Making It Up as You Go Along – A children's guide to writing stories

This idea-packed book for budding young writers is by Patricia Forde, children’s author and the current Laureate na nÓg (the Irish equivalent of the Children’s Laureate). She is ably supported by Mary Murphy’s cartoons and letters from some of Ireland’s leading children’s authors. The book’s aims to encourage children’s own writing and imagination are celebrated in the Foreword by poet Michael D. Higgins, until very recently Ireland’s greatly respected President.

Each of the twelve chapters explores a different element of story writing. We begin with finding ideas and creating characters, journey through developing and structuring a plot, and end with advice regarding more specific genres, such as comedy, mystery or fantasy. In each chapter, Forde explains the writing process, defines new terms as necessary (such as protagonist and antagonist) and gives examples to support her concepts. ‘Over to you’ writing exercises encourage children to put these ideas into practice. Each chapter concludes with a letter from another children’s author (including Eion Coffer, Derek Landy and Sarah Webb). They talk about their own writing, with a focus on the chapter’s theme.

Any aspiring writer should find inspiration here. The tone and language level is friendly and the book is positively bursting with ideas. As its length suggests, these concepts may take some digesting but a potential reader-writer could work through the book on a chapter-by-chapter basis or simply dip in.  The chapter-concluding letters add a particularly strong element, full of creative insight arising from the author’s own experience. Another strength is that, in telling us how to structure and write stories, the book also builds children’s ability to appreciate and understand the fiction they read.

This comprehensive book should be useful and accessible to children younger than the age range given above, but it will really come into its own with older children wanting to write extended fiction, perhaps even a novel. Whilst giving plenty of guidance, Forde makes it clear that there are no set rules. She does not disguise that writing is hard work but it also demonstrates its huge potential for fun. It is a way to harness that unlimited human resource – the imagination. Although some readers might need support in navigating their way through the whole book, I am sure it will inspire creativity and great storytelling.