As a writer, I'm convinced that encouraging children to write fiction, to hook into that marvelous machine called the imagination, has to be good for everyone.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Writing for children isn't easy. Kids will abandon a story that doesn't interest, enchant, delight, thrill, or terrify them. But when you can find a way into a young reader's imagination through something as simple as words on paper, well, there's nothing more satisfying.
I think that usually the risk in trying to write children in fiction is the tendency to make them too cute or something.
Writing children's books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive.
I think that writers of literary fiction would do well to read more books for children.
People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book. I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable.
I get the ideas from everything. Children sometimes think you have to have special experiences to write, but good writing brings out what's special in ordinary things.
Part of the joy of writing for kids is that you have to have a real adventure story. You can get really involved in the fantastic in a way that perhaps you can't so much in adult fiction.
Being able to write creatively or read creative fiction is the best way to exercise your imagination.
The best way to enhance a child's imagination is to make them read.
Young readers have to be entertained. No child reads fiction because they think it's going to make them a better person.