You damn kids
Posted on | June 24, 2009 | 6 Comments
Well, my CBBC thing has been pummelled and kicked into something resembling a script shape. It’s in the envelope and will be away in the morning.
Definitely an interesting experience writing for 8 to 12 year olds. So many things to consider. So many pitfalls. Plenty of other bloggy people have very kindly posted their notes from the CBBC Q&A session (and now the Writersroom people have posted the transcript) and I’ve desperately tried to subsume them all.
I’m concerned that I’ve failed pitifully at doing so.
See, the thing is, writing for kids is, in some ways, really easy and, in other, myriad ways, really, really, bastard-hard. My biggest concern is that the tone of my story is a bit too dark for the kiddies. Scaring the crap out of 8-year olds is probably not the best way forward. Still, I fondly remember when I was a kid, sitting, wearing a wide-eyed rictus as I watched some piss-poor rubber monster on Doctor Who. Perhaps scaring children is the way to go. Or perhaps Richard Littlejohn is right and the namby-pamby-politically-correct-health-and-safety-couldn’t-make-it-up-equal-opportunities-brigade have taken over the BBC and sanitised children’s TV in an attempt to molly-coddle our kids and probably help immigrants or something.
Lets hope not. If for no other reason, than the fact that a world where Richard Littlejohn is right about anything would be a very grim world indeed.
Comments
Gerry Hayes
I mostly sit around all day and drink tea. Occasionally, I write stuff and send it to strangers so they can humiliate me and deride my efforts. Other than the self-harm to dull the shame of failure, it's not a bad life. Like I say, there's tea.
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The Google tells me it’s GK Chesterton who said, “Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be defeated.” Children’s entertainment is so watered down today compared to what it was even when I was a kid in the ’80s, let alone in generations before that. I’m afraid we’re turning out generations of wusses nowadays. Being scared is good for kids. The world is scary, you know? Kids don’t need to be sheltered from fear; they need stories that tell them they can be afraid and still get through whatever they’re facing.
I’m rather sorry the envelope’s sealed – I could have printed that and included it. Lets hope the BBC people feel the same way. You’re eloquently correct, of course. Thanks, E.
Well if Heinrich Hoffmann can get away with it, scaring children is the way forward. Or possibly a situation that would result in police knocking on your door. Either way it’s conflict which us writers all know is at the heart of every story.
Nice one for posting it done and dusted. Did mine today.
Katie: Ta very much for encouragement. Makes me feel slightly guilty that I’m secretly hoping you, and everyone else, fails so my script is selected. I’m a bad person. Very bad and karma will punish me for it.
Only just read your response which frankly pushed me over the edge. I will hunt your script down and stick pins in it to which I will get carted away in a rather fetching strappy white jacket and thrown in an uber comfortable room. My script will go on to win many awards but there will be a slight hesitation in rewarding me because of my unstable mental nature. I will be hailed as the unsung hero and only after my death will my scripts be produced and make me famous. My only living cat shall reap the benefits.
And only then can you claim you were the instigating event that started it all. I reckon you could get a Heat double spread and a mention in The Sun. What say you to that Hayes, huh?
(But seriously, well done. I’m thinking the same thing, just not telling anyone.)
I say, “splendid!” Being in Heat’s always been my dream. I’m already formulating my application for next year’s Big Brother. I just have to settle on a couple of physical irregularities and mental conditions.
I reckon I’m a shoo-in if :
I get implants to give me back-boobs (complete with nipples).
I affect some affliction where I run around like a gibbon, naked, masturbating furiously and fondling my back-boobs.
I claim no memory of it after the fact, calling anybody that mentions it ‘lying fucks’.