A Creative Writing Idea for Children
I love writing but I also realise that many children find it difficult, so how can we help them? One answer, I think, is to remove as many barriers as possible so they can concentrate on what really matters. One of these barriers is the perceived obligation to create a cracking plot.
Writing good plots is hard. Some novelists can do it, but not all, so why should we expect children to do so in just a few pages? A more sensible approach would be to concentrate on creating an utterly convincing scene.
That’s where books like David Wiesner’s Flotsam come in. Flotsam is a beautiful, wordless book that tells a great story. You can get a flavour of it here. With the plot already taken care of, children (or adults for that matter) can concentrate on bringing the pictures to life in words.
Are there other options? Yes, there absolutely are. Aaron Becker’s Journey is another delightful, even more enigmatic, wordless book. You can get a sense of this book from the link above.
A third option is Fasten Your Seat Belts or any of the other Quick & Flupke books by Hergé. Yes, Hergé of Tintin fame. Quick & Flupke aren’t so well known but the great advantage of these comic strips is that they are short. Each story is a couple of pages long and some of them, being wordless, are perfect for the apprentice writer.
The principle behind this approach is much the same as the one I often spell out to struggling readers. If the mechanics of reading are getting in the way, then sidestep them and listen to an audiobook instead. After all, listening to stories is a more venerable tradition than reading them. Similarly, if a blank page and the need to dream up a plot is preventing you from writing well (or writing at all) then sidestep the plot by using one someone else has created.
There’s more to be said about the art of writing - of course there is - but I’m going to leave it there for the time being, not least because there’s a certain irony in writing lots of words about wordless books!