Writers’ workshop review: Writing Picture Books for Children, with Alan Durant

In July I attended a ‘Writing Picture Books for Children’ two-day workshop with prolific author, Alan Durant. Alan runs various writing courses, is now on his 100th book, and is author of one of my favourite children’s books — Always and Forever — but not all artists make for great teachers. I was excited to give my brain a workout of a slightly different, more creative, kind than it is used to, and was intrigued to see just how much guidance I would get in such a subjective area.

Penguin’s London HQ

A group of about fifteen of us gathered at Penguin’s London HQ on a Friday morning in July. It was all familiarly awkward; we assumed we were all there for the workshop but were hesitant to get full swing into conversation. At 10am we were herded up and into the very chilly Penguin HQ conference room that boasted magnificent views over London’s Southbank.

However, we weren’t there to take in the views. We all had an inner author we hoped to meet, greet and put on show. We’d all had enough instances of friends or family telling us we really should write, so here we were with the hopes of unearthing our potential and finding some shape for our raw talent.

Alan proved to be an excellent host and teacher. Despite the cold (it really was cold; the air conditioner was set to irreversible arctic), his personable and friendly manner quickly put us all at ease.

Remembering the distant years

As Alan pointed out, writing for children is so much easier when you remember what it’s like to be a kid. It’s capturing that authenticity that most often underpins any good fiction, and children’s books are no exception. Children are wily; they know a fake right off the bat and won’t be afraid to say it as it is. Plus, they fidget, a lot. As Alan shared, there’s no greater humility when it comes to comprehending the value of one’s writing than when reading aloud to a bunch of kids in a library; if you don’t captivate them, prepare for loud sighs, distracted eyes, fidgety bodies and even the odd walkout. It’s a brutal audience.

So how do we access those childhood memories? Our first activity involved remembering a specific toy from childhood. How did we receive the toy? How did it feel? Writing about it in first person seemed a breeze; writing about it in third person — no sweat. But writing it from the toy’s perspective felt like quite the challenge.

Then, with our stomachs starting to quietly grumble at the sight of lunch just outside the glass doors, Alan posted up some illustrations and prompted us to think about the accompanying line of text. This was more challenging than it might sound; no one wants to be obvious. But it’s hard to come up with a line of original text relating to monkeys swinging over a grumpy crocodile, whilst still maintain authenticity and engagement.

Beanie there, done that

After a fabulous lunch (I don’t usually get so excited about sandwiches, but the chicken coronation and the tuna were properly delicious, and I’m hoping no one saw how many of them I ate) it was time for the big challenge. Pointing to a mountain of Beanie babies presumably nicked from one of his own kids, Alan instructed us to choose one and use it as a character in a story.

Before we got stuck in, we brainstormed issues that affect kids and that are worth writing (or — more crucially — reading) about. This process was a real insight to me. Of course, I’d written some kids’ stories before (none of them seeing the light of my study let alone the light of day) but I’d not really comprehended that most successful kids’ stories come with a moral or lesson at their heart. This might seem surprising to you, but I suppose I’d not analysed the stories I’d read to that sort of level.

And, unfortunately, on reflection, I realised I’d not really written much of that sort — my stories were more likely to retell a memory or funny event. In short, they were pointless, as Alan would later break to me.

After filling a whiteboard with ideas from learning how to poop (in a toilet) through to learning how to share, count, say the alphabet etc, through to being environmentally conscious and plastic-free (okay we didn’t go quite that far), we filed up solemnly to the Beanie mountain and chose our narrative rock. Mine was a dolphin: easy peasy, I thought. Except it wasn’t. And this is the second not-so-surprising insight: kids’ books really are quite tough to write. The length can make the task appear deceptively easy, but length and expertise aren’t related. It’s tough to pick a good issue or moral, and then capture it succinctly with characters and location, in a tone that engages kids but also keeps the reader (usually an adult; often a parent) amused or entertained.

Possibly hardest of all is finding a good ending.

My dolphin story focused on Dave the Dolphin who was really quite smart, but also very lazy, he didn’t enjoy doing the same sorts of things his dolphin mates loved to do: frolicking about in the water, chasing after boats, playing with puffer fish and frightening the rest of the sea world by pretending to be a shark. Instead, Dave the Dolphin would spend time in his little seaweed hammock thinking about PI, or making the perfect pillow out of sand, using maths as a guide.

Sadly, I just couldn’t find an ending. And I’m pretty bad at maths too, so my contribution to that side of the story was a little lacklustre.

Worryingly, Alan’s hope was that we would use these stories the following day, in our presentations to him, an illustrator and a Penguin Editorial Manager. Yes that’s right: basically X-Factor for kids’ stories. Fortunately, he was happy for us to come up with something else — as long as we’d not worked on it for too long before the course.

The nerves!

The next day we all reassembled in the fridge, I mean, conference room. Alan had set out a whole bunch of books around the room — some excellent, some, in his opinion, not quite hitting the mark. I found the latter examples more interesting. When I first embark on learning a new skill, it can be easier for me to learn through what not to do, as a way of getting a handle on the basics.

We spent the morning working furiously on our stories, with Alan available for drop-in 1:1s as needed. I cheekily took a recently written story alongside my brand new story, unsure of which to present. “Well, there’s no point to this one,” he remarked blithely, sealing the fate of my carefully nurtured telling of a boy morphing into various dinosaurs. “Go with the one you’ve written here.” This was one that had an actual point to it; an issue that the characters overcame.

Of course it may seem to you that this is a heart-breaking process but Alan’s manner is very supportive — although he does tell it like it is. “You just can’t do that in a kids’ story,” he stuck in, in response to someone writing about an octopus that gives away each of its legs to other animals in a zoo. “You’ll leave the kids permanently scarred,” he explained after hearing one idea of a duck whose siblings mysteriously and chillingly disappear (in a pond infested by rats). It’s refreshing and a relief to be steered away from the wrong literary path; no one wants to frit away creative time on ideas that won’t float. And, as he reminded us, we can always park ideas for another use in the future.

Presentation time

When we all sat down to listen to one another’s final stories, I thought, good grief, this is going to take ages. And it did — I think about three hours. But it really was fascinating and very enjoyable hearing what everyone came up with — completely different stories, some told in verse, and the various worlds and characters that had been brought to life. Some didn’t work for me, some I thought were brilliant (and I felt immediate pangs of very deep envy); but the panel remained supportive, hearty, kind — and firm on the bits that weren’t right, with suggestions of how we could make improvements.

I couldn’t bear to look up during my reading, but it seemed to go okay in the end. I had a bit of a head rush so I can’t quite remember if my peers were jeering or applauding but I got some great feedback from the panel.

And that was it! We had come to the end. A few of us hovered about, unsure how to leave two such enjoyable and creative days. It’s an odd situation: you put so much energy and effort into those hours, and you feel a little reluctant to leave. And you form bonds with others that immediately seem quite tight in that situation. I’m still in touch with my workshop buddy, also South African, and similarly arty.

One of the best parts of the course was that it was so entirely self-satisfying in that it really is all about yourself, despite being in a group; you get to take two whole days to focus solely on something you want to do; and you remind yourself that you’re not alone in seeing the world from a slightly different perspective.

Finding the science in the art

What impressed me most was Alan’s logical slicing through the creative fat. Often, I would instinctively feel that something wasn’t right, but Alan would supply the logic that helped me to understand the instinct.

“Too many locations,” he shook his head at my narrative, involving various situations in which the story unravels. “Keep it simple. Have them in the car the whole time. The illustrator can provide the different scenes.” He was right — it worked much better that way; but I may have been reluctant — or simply inexperienced — to identify the problem for myself, even though I felt that it wasn’t reading as I wanted it to.

“You’ll get yourself caught in a biological mess,” he said, perhaps not quite in those words, to one attendee who had chosen a seahorse from the Beanie mountain and wanted to understand the evolutionary reason for its twisty tail. And although I could see her point — I wouldn’t want to tell untruths in a kids’ book — kids do have a capacity for nonsense. Marching forth on a strictly factual path might narrow the author’s imagination.

I’ve been to a few art-based workshops and its fantastic when the host can justify the response to something so subjective, giving what can often feel like a nebulous form some shape and definition. Not science per se, but certainly a level of informed assuredness when assessing our own work in future.

Next steps

I’ll keep on with the writing — who knows? Perhaps one day I will have that absolute delight of holding my own book with my own name on the front cover. It can’t be a completely impossible dream …

Would I recommend it?

Yes, I’d recommend this course for anyone who wants to write for children. I don’t think anyone left the course without learning something new that would add a huge amount of value to their writing.

Also … this type of course could make for an interesting corporate day out, especially for a Communications team. There are a lot of pertinent messages on the course that could help with business writing, such as the priority of staying focused and not distracting the audience with superfluous details. It would be a fun couple of days out of the office!