Authors Electric

‘A very famous editor once said to me: “Barry, tell them what they eat.”’ This is one of the delightful pieces of advice given by Barry Cunningham on writing for children . He doesn’t say who the famous editor is – Kaye Webb? – but I love this nugget for its apparent triviality, actually giving an extremely important message.  Food matters to children. It’s a big part of their everyday lives and if you want them to get lost in your story, better make sure you don’t let the action go on too long without feeding your characters. Yes, you can have scene breaks, but every now and then your readers will want to know what your hungry hero will be having for supper; even more so, if supper happens to be a fabulous party, or a midnight feast planned in the dorm.  Enid Blyton totally got this: remember all those picnics enjoyed by the Famous Five, or the illicit night time snacks shared by boarding school girls in Malory Towers? More recently J K Rowling...

I suppose it’s inevitable that on this glorious day of chocolate scoffing, of succumbing to all the temptations resisted (well, by some of us anyway) during the last few weeks, my mind should wander – or perhaps waddle – back to the role of delicious food in books.  But not in the nurturing, life-enhancing way I looked at last month ; just the opposite. And while this works as a literary and moral device, it can be pretty cruel to your characters. All downhill from here To begin at the beginning… How does the serpent corrupt Eve in the Garden of Eden? With a crisp, juicy apple, thus setting in motion 2,000 years of imagery in which the poor apple takes the brunt of all the evil in the world. Interestingly the idea of fruit being a catalyst for trouble isn’t just a Judeo-Christian one: think of the six pomegranate seeds swallowed by Persephone when kidnapped by Hades, which bind her to the Underworld for half the year. Golden Apple of Discord Or the gold...