Monday 25 November 2024
After convincing myself that I not only can but must write a children’s book, I next posed to myself the following technical questions: Whom would I be writing for? (target audience); What kind of story—fiction or nonfiction? (genre); and What would be the narrative drama? (in other words, What would be the point?) Of course, I wrestled with other practical matters.
Writing for a toddler or very young person seemed a task too difficult for an emerging children’s book writer like me because speaking to this specific audience, I think, requires a seasoned creative experience of writing for young children which I don’t have. Yes, I am a father, and I did read to my children, and I did make up stories to supplement their favorite books; however, my unconscious mind is telling me I should write for an older audience.
I also didn’t want to write for a so-called “young adult” audience because that would mean high school students—which in another sense—would mean first-year college students, a demographic to which I currently teach. No, I said, persuading myself not to write for adult readers, meaning college educated because I wouldn’t be writing for children.
I was thinking of middle school readers… they seem old enough to understand the world and all of its complexities. King Arthur agreed. He also reminded me that I don’t necessarily need to abandon entirely my “doom and gloom Dan” sensibilities. This reading audience wouldn’t be scared off by dark themes.
Nonetheless, King Arthur and I both arrived at the same conclusion: the point for me to write a children’s book is to allay my “doom and gloom Dan” sensibilities, focusing on a more optimistic, hopeful resolution or counterbalance to tragedy. Would having a redemption story of an old man–a child’s grandparent?–constitute this new direction in my creative writing career? Maybe?
Long before resolving these above artistic dilemmas, for some unconscious reason, which I’m slowly beginning to understand why, I gravitated toward writing the entire book in a sequence of letters. Of course, an artist doesn’t publicly explain his “motivation” or “reason” behind his art; eventually, when this children’s book is published, you can hypothesize as to why I wrote it. Until then….
I have taught several well-known letters: Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail, a defense from the criticism of white clergymen;” Ernst Stuhlinger’s response letter to Zambia-based nun, Sister Mary Jucunda, a defense of the “necessity” of funding NASA; Katharine Hepburn’s “What did you say? I can’t hear you…” letter to Spencer Tracy—written decades after his death—a defense of herself…. Students enjoyed studying these “artifacts” because letter writing is a lost art. They discovered things in the process of letter writing and reading letters that emails, texts, and other modern-day communication formats don’t allow for. They also enjoyed writing “response” letters to the historic letters we study.
So, if you, Reader, are looking for a psychoanalytic, potential reason, then, perhaps my teaching could be one “why” for writing a children’s book.
At the same time, writing the children’s book as a series of letters will curb my tendency to write long chapters, and hence another long book. One practical lesson I have learned from blogging for one year is conciseness. Granted, I still do publish “long” blogs; however, the sentences and paragraphs tend to be much shorter than my traditional scholarly output. Consider my Herman Melville book for comparison….
I know that I have entered the early stage of becoming a children’s book writer; however, I have entitled this work-in-progress, “Unopened Letters.” The original recipient never opened them; however, their child discovers them in a dusty box in the attic addressed to their parent. And the letter writer is…. The child’s grandparent, which they have never met.
So, yes, Reader, there are elements of: mystery, reunion, redemption (possibly… no, very likely), and other aspects that I’m working through.
This blog about becoming a children’s book writer will be the last one for some time. However, I will explore the field of children’s books, movies, and art in future blogs. A colleague from my graduate school days suggested a write a review of the film, The Neverending Story, a movie I watched for the first time just days ago. I was “researching” children’s stories.
Along with my graduate school colleague, other people expressed surprise that I hadn’t seen the film; I’m more shocked than they are. What was I thinking on 20 July 1984 when The Neverending Story was released by its filmmaker? And yes (I admitted to another life-long friend), I haven’t seen The Princess Bride (1987) and Labyrinth (1986). More research.