'Standing on the shoulders of giants' - like Robert Paul Weston…

Abi Elphinstone  

There were two reasons I booked onto SCBWI’s Fantasy Writing for Young Readers workshop. Firstly, because the internationally award-winning author, Robert Paul Weston was leading it and secondly, because of the name of the location: The Theodore Bullfrog, in London. Possibly the most fantasy-appropriate name for a pub I’ve come across – sounds like a swash-buckling pirate or a devilish smuggler…

A packed upper room inside The Theodore Bullfrog

Marketed as a ‘Fantasy Writing’ workshop, I was hoping to come away with a few tricks of the trade, but what Weston offered up was nothing short of a lowdown on EVERYTHING you need to know about writing a bestselling MG/YA fantasy novel. Admin note to SCBWI: amend the workshop title to Fantasy Writing for Young Readers with Robert Paul Weston – comes with complete lowdown on writing bestsellers. BOOM.

Weston was approachable and instructive (not to mention ridiculously talented), and after his Fairytale Machine ice-breaker (think telepathic streets and trees that can fly), we looked at the ingredients of a captivating fantasy world: what makes it plausible, how to avoid info dumps, ways to make the world feel original…

 The 'what if ' spreads through your whole world.

Weston also  introduced us to two words that have already transformed the new series I’m planning: WHAT IF. ‘The what if spreads through your whole world. Check out Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights – what if a person’s soul is represented by an animal… The book hinges on this idea and even the first line of Chapter One punches that what if home: ‘Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening Hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.’

From settings we explored the ‘9 traits of sympathetic characters’ – possibly the most instructive 9-step powerpoint slide I’ve seen (I reckon Weston could sell it on ebay for a few thousand…) and the ingredients of a compelling first person narrator: ‘There’s not much point having a first person narrator unless they speak in an interesting way. Take Moira Young’s Blood Red Road – the narrative voice is compelling and it works.’

We tackled the art of ‘being funny’ with Weston succinctly revealing that ‘funniness is about unpredicted endings, right from sentence level to scene level’, and looked at the concepts of conflict and suspense.

Conflict: I want something.

Suspense: will you get it? 

The finale saw us working on structure – the ebbs and flows of action and happy versus tragic endings – with every point backed up by an example from a fantasy novel. My ‘To Buy’ book list is now as tall as Hogwarts…

It was an invaluable workshop (enhanced by the fact that the pub served amaaaaazing pizza at lunch) and if Gandalf is the wisest fantasy character out there, then Weston is one of the wisest creative writing tutors I’ve come across. I’m very pleased to be standing (not literally, because that would be weird) on the shoulders of fantasy giants like him.

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Abi Elphinstone grew up in Scotland where she spent most of her childhood building dens, hiding in tree houses and running wild across highland glens. After being coaxed out of her tree house, Abi studied English at Bristol University and then worked as an English teacher in Africa, Berkshire and London. Her debut children’s novel for 9-12year-olds, Oracle Bones, will be published by Simon & Schuster early 2015, with the sequel, Soul Splinter, out the following year. Abi runs a ‘mad about children’s books’ blog – www.moontrug.com and her favourite book is Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (if she had a daemon it would be a wildcat with attitude).

Q & A with Fantasy Writer, Robert Paul Weston

Robert Paul Weston is the internationally award-winning author of several fantasy novels for children and young adults, including Zorgamazoo, Dust City and The Creature Department series, written in collaboration with the special effects company, Framestore (Gravity, Avatar, Where the Wild Things Are). His novels have won prizes in Canada, the United States, and Germany, including the California Young Reader Medal, the Silver Birch Award, the Children's Choice Award, and German Audio Book of the Year.


Alison Smith caught up with Rob in advance of his upcoming London Masterclass: Fantasy Writing for Young Readers on 17th May 2014.

How do you define fantasy?

I’m not a person who says anything fictional is a fantasy, but my definition is quite broad. Beneath this (enormous) umbrella I include everything from the high fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkein to the magic realism of Meg Rosoff and David Almond. I also include works of speculative fiction, historical fantasy, space fantasy, and even science fiction, as all these include otherworldly elements that require discrete skills on the part of the writer, and a thoughtful awareness of how best to present them.

What is the hardest part of writing in another world?

That’s easy—making the reader believe in it. It’s a delicate balancing act between information, imagination, and storytelling. The biggest challenge is that one or all of these are often in conflict. Finding a balance that suits your story is crucial. I hope this masterclass will help writers find this, or at least leave them with food for thought on how to approach it later.

Where do your ideas come from?

No one knows. Ideas are mercurial and mysterious and best left to their own devices. However, I have noticed that nearly all of my new ideas occur to me while reading. I think it is the combination of quiet contemplation while taking in interesting information. It could be any sort of writing, a novel, a work of non-fiction, journalism, or even ad copy on a billboard. It will send the back of my mind off on some tangent and—presto—something clicks.

What is your favourite part about writing children’s literature?

The freedom to explore. A friend of mine defines a writer as someone who is “interested in everything” and I’ve always liked that definition. In my experience, children’s literature allows the writer to weave fluidly between themes, styles and subject matter from book to book or series to series in a way that might not be available to certain writers of adult fiction. For instance, once you write literary fiction, adult readers don’t expect high fantasy the next time around. Of course, even in children’s literature, it’s risky to swerve too wildly, but I do have a sense that the possibility is there.

What do you hope the session will have achieved by the end?

Writers will have created or expanded upon an imaginary world. They will learn techniques of style, structure and characterisation specific to writing in another world (or one very close to ours, with a tweak or two). They will also learn about the business of publishing, finding an agent and how to properly react to/ignore trends.

MASTERCLASS:
Fantasy Writing for Young Readers

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
When: Saturday 17 May 2014 – 12 noon – 4pm
Where: The Theodore Bullfrog Pub, First floor meeting room, 26-30 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6HL
Cost: £30 per class for SCBWI members, £37 for non members, £108 special SCBWI member discount when you book for four
classes. (All prices include a pre-ordered light lunch and a beverage.)
Booking: https://britishisles.scbwi.org/events/
More information: masterclasses@britishscbwi.org

** Please bring an example of a fantasy novel (preferably, but not necessarily, for youth) that you admire, along with one to three typed, double-spaced pages of a manuscript or outline. **

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Alison never wanted to become a teenager - which means she is probably not best qualified to be the interviewer for this masterclass! A graduate of the Writing for Children MA at the University of Winchester, her first (as yet unpublished) story was a futuristic middle grade eco-fantasy about two children saving the last seed bank on earth. Just to be contrary - and because she is really an old-fashioned girl at heart - she is now working on a middle grade story set in early Jacobean London.

Judy Waite's London Masterclass - Growing Pains: Writing for Young Adults

©John Shelley

What lengths are you prepared to go to in order to tap into your teenage protagonist’s mind and find their voice? Would you:-

• Run away up to London dressed as a teenage boy?
• Audition for a part in a boy band?
• Get locked up in a police cell?

All of these have been tried and tested by award-winning author Judy Waite!

With a confession like that, her SCBWI London Masterclass: ‘Growing Pains: Writing for Young Adults.’ promised to be an interesting and entertaining ride.

And that’s exactly how it turned out.

She took us through a series of fun and thought-provoking exercises in a bid to master the dark art of creating a credible and compelling teenage voice.

An interesting and entertaining ride!

Connecting With Your Own Inner Teenager

Working in small groups, we were set the task of remembering what it was like to be a teenager in ‘our day’. For some of us that meant beaming back to the late seventies/early eighties when Punk Rock and fears of being nuked by the Russians ruled. For others it was more about friends, boys and getting hold of alcohol.

But there was a strong consensus that it had also been about isolation and not fitting in. Or, as one member of the group reflected, is it that writers are just a pathologically insecure bunch?

What Matters to Teenagers Now?

Next, we considered today. Are there things that matter more to teenagers now than when we were growing up? No surprises for guessing that social media in all its many guises topped the list. Then followed material goods, self-image and employment.

...is it that writers are just a pathologically insecure bunch?

In essence though, we concluded that the young adults of today are not so hugely different in their passions and fears, hopes and dreams. The trick, as Judy pointed out, is to get into their heads and understand how they live their lives.

Reinvent Yourself

To try and help with this, Judy encouraged us to reinvent ourselves as teenagers today. So we wrote a couple of paragraphs to bring ourselves bang up to date. This proved a challenge. And some of us weren’t quite sure how to transform ourselves into a new, updated version.

Perhaps we're too much like Peter Pan, never wanting to be teenagers in the first place!

Getting All Cut Up

This exercise is based on a tried and tested approach to writing adopted by the likes of William Burroughs and David Bowie. Judy got us experimenting with a new and creative way into the teenage mind.

Perhaps we're too much like Peter Pan

We picked a selection of short phrases and sentences drawn from Facebook messages posted by real-life teenagers and from published teenage novels – including Judy’s own favourite, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – and used them to conjure up a teenage voice and a setting.

We had a little help from a special extra – a bit of meditative candle contemplation.

The results of this time spent ‘in the zone’ and focussing on our character’s needs and wants, proved both powerful and compelling and gave many of us the ingredients for a new and exciting teenage voice to go away and explore.

And we hadn’t even had to get locked up to do it! (By the way, Judy was quick to confess that the audition and the time spent in jail had been with the collusion of the organisations concerned – phew, that’s a relief!)

Thanks again Judy for a stimulating, creative and fun session – and to Wendy Allen for the pictures.

There are still a few places left on the next Masterclass: Fantasy Writing for Young Readers lead by Robert Paul Weston – Saturday 17 May 2014. For bookings and more information visit https://britishisles.scbwi.org/events/author-masterclass-fantasy-writing-for-young-readers-with-robert-paul-weston/ or email masterclasses@britishscbwi.org

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Alison Smith works as a freelance PR and communications professional for part of her week.

For the rest of it she is to be found clamped to her computer – when she’s not busy pursuing the usual writerly diversions of blog-reading, net-surfing and gazing out of the window – wrestling with her middle grade historical novel set in early Jacobean London..