Last night we went to the cinema to watch The Sheep Detectives . It was a great, fun film packed with all the rollercoaster emotions you want from any movie. Interestingly, despite the fact the film was perhaps aged at a younger audience, everyone at the screening was quite a bit older. We made a comment later that, despite the fact the film is a PG rating, there was no way any of my nieces would be able to handle it. But the most appealing thing about the film was just how appealing it was! It was a murder mystery, of course, but it also bordered on drama, comedy, and romance. It certainly catered for all ages, with some of the references and topics which would be completely lost on young children. And it was not afraid to deal with some pretty brutal topics. In many respects, we expect these genre-collisions in films - we applaud them and celebrate them as crafty and creative. It's a shame, I think, that many books which portray a similar mixed approach at often overlooked as di...
In the beautiful photo album that my mum and dad gave me for my 21st birthday (although I should give an extra grateful nod to Mum, as I’m quite sure she put it together!), there is a single sheet of paper.
It’s that thin, cream coloured paper which looks almost like it’s what people print receipts on and, with the passage of time or just the poor quality printing, you have to squint slightly to make out what is printed on it.
It is, in fact, the oldest of my stories. A wonderful little story about Vikings, which includes fabulous lines such as:
- “I used to be a warrior but I am a busy man.” Olaf gasped. “You are strong, but not in wisdom.”
- (Thora) relized that her mother was pushing them into the lavortry (which was only a hut with a hole in) and away they went.
- “Where is she? inquired Thora. That was the question that was most used.
I would have been about seven when I wrote the story, a year or two younger than the children I am teaching at the moment. I remember writing another one about someone who grew up and went away to university, where I mixed up the words “sure” and “sore”, leading to a lot of hilarity from my eldest sister.
It is easy to look at the poor story as a cautionary tale: Here There Be Dragons, And Really, Really Awful Writing.
But, to be fair, it was written by a seven-year-old.
I take the same approach when I redraft something for the first time. All I’m bothered about in the beginning is having a story down on paper. Once that’s done, I’ll sometimes hand it on to two of my sisters for reading, then I’ll attack it viciously with a coloured pen. I love pens. This morning, I bought a set of purple, pink and blue pens from Tesco for only 38p. Bic no less! It made my day!
I usually keep that first draft somewhere, hidden away, in case (of course) I ever become famous and can sells it for millions. I wonder if JK Rowling has a pen-riddled draft of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, where the writing is almost unrecognisably bad but the plot and characters show the skeleton and sinew of the story.
I haven’t got the heart to scribble all over the two page story about Olaf and Thora. They are characters of innocence and they don’t deserve a nearly-thirty-year-old to attack them with bright pink comments about how bits don’t make sense and where-on-earth-did-that-character-come-from?!
Matthew and Alexander, however, which I finished back in February, has no such excuse. It just has to wait until I have time to burn it with the Editing Pen so that, like a phoenix, it can rise from the ashes and become something beautiful.
Or that’s the theory, anyway.
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