As an author, one of the most popular questions I get from children (and their parents) is:
'How do you create a story?'
The reality for me is that a good story tends to be a collection of mini-ideas. Ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere but the one place they usually don't come from is at my desk.
Ideas approach you when your mind is given free reign to create. When it isn't being numbed by a screen or drowned out by a podcast. They can emerge while you're in the shower, taking a walk, vacuuming the hallway. They creep up on you when you are distracted or can take over when you are creating something else.
Sometimes you need to create space for ideas deliberately by taking yourself of an 'Artist's Date.' A concept introduced by Julia Cameron, writer of 'The Artist's Way'. This is where you deliberately take yourself to a place of creativity, strip yourself from distractions and see what happens.
Hunter's story 'Pirate Penguin' came from ideas that appeared during a number of these 'artist dates'.
On a trip to the Natural History Museum in half term, we joined a drawing session. One of the subjects was a stuffed chinstrap penguin and we were encouraged to take a seat and draw it. Even though we both didn't see drawing as strengths of ours, there was something about the calm of the room that drew us in and after a while we successfully had two penguin drawings.
We named them Flipper and Penguiny.
A few weeks later, we went to an author visit at the Tate Britain. We don't often go to galleries with the kids so it was nice to have a reason. Due to being early we wandered off and found their Story Space.
Here, while his younger brother read picture books, Hunter discovered a storyboard template and asked what it was. "It helps you plan a story, for a book or a film." I explained. "What would you like to write a story about?" It hadn't been too soon after our trip to the NHM so he went off to draw a story about a penguin called Flipper.
Soon, he had a comic where a pirate penguin saves their cousins from treacherous leopard seals. Inspired by the many graphic novels he reads, Hunter began to add a narrative and his story started taking shape.
After a few tips about story structure, he had his first draft!
Follow Hunter's journey here by signing up to our newsletter: Inclusive Children's Books by Kirstin McNeil – Sequoia publishing
PS: you can download your own storyboard using the same Tate template Hunter had here: DYO_Story_Space_v3.pdf
