Here’s me talking about my writing life at the Thoroughly Modern Heroines event which took place at Waterstone’s in Notting Hill – beside me are fellow authors Josa Young http://oneappletasted.com and Kate Morris http://katemorris.co.uk. Click on this entry to see the video and for more check out my Youtube channel AmandaLeesTube…

Try asking a child to recount his or her day. Chances are that they will come up with a series of events that bear little comparison to an adult’s viewpoint. When I ask after my seven year old daughter’s day at school she usually claims to remember nothing, leaving me to wonder if there is some kind of Mafiosi style pact between children and teachers. When pressed, however, she will tell me about some game in which she became intensely involved or recall a fragment of a lesson which grabbed her attention. It is those same magnetic moments that we writers need to interweave through our work alongside the larger plot points.

Children are attracted and held by tiny peculiarities, by the eccentricities of life that appeal to their innate sense of the absurd. No-one understood this better than Roald Dahl, a master at using the ridiculous to tickle a child’s imagination while expanding upon an underlying seriousness of plot. When I recently went in to my daughter’s classroom to talk to her schoolmates about writing, it was his name that came up time and again as a favourite author. Dahl has the same grip today as he did twenty years ago and it is his skill at identifying with children and what really appeals that wannabe children’s authors would do well to emulate.

With that in mind, let’s begin with attitude. It takes a lot of it to make it as a writer but what really separates the published from the slush pile is the ability to adopt someone else’s – in this case, a child’s. And I don’t mean stroppy adolescent stomping (although that has a place when used judiciously). I’m referring to that sense of possibility that all children are born with and some sadly lose too early. To write successfully for children, you need to look at the world with those same fresh eyes. Note I haven’t used the word ‘wonder’ – that’s because it’s become somewhat hackneyed in this context and it might encourage you to sprinkle too much stardust on your work.

Children may have a fresh perspective on the world but that does not necessarily make them sentimental or saccharine in their views. If you ever want a ruthlessly honest opinion on something, just ask a child. They do not filter and most have not yet learned to prevaricate. They tell it like it is and it is this emotional honesty I would urge you to strive for rather than an adult take on what is mistakenly labelled ‘innocence.’ Children may be innocent in one sense but they are also marvellously knowing. Very little escapes them and their response to adversity is often humbling. Try testing a what-if scenario through a child’s eyes – ask a real one if possible. What you discover may just provide the basis for a truly original plot that grips young minds as opposed to a story told from an adult perspective.

One thing: please, please don’t send me your synopsis or manuscript. That’s what agents are for and receiving other people’s work puts authors in a very difficult ethical position.