How do you make your characters ‘real’ so teens can relate to them? If you’re lucky, sometimes a picture begins to form. And if I can mix in another metaphor, it’s a bit like finding one piece of a jigsaw puzzle and starting to wonder what might connect to it.
I’m constantly amazed how stories grow from such tiny seeds. Who is this boy called Ishmael? Why doesn’t he like his name? Why did his parents give him that name? What is his personality like? Three books came from that picture being on my wall and that very first simple thought. One day when I looked at it, I thought about that opening line and imagined someone – it seemed like a teenage boy - saying the opposite, ‘Don’t call me Ishmael’. I had a picture on my notice-board beside my desk, of a scene from the old movie featuring Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. The whole thing started because of the famous first line of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. Where did the inspiration from ‘Don’t Call Me Ishmael’ and ‘Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs’ come from?
0 kommentar(er)
