one who took my scooter from the porch when I was three. That was a thief, right?”

 

And at this point I thought to myself – do I tell him that the scooter-thief was a young man who’d just rolled out of a pub on a Sunday night? Or do I let him think there really are Borrower-types lurking around? I don’t know where he got his information from – he hasn’t actually read The Borrowers or seen the movie, and he couldn’t tell me how he knew about these creatures, these tiny devilish thieves. I suspect they’d existed in his head for two years, unchecked by the boring reality, perhaps influenced by other fantastical stories.

 

I did try to set him straight but I don’t think he believed me. After all, his story is much better.

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