Writing Magic with Gail Carson Levine
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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 9/27/2006
Gail Carson Levine, author of the Newbery Honor winner Ella Enchanted (HarperTrophy, 1998), Fairest (published this September by HarperCollins), and many others, has taught writing to children for eight years. Her newest offering, Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly (HarperCollins, 2006), is a how-to-write guide for children that's a distinct change from her usual fiction, yet also a reflection of her truest "voice."
What motivated you to take a detour from fiction?
When I was able to quit my day job and be a writer full time, I felt like I needed to share the wealth. So I started to teach creative writing at the local middle school, and then a few years ago I stopped but continued doing it at the Brewster (NY) Public Library in the summer. There, I developed exercises for the kids, and as I did, I felt that I got an idea of what goes on when kids write, which is a little bit different from what goes on when adults write.
Different how?
Kids by and large don't finish what they start. And I discovered over time that that doesn't matter, that it's really fine. If kids keep writing they'll get better and it doesn't matter if they ever finish—until they get to a certain point where they will. But adults—we tend to finish more of what we start.
Anything that surprised you watching kids in the writing process?
One thing that's been a great gift to me is that I would tell them to write something and they'd sit there and write it. And they wouldn't agonize and they wouldn't tear their hair out and they wouldn't go through anything except picking up their pens and starting to write.
Is that different from adults?
I think so. Kids are accustomed to [diving right in] because in school they get assignments that they don't expect and they have to respond somehow. They aren't always happy with the results. But often they surprise themselves. At other times, when they think they did something crummy, they find out, by being heard, that what they've done isn't crummy at all.
Writing Magic offers a certain amount of emotional hand-holding, as in "Now let's break down the process and not try to bite off too much." That's what made it very readable by kids.
Thank you. The book that I loved so much when I first started to write was Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Anne Klauser. It's very comforting, and when I'm knocking my head against the wall, that's the book I go back to.
What's the most important thing to tell kids?
One is "don't worry if you don't finish what you're doing." Another thing I say to kids—not kids in my writing group because we're working together—is "when you get bored, make your character suffer!" A lot of times kids run out of ideas and they don't finish a story because they get bored.
You also tell kids to "have Cinderella burn herself cooking her stepfamily's breakfast" and "let the family dog bite her." I imagine those lines get a good laugh among the ten-year-old set. Did you write that way to keep your audience from getting bored or frustrated?
It's my voice. In this book is my truest voice. The book wrote itself, and I'm talking to kids and that's how it works out when I do that.
The title Writing Magic, and the "magical" look of the cover—were these a conscious derivation from the magical themes of Ella Enchanted and the "Princess Tales" books?
The original title was Writer to Writer. And Harper wanted to make a connection to my other books and to me. So they came up with Writing Magic. And I love the cover.
What are you working on now?
I'm working on a fantasy that takes place in a kind of made-up Mesopotamia that's a much older YA than anything I've ever done.
