When I started to write my first children’s novel I
deliberately tried not to write my story. This was difficult because I was
writing quite an intimate novel about alopecia, a condition I have lived with
most of my life. I valiantly placed the story in a completely different
setting, different age, family, school, friends— everything was different.
But I found as I wrote that the story somehow continued to
parallel with mine. No matter how I tried to make it different the heart of the
story beat in time with mine. As I grew in understanding of my characters and
their emotions and life experiences it became clearer that it was in fact my
story. Even the names that I had chosen for my characters reflected mine, which
was a bit scary to realise.
I’m writing my second children’s novel now. It’s a fantasy and
a friend commented that this one would be pure fiction. As a fantasy novel it
immediately marks itself outside of the realm of reality.
However, as I’ve started to write and get to know my
characters I realise that once again, I’m bleeding into my story. The emotions,
choices, and character traits— all of these deeper aspects of a story continue
to circle around and cause me to look at myself and my own life, to dig into
how I feel and what I’ve learnt.
Yes, it is a fantasy but fantasies tend to reflect reality.
In fact they can do so in a deeper way than real to life stories. Fantasies
have the freedom to explore scenarios and topics where a real to life story
might be constrained by culture, religion or social norms.
