Making it up as you go along…
Last Sunday, the UK’s Observer newspaper carried a story about author Ronny M Cole’s advice to parents that they should make up stories at bedtime for their children, rather than simply read them a bedtime story. This comes on the back of a literacy drive by the UK government to encourage parents to read to their children, after it was revealed that one in ten children are never read a bedtime story.
Some parent’s groups rebelled at this prospect, pointing out that it was bad enough parents were being stigmatised for not reading to their children, but now they were being made to feel like bad parents if they couldn’t invent a story too?
Famous books like Watership Down and The Hobbit started life as stories made up for the author’s children. But you don’t need to come up with the next classic of western literature to entertain the kids. Involve them in the storytelling, make the stories about simple things, and at first keep it short and entertaining. Only later, when confident should you expand the stories to include life lessons and morals.
When the Writer’s Write blog ran the story, they made the observation that some people just aren’t natural born storytellers, so should continue to reach for a book of bedtime stories. However,
“… if you happen to be married to a screenwriter or author, well, you know who gets bedtime story duty tonight.”
Yeah… Yeah that’s a good idea…
That’s some advice that should be taken with a pinch of salt. Because the screenwriter or author you’re married to could well be me. Or someone like me. I’m not exactly child friendly. Consider what I did to Winnie-the-Pooh on my very first [Fiction] Friday. I turned him into an opium addict who had killed Tigger and was about to be “disposed of” by Piglet. Can you imagine the havoc I could wreak on a delicate child’s psyche if I was allowed anywhere near their impressionable minds? The horrible, terrible things that would befall childhood characters if I were allowed to interpret their adventures?
“And then one thousand demons descended on the handsome prince, stripping the flesh from his bones and consuming his soul. The end. Good night, sweet dreams…”
Is this a product of my own upbringing? And would children really be scarred by disturbing and twisted bedtime stories? Consider that “fairy tales” are popular bedtime stories for children. When I was a child, my father used to read my brothers and I bedtime stories. Our two favourite books for bedtime stories were collections of fairy tales. One by Hans Christian Andersen, the other by the Brother’s Grimm. These are real fairy tales. The original stories, unadulterated by the Disney versions we’ve come to know today. In the stories I grew up with, the Wicked Stepmother was made to dance to death in red hot shoes, the Little Mermaid died and tragedy befalls people without sense or reason. The lessons were not simply black and white. They were muddied, confusing. And frequently disturbing.
Despite this, I grew up to be a well-adjusted person. Maybe not a well-adjusted writer, but a well-adjusted person. Thanks dad!
I think everyone has it in them to tell a tale. Whether you make it up as you go along, or start with the story on the page and then deviate from the script (a favourite tactic of my father), see where the story takes you. And not just for children. In times past we as a society used to sit around fires and tell each other stories, to entertain, to educate and to connect.
What stories were you told as a child? Did your parents make up stories for you? And if you have children of your own, what do you read them or tell them?
We were read bedtime stories every night until I went to high school. I most poignantly remember my Dad sitting on his chair, us in our bunk beds, reading Breer Rabbit. I wasn’t much a fan of this bunny, or his adventures but it must have been towards the end of this nightly ritual which is why I remember it. We were read classics like the Pokey Little Puppy, Saggy Babby elephant, Cuddlepot and Cuddlepie (over months)etc.
Reading is part of our bedtime routine with Dylan … and none of us would miss it. We play tag, so its not the ‘writer’ in the household left holding the duties. As it turns out, my partner is far more entertaining, he does great voices (I’m certain he missed his call as an actor). I think I’m a bit boring – all my silly voices end up sounding kind of the same.
We read everything and anything – and I mean anything. One of Dylan’s favourite books is a craft book on how to make things from boxes … so we have to sort of make up the story as we go, as there are no words.
Making up stories is great … I used to have to retell Jack and the Bean Stalk three nights a week for many months when I was a nanny (it was the little girl’s fav and she’d only let me tell it to her – no book versions, though she did love books!)
Even as a writer, I’m quite tentitive about my ability to weave children’s stories.
If I were to ‘tell’ as story, I’d probably rely on retelling something I knew quite well. And as Paul pointed out, most fairy tells are quite twisted in their own right. Fairy tales originated as a means for teaching moral lessons, sharing wisdom, explaining rites of passage.
Interestingly enough -Dylan is a natural born story tellr (I think most kids are) – even if its stories woven about Spiro the Dragon!
I know I was confronted when I read Chicken Licked recently because they all get eaten by Foxy Loxy at the end – and I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain it to Dylan should he ask. But he didn’t. He just accepted that that’s what happens sometimes.
In the end it comes back to balance like everything. If the English govt is concerned about literacy, then I would have thought it would be helpful to ’see words in action’ … as you read books, words, stories and pictures all coming together AND telling freestyle stories.