More About Gatekeepers ... sort of

He doesn't actually use the word 'gatekeeper', but it seems to me that in this article from the Guardian, Anthony McGowan is also writing about the problems of delivering books - either as a publisher or a writer - to an audience of which you are not a member: i.e. adults writing and publishing for children and young people.

I agree with him that in YA fiction, where the boundaries become blurred - adults frequently enjoying books written for young adults, and vice versa - it is also a problem of categorisation. I work in a charity bookshop, and quite often find books I know to be written by so-called YA authors misshelved amongst the general fiction. I tend to leave them there, especially if there's also a copy in the children's section. I believe if a book is in the right place if it is somewhere where it might be picked up and read.
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But I digress. McGowan is concerned about adults missing out on authors they might appreciate (Meg Rosoff and Patrick Ness to name but two: amongst my favourites as well); and indeed authors missing out on readers. But he also seems to suggest that teenagers should be writing for teenagers, and there I'm not so sure I agree: at least, not to the exclusion of older writers.

Like so many other things, there's a continuum. I wouldn't disagree that there are likely to be teenagers who could write highly publishable books for their own age and others, but where should it stop? 12 year-olds writing middle grade?

One thing I am sure of, no-one is going to suggest the very youngest children create their own stories. Not only is the writing and design of picture books a sophisticated skill, the very act of reading together is linked to the ancient art of storytelling: and maybe that is something that deserves to be remembered.

The old have always told stories to the young, and it has been a relationship treasured by both, for many good reasons. Let's not stop.

Who Do You Write For? The Curse of the Gatekeeper

So, who do you write for?

My target reader, of course.

And your target reader is ...?

Well, at the moment it's a young adult female, as it was when I was writing Better Than Stars; but I wrote Timehikers for a 9-12 audience, and people told me it would appeal mostly to boys: in which case, I am also a boy - which, if you haven't noticed, actually I'm not. Sorry, getting off the point - or maybe not as much as it might appear. I write for young people, or more accurately for the young person who still exists inside me.

And who out of the people who've read your book for 9-12 year-old probable boys is actually 9-12 years old?

Interesting you should ask that. Timehikers has been read - in full, not just a sample - by a lot of different people:

      friends
      family
      MA tutors
      agents
      publishers
      fellow writers
      competition judges
      and one ten year-old boy;

and - you've guessed it - the only reader who belonged to my target audience was the last one. And, since you ask, yes he did like it. All the other people were adults like myself; and quite a lot of them were what we call "gatekeepers": people who control access to the child audience. Had the book passed that first circle of gatekeepers and been published, it would still have had to pass the second circle. Although some books are chosen by children for themselves, a significant number are selected by parents, teachers and librarians. As writers, we have to have an eye to pleasing them as much as our "real" readers.

Don't worry, this isn't going to become a moan about my own experience: rather, it was stimulated by discovering a delightful book which would probably be marketed today to 9-12 year-old boys. You can find out more about The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively here. It was originally published in 1973, and reissued in the edition I've been reading by Egmont in 2006. I loved it, but I'm a bit suspicious of my own enjoyment as a recommendation. After all, I'm typical of many gatekeepers, and I've a feeling the book was appealing to the wrong bits of me, the bits no child would share.

So there you have it: the curse of the gatekeeper. We want to write for people who are children today, but we can only reach them through a narrow entrance controlled by people who were children yesterday.

I suppose it works the other way too. I imagine there may be a few gatekeepers cursing us, the writers, for our inability to deliver what young people really want. But until 10 year-olds develop the ability to write their own publishable stories, it looks like it's always going to be that way.

Meg Rosoff Defends Childhood

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/rosoff-slams-government-assault-childhood-330696

... but is anyone listening? Teaching is no longer about education: it's become training to undergo increasingly worthless tests and exams - worthless because they have become a test more of how well you've been trained and how well you follow instructions, than of what you've learned. And it's children who are suffering, from increased and unjustifiable stress, and from decreased enrichment. Shame on you, Government, and well said Meg.

Where Do You Like to Write?

Are you one of those writers who likes to write in cafes? If so, you're in good company. Philip Pullman is so appreciative of the Cafe at the Oxford Museum of Modern Art, he acknowledges it in his Dark Materials trilogy. If the stories are true - and I think they are - JK Rowling wrote at least some of Harry Potter in the Elephant Cafe in Edinburgh. But a good writing cafe isn't just any cafe.

I've been to the Elephant Cafe, and I can see what JK liked about it. It's big enough to be anonymous, but quirky enough to be friendly. There are private corners, a jumble of chairs and tables of all sizes, and big windows that let in light and views. It's full of people who seem to like being there, and also - less predictably - elephants. Not live elephants, obviously, but ornaments and quite a lot of elephant-themed furniture. You can even sit on a chair shaped like one. It's easy to see how your imagination might be set free in a place like this.

Where I live, we're enough to have several cafes that provide good coffee (essential), and room to sit and let your mind wander. In fact, I try to match cafe and book, and may change cafes when I change book, like some people start a new notebook. But I do have one I keep coming back to. It's not unique like the Elephant Cafe - I don't think there can be many of those around; it's not even independent: it's part of a well-known chain. But like the cafe in Edinburgh, it has a big secondary room that is irregularly shaped, well-lit and comfortable, and the background noise is just right. I can't actually remember whether there was music in the Elephant Cafe, but that is as it should be. The soundtrack here is at exactly the right level: unintrusive, but to my taste if I want to pay attention to it. Otherwise, the chatter of other customers merges into it to become the sort of white noise against which I like to write.

What about you? Are you a cafe writer, or do you have somewhere else you prefer to write? Or do you just snatch time when and where you can?

Simon Cowell, Children's Author

Well, I suppose he's built his career on people who think they can perform because they've seen the professionals do it, and it looks easy ... although maybe it wasn't a good strategy to start by antagonising the entire children's book publishing industry.

Or, hang on, do people tune into The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent just to see undiscovered brilliance? Or is it true that the "talent spotters" seek out the dreadful as well, because audiences like to laugh at people making fools of themselves? - sad people who have no perspective on their own unpractised ability, or the difficulty of what they're taking on. I'd hate to see something like that happen to Simon.

Maybe we should just be glad that he's reading to his son: a joy for both of them, and with a bit of luck the child will grow into someone who loves books.

What do you think?