The most common themes in children’s writing are not unsurprisingly themselves and their own lives. Their early stories are adaptions of their current reality, usually including their family members and set at home or at school, perhaps a holiday setting adding a bit of colour.
Some children find it difficult to break away from the mundanity of humdrum life to be able to write a more fantastical story or even one which is more interesting within their normal life setting.
Quickly looking at some of the most popular children’s fiction we can see that there are a few simple devices that are employed by the writer to allow the story to happen. They can invoke adventure in an ordinary setting by employing an unusual circumstance (The Secret Garden), transport an extraordinary character into an ordinary setting (Stig of the Dump) or transport and ordinary character into an fantastical situation (The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe) or have fantastical worlds populated by fantastical people (The Northern Lights). Most stories aimed at children fall into one or more of these options.
Since most young writers begin by writing about themselves or characters based on themselves or people they know, the second port of call after having ordinary people having stories in the contemporary real world, is to transport the ordinary character into more outrageous adventure.
Here are a few devices that have been employed in popular books:
- Children sent away to a mysterious relation or new house, far away (Through wartime evacuation: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. For recuperation from an illness: Worzel Gummidge)
- A child finds a secret door to another world (The wardrobe in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, the looking glass in Alice Through the Looking Glass)
- A child find he/she has special latent powers attainted from birth or accident (Harry Potter, Spiderman)
- A child must undergo a quest that takes them on a long journey, sometimes to escape from poverty or having become an orphan, or to rescue parents, siblings or friends (Most fairy stories, notably The Snow Queen)
- Children discover a magic totem whose power or significance invokes magic and adventure. (His Dark Materials)
- A mysterious ‘other’ arrives and whips away children on adventures (Doctor Who, The Phoenix and the Carpet)
Let’s help our children invent their own short cuts to even greater adventures.
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