Children’s books: How to Write a Story

How to Write a Story

This is an excellent volume for the young would-be writer, going outside the usual school approach to composition. The emphasis is on planning and preparation of a story and building up character profiles with suitable settings. Intriguingly it suggests that the writer adopts, in private of course, the persona of the main character and then sees what ideas flow from this mental dialogue. Character-motivation is stressed to create interest in plot: why, for example, would somebody try to blow up the moon? Logical — to save one’s sister who has become a werewolf and is driven crazy by every full moon! Habits of some well-known writers are mentioned — Lewis Carroll wrote standing up, while Conan Doyle based his Sherlock Holmes on a real-life tutor Dr Joseph Bell. Advice is proferred on how to round off a story, and how to present it to a hopefully admiring public. Suitable for age nine and upwards

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Penguin; €11.95): This novel is in effect a treatise on death and dying, which comes loud and clear through the main protagonists voices. There are many problems with the presentation, not least the type of language used by the teen protagonists, Hazel and Augustus — sometimes it is hard to distinguish who is speaking. The introduction of the philosophical, Peter Van Houten seems artificial and plot-ridden. But the book’s many qualities far outweigh its faults. It is a heart-warming and heart-breaking story of two young terminal cancer patients who feel an instant attraction for each other. Their frustrations and suffering are expertly handled, and gentle intellectual fencing leads to a burgeoning physical relationship which soon becomes a full-blown romance. The tragedy of their situation is accentuated by their parents’ grief as they struggle to accept their impending losses. The story is lightened by the teenagers support from their close friends, whose gallows humour is a badge of their acceptance of Hazel’s and Augustus’s reality. Suitable for age 14 and upwards.