On the art of writing fiction

by Unknown

I wish thus to preface the little I have to say of possible service to others on that branch of writing as to which I am credited with some experience—fiction for the young, more especially for children—because, underlying any information or advice I can give, is the very strongest belief in every writer taking his or her own path, trusting to his or her own intuitions. Yet these intuitions, if I may be forgiven an apparent paradox, must be those of a cultivated taste, a thoughtful intellect, an imagination all the more luxuriant from having been well pruned. Therefore before beginning to write, even for childish minds, I would urge upon young authors to see well to their own mental possessions. You cannot “give” out of nothing, and if you would give of the best, with the best must you be furnished. Read the best books, study the best models, till in a sense they become your own. “Originality,” if originality you have, will never be crushed by real study; and if the result of your self-training should be to prove to you, by comparison with its undoubted owners, that this incommunicable gift is not yours, the sooner, for yourself and for others, that you make the discovery the better, though you will have been far from a loser in the process of making it.

There is nothing “original” in this advice, I well know. But it seems to be not uncalled for in the present instance, because so many young writers, too modest to aspire very high, think they can “write for children.” And often this is a mistake. Writing for children calls for a peculiar gift. It is not so much a question of taking up one’s stand on the lower rungs of the literary ladder, as of standing on another ladder altogether—one which has its own steps, its higher and lower positions of excellence.

Special gifts demanded

It is very difficult to define this gift. It is more than the love of children. Many people love children dearly who could not write for, or about them even, at all. It is to some extent the power of clothing your own personality with theirs, of seeing as they see, feeling as they feel, realising the intensity of their hopes and fears, their unutterably pathetic sorrows, their sometimes even more pathetic joys, and yet—not becoming one of them: remaining yourself, in full possession of your matured judgment, your wider and deeper views. Never for one instant forgetting the exquisite delicacy of the instruments you are playing upon, the marvellous impressionableness of the little hearts and minds; never, in commonplace words, losing sight of what is in the best sense good for them. Yet all this so skilfully, so unobtrusively, that the presence of the teacher is never suspected. Not perhaps till your readers are parents and guardians themselves—possibly writers!—need they, nor should they, suspect how in every line, far more than their passing entertainment or amusement was considered, how scrupulous was the loving care with which, like a fairy gardener, you banished from the playground which you were preparing for their enjoyment, all things unsightly, or terrifying, or in any sense hurtful—all false or exaggerated sentiment in any form.

And yet you must be true to nature. Save in an occasional flight to fairyland (and is true fairyland unreal after all?) children’s stories should be real—true, that is to say, to what may be or are actual experiences in this always chequered, often sorrowful, world of ours. It would be very false love for children—it would be repellent to their own true instincts—to represent life to them as a garden of roses without thorns, a song with no jarring notes. But underlying the sad things, and the wrong things, and the perplexing things which must be touched upon in the little dramas, however simple, there must be belief in the brighter side—in goodness, happiness, and beauty—as the real background after all. And any one who does not feel down in the bottom of their hearts that this “optimism” is well-founded, had better leave writing for children alone.

Childhood and youth

It is not always those who are nearest childhood who are the best fitted to deal with it. There is a phase of melancholy and hopelessness which youth often has to pass through, and though much mingled with false sentimentality, it is a real enough thing while it lasts. It is those who have outgrown this, who while not closing their eyes to the dark and sad side of things, yet have faith in the sunlight behind and beyond, who, to my mind, are the best story-tellers for the little ones, whose own experience of life is all to come.

A point to consider

Before passing on to a few questions of practical detail, I should like to dwell a little on a point which it seems to me is too often disregarded or confused. It is this—writing about children is by no means the same thing as writing for them. So much the contrary is it indeed, that I could instance several storybooks almost entirely about children which are far less advisable reading for them than others of which the characters are not children at all. This distinction is constantly overlooked and forgotten, and yet it is surely based on common sense? The very last thing a wise mother would allow would be the children’s presence at any necessary consultation with doctor or teacher about their health, physical or mental. And the interest of many of the charming and delightful stories about children, which in our days have almost come to constitute a new department in literature, depends very greatly on the depicting and description of childish peculiarities and idiosyncrasies which it would not be wholesome for their compeers to discuss or realise. The questions too of judicious or injudicious management of little people on the part of their elders, of over-care or more culpable neglect, of misunderstanding of their complex and often strangely reserved and perplexing characters, must come much to the fore in this class of fiction. And though it would not be right, because it would not be sincere, to make of our stories for children a fool’s paradise, where all the big people are perfect, and only the boys and girls in fault, still the obtruding or emphasising parental mistakes and failings should surely be avoided when writing for the tender little ones, whose lovely belief in “mother” is the very breath and sunshine of their lives—and the greatest possible incentive to mother herself to be in some faint degree worthy of this exquisite trust.

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