Storyman
Hello!!!
this is for any mum who, at this very moment, is being picked on by their children who are sadistically trying to involve them
in their games. I have been working with Ralph Lazar who does the gorgeous Happiness Is thing that’s huge on FB, and now we’re working on a new one, which is for you mums. Click, click I tell you, on http://rorybranagan.com/minis/mothers/ and you will see, and you will understand how to deal with these savage children
Andrew xxxxx
OK I’m ready to reveal TOP SECRET ACTIVITY. I have been working with my much-loved friend, Ralph Lazar, who’s a San Francisco based illustrator who does the Happiness Is stuff that you may well have seen on Facebook, and we’ve made Rory Branagan (Detective) who’s suddenly looking as if he might be my life’s Big Project. At the end of last week, Rory was being wooed by four top agents. We chose one, and Rory’s being pitched, right now, at the London Book Fair. We’ve part-written 9 books, and have made an enormous website for him – www.rorybranagan.com. My favourite section is the Minis. Have a look and tell me what you think! xx
Could you describe a character so we believe they’re real? It’s always good to think about…
(1) a general impression
(2) something odd
(3) an obsession
(4) something they want
(5) a secret
(6) a catchphrase, or something they always do
(7) If they were an animal, what would they be like?
(8) But be prepared to sacrifice all these. Sometimes it’s good to state one trait, and let your readers imagine the rest.
To get you started, here are a couple of portraits taken from my new book Alfie Brown and the Dark Tunnel of Doom
She was a joker and a messer and a dancer and a runner and she was, by about a million miles, the most popular person in Muswell Hill School. She was also the naughtiest. Every time you saw Izzy Fox, she was either surrounded by ten Year Sixes laughing, or she was letting off the Fire Extinguishers, at the Dinner Ladies.
The head was called Ms Fisley. She was a thin woman with large bulgy eyes. She was the sort of head who says: “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed,” and she’d always go into a long lecture about: “You’ve got a lot to get through this term, you’ve got SATS soon…” Ms Fisley was ALWAYS saying they had SATS soon. Alfie called her Ms SATS-soon-the-big-Satsuma.
Ms Fisley was always late.
“You know in the supermarket,” said Ava, “when you see fish in plastic packets, and their eyes look all sad like the fish are thinking: “Why did you kill us?” Ms Fisley’s eyes look like that. I don’t think we should call her Ms Sats-soon-the-Big-Satsuma. We should call her Ms Fishley.”
Did you see Izzy and Ms Fisley in your head?
Your turn now… describe a character so we believe they are real.
Tell me in the comments or via my contact page if you want to send a picture.
Is there anyone else who is still feeling tender after watching Sally Phillips’s documentary last night? Anyone else who found themselves collaring friends at the school gates, saying ‘So did you watch it?’ hungry to chew it over? If that is you, let’s talk…
It’s not the most important aspect, I know, but can I just say how wonderful Sally Phillips was, as a presenter? A comic actress, best known as Tilly in Miranda, or Sharon from the Bridget Jones films, her onscreen persona is that of a posh, pretty clown. ‘Right now,’ she said, ‘I’m nine out of ten angry’, and then beamed a radiant smile. She listened politely to the woman who’d aborted her Downs baby, then when she heard about the injection to kill the foetus, she just smarted, ever so slightly, and it was like hearing a bomb go off, deep underground.
The film started with her own family, in which we met Olly, her own Downs Syndrome child, who seemed to have a sunny genius for inventing jokes, that were all the funnier, for making no sense (“Knock knock” “Who’s there?” “Chicken! Buck Buck!”) then moved on to interview the professor who’s making a more exact test to screen for Downs, the man who analysed the complete DNA of his foetus, as well as the woman who aborted (“It wasn’t the future I wanted for my child”).
They trotted out the usual arguments, by which people justify morally questionable actions –
“The science isn’t bad; it’s what people do with it that’s bad”
“I’m only doing what everyone will be doing, one day”
“It’s about giving more choice” (but it’s not; 100% of Icelandic people terminate prospective Downs babies) –
while the story was quietly told: people with Downs are quietly being screened out of society, at the same time that they are improving their reading, their gym skills, their terrible jokes. By the end of it, you’d feel, at the very least, you’d avoid taking that test. I’d rather – I thought as I turned it off – be screening out people with big feet, or who show a propensity for jet-skis. (I was just trying to make a joke, and was not sure I cracked it. I do hate jet-skiers, but I still wouldn’t want to abort them in utero).
The only problem was that the film so resoundingly quashed the opposing arguments, that you found yourself wanting to get away from the scientists, and fools with their subtly Nazi views: you wanted to meet more people with Downs. I know so little about it, beyond the usual clichés about cheery children with almond eyes. (“Oh I’m horrible!” Jerry Sadowitz used to say, “I’m the only person who can go into a room full of Downs Syndrome, and not get a hug!”) I know of a woman who routinely adopted Downs children. “They’re so happy,” she said. She made them seem like the Magic People. Are they? What are the day-to-day problems people are screening to avoid? Do Downs children take longer to potty train? Do they die painful deaths? If you know, please say.
I’ve still been thinking about it all this morning. I just went for a long walk, in which my head swirled with questions, and I felt very Sally Phillips-like: quashing a desire to cry, while still trying to finish that joke. (Who would we screen out? People who are good at Physics? Loud people? Nothing quite works does it?) By the end, I’d walked miles, and only stopped when I reached a field full of young bullocks, being fattened up for the mincer. As I stood, the bullocks shuffled curiously over. They stared with their big lovely eyes. I stared back, wanting, desperately to touch them. I wouldn’t screen out anyone, I decided, now yearning to give those bullocks a hug.
So that’s how the documentary left me: out of jokes, bursting with questions, and a throbbing tenderness towards all creatures. Is that how we were supposed to feel? How did it leave you?
I tell you something I hate: when grown-ups give presents to kids, saying “This is really something for when you’re older…” What this means is: “I’m giving you something totally wrong, because I couldn’t be bothered to think what you like…”
When I was ten, I remember my stepdad gave me, for my birthday, a complete box set of Jane Austen books, handing them over, with a speech about how his gran used to reread Jane Austen throughout her life, and I listened politely, while inside I was boiling, and wanting to shout:
“I am ten! What I actually WANT… is a Table-Tennis bat!”
I like Jane Austen now, of course… I love her elegant style, deceptively deft storytelling, and how the knowing irony of the dialogue makes the characters flash to life. (Reread Northanger Abbey where Catherine is flirting with Tilney.) But to a ten year old – oh I read em! There was nothing else to read! – Jane Austen books seemed to go on for hundreds of years, while people said things like “Lord M has ten thousand a year, and a barouche-landau…” and I wanted to shout: “I would never ever care about Lord M, unless he turned into a vampire…”
It frustrates me still that while I was struggling, aged ten, through the complete works of Jane Austen, I could have been reading The Hobbit, or The Chronicles of Narnia, or Tintin, or something that was actually designed for a ten year old.
Anyway… I am now a grown-up, I do try to be sensitive to what my kids are reading, so I can suggest good stuff.
I am proud that I introduced the Divergent series into the house, and Cassandra Clare, and Michelle Harrisson and Sally Gardener – any many of the writers who’re loved by my eldest girls. My youngest daughter (Iris) is aged nine and not a keen reader, but there’s one series she adores – that we both adore – the Ottoline series by Chris Riddell. Oh, we love them! Chris Riddell is the reigning Children’s Laurate, and his illustration is – I would contend –arguably better than that of Tenniel or Heath Robinson or Arthur Rackham, all of whom it seems to reflect. You don’t read the Ottoline books, so much as you explore them, marvelling at the details, and gasping, sometimes, at the sheer beauty of the design. I also feel enormous love for Chris Riddell, because my daughter Iris felt compelled to send him some fan mail, and Chris Riddell … replied!!! Did he send her a letter, in grown-up language, talking about things she might like when she was older? Of course not! He wrote a simple, jokey letter, and he thanked her for her kindness in writing to him, and he included – just for her – a special cartoon, that he’d drawn.
We love you Chris Riddell! We love you!
Anyway Iris and I were so happy, yesterday, when Iris and I were out and about in Canterbury, to find that his latest Ottoline book has just appeared. Ottoline and the Purple Fox.
We shall be exploring this very evening…
I love to hear about terrible school dinners. How are yours? Do you have pasta that’s globby? Does your custard have a skin? Do you have dried pizzas, with bits of cheese that are hard as an old lady’s toenails?
Today the contest is for the person who can describe their horrid dinner, in the most vivid terms. Disgust and offend us! There will be extra marks for alliteration, and onomatopoeia, and the use of the word “squodgey”.
Tell me about it in the comments below or directly to me, especially if you want to send a picture.
But then there’s always that Insect Day, that the schools like to spring on us, just when we thought that – finally – the holidays were over. (I imagine the teachers transformed into bugs and grasshoppers, sitting round some ring-binders). Wait, they’re saying, you can’t just give us the 
children. So The Youngest and I spent one last day together. We went for a bike ride. (Determined to cycle the first day, she wanted to rehearse). We bought new trainers, water bottle, lunch box. We cooked, and I enjoyed her childish genius for asking the sort of sunny questions that you’d want to answer – “What was your favourite Mr Man?” “What things did you like to cook, when you were a boy?” “You know there are Guide Dogs… Do they have Guide Cats? (Or even Guide Ducks!)” And then this morning, we did do that bike ride, (setting off proudly in helmets and hi-viz). We cheered as we whooshed down the hill. We made festive plans (“Let’s do this every day!”) And then suddenly we were at school, carefully taking out the new water bottle and lunchbox, and then, in a blink, she’d slipped into the school like a mouse going down a hole, and was lost to me. I kissed some old friends. I shook hands with a new dad, there for his first day. “Any tips?” he asked, and my mind sprang back, to the day, ten years ago, when I dropped off Eldest for her first day. (I remember tensing inside, as she went straight for the Dressing Up Box Wedding Dress, and asked me to help her put it on). “Gosh,” I told New Dad, “I suppose I’d say… it seems only two minutes since I was you.” Then, suddenly sobered, I retrieved the bike, and headed off through the fields. And as I did that the thought struck me: “What now?” I thought vaguely of my work plans, now buried under a summer of animals and trampolines , and it felt like a mourning, as the emptiness hit.
There w
as a damp in the air, yesterday morning, and a cold whoonce of sadness that said: ‘Summer is over, and did we do enough?’ I became determined to use the last day of the holiday; I craved exploration, some small adventure; and this then muted – because I am now a dad – into: ‘Let’s visit a castle.’ I’d passed Dover Castle the day before, and felt exhilarated at seeing France from the cliff top, so I pressed them into it. Luckily my wife’s away, as is my Very Vocal Second Child, and there was only Grace and Iris to stand up to me. They were like footsoldiers crumpling before my cannon fire, I tell you. I’ve not been so in charge of an expedition in ages, and the experience was heady. We even had Mozart in the car, and I hom-pommed along, Dadly, as we spend eastwards…
Of course the reality of a castle, is never as good as the fantasy. I always hope to meet the ghosts of kings, to hear murder plotted in stony corridors; I arrive, and see men in beige coats, looking worried outside the Gents. But we had a great time. The Eldest’s Planet Sized Brain needs to be sponging up information, so I got her the handbook and she read out facts about Wartime Tunnels. We saw falcons. We leaned over the windy roof and stared vertiginously at the floor. But really Visiting A Castle – it’s just an excuse to hang out, in an interesting place. I had a lovely time peering down stone holes with The Older One. And I always enjoy The Youngest One’s company. She has a wonderfully genial nature, and a childish enthusiasm to try things out. She sat on the throne. She swivelled the World War 1 Anti-Aircraft gun. She did full justice to the World War Two lunch. I felt glad just to be with them. I can’t say I gave them a day to be remembered in centuries to come, but there were moments when the stone corridors tinkled with our laughter, and the walls whispered with our curiosity, and that felt good.
The girls and I went to Camden Market yesterday, where we kitted ourselves as our fantasy versions of ourselves. I got this new outfit to wear when I do shows – top hat, dark blue 60s Italian mac – so that I looked how I want to be: a cross between Charles Dickens and the Cat In The Hat – but I didn’t get the red silk scarf I really wanted. “Why not?” the girls were asking on the train. “Oh,” I explained, “my subconscious was saying: ‘You’ve got two things already: that’s quite enough, Young Man!’ For some reason that made them guffaw. (They were partly tickled that my subc’ calls me ‘Young Man’. “You’re more than forty, Dad: surely you should be Old Man!”) But also they were amused that my private voices were rude to me. “Aren’t yours?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “No!” said the middle one. “When I’m settling down to sleep, the voice in my head says things like: ‘Well done, you’ve had another great day today, you clever, lovely girl!’” Even the youngest one agreed. “Sometimes I say things to myself like: ‘Don’t worry, you can do it!’” I was still thinking about this after I’d gone to bed. (After ten minutes of them riffing on their favourite joke. “Go to bed, Old Man!” the youngest would say, then she’d cackle at her own wit). But once safely under the sheets, I was still marvelling that, somehow, their internal voices are actually nice to them. How did that go right? I actually think this is the highest goal of parenting – to achieve that. I think I should award myself that red silk scarf. An old man must have some pleasures. What do you reckon?
Lordy-Lord! Thank you, you crazy people, for your submissions this week. I particularly enjoyed Sam from the Isle of Man, who started a story, in which the hero journeyed inside a person’s head. Also loved Roisin from Cork, who told an entirely realistic story about moving to a new school, where everyone smelled different. Welcome back to The Writing School, Roisin and Sam! Welcome too, to people who are joining for the first time to learn of The Twelve Steps of the Classic Tale. The next four go like this…
5) Cross the doorway into the unknown.
Classic versions of this step are the moment the children enter the wardrobe in Narnia, or the moment that Alice goes down the rabbit hole. But your hero can go into the unknown, in more subtle ways. You all know that feeling when you stand outside a party, and hear the noise, and then suddenly know that you’re dressed completely wrong, and you want to go home, but you know you must enter… That feeling is the essence of the story. Difficulty is good. I’m always struck, when I’m teaching, how boys particularly want their heroes to be invincible. “He’s called Magic Man,” they say, “and he can crush everyone, and go anywhere in a second.” “Is he scared of anyone,” I ask, “or of going anywhere?” “No,” they insist, thus condemning their heroes to boringness. In a story we want to see someone who’s scared to go forward, but who does it anyway.
6) Journey
I love a good journey – the hobbits walking up mountain and down valley; I love the trek to Mexico in We Are The Millers; the endless journeying of Paris, Texas... The great thing about journeys is they give a sense of momentum to your tale, as you fit in essential character work: people getting to know each other, people learning, all the human emotion that makes your story alive.
7) The goodie who’s a baddie; the baddie who’s a goodie
OK. Technically Chris Vogler didn’t have this step in his Writer’s Journey, but I’m including it, since this step is a key one. In grown-up novels, the biggest selling stuff is Gone Girl, The Girl On The Train, The Kind Worth Killing – books that all riff on the same idea: you’re made to wonder if one the main characters is actually a baddie. This step is what keeps the reader guessing. Think Frozen… Sure, Prince Hans is the goodie, who is revealed as a baddie. But also Christof is the opposite. The meat of the whole story is about how Anna learns to love this stinky, reindeer-loving ice-gatherer.
8) Mums / dads
Your story should feel as if you’re peeling away layers of the onion, getting to the deepest truth about your main character, and these truths concern feelings about mum and dad. “I am your father,” reveals Darth Vadar to Luke in Star Wars, and suddenly the story seems to have real weight. I know this may seem awful to you! You’re probably dying to write your stories, so you can escape the parents – to go into other worlds – it makes you sick that mum will be following, telling you to wipe your nose, and brush your hair… The good news is that, at this point of the story, you can speak your deepest truth to the parents – eg “Mum, you really need to leave me alone!”
You can do that! Say whatever you want to parents, in your stories! Say you love them, overthrow them, or fling them into Outer Space! It’s entirely up to you!
Mr Clover
PS by the way, sorry for being late to come to school this week. I went to London yesterday, to meet some producers who are interested in making a filmscript I wrote earlier this year – my own attempt to write Frozen. Yes! A door is opening, and the world is glittering before me! As it can for you. But first you must finish your stories!