What can Alice’s Wonderland teach my child about creative writing skills?
‘Alice in Wonderland’ is a delightful story written by Lewis Carroll (a mathematician whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). The story originated from an experience when Carroll was out rowing with three daughters of a friend of his, Henry Liddell. In order to entertain the girls during the five mile journey, Carroll made up a story about a bored little girl named Alice. One of the children, the real Alice, asked Carroll to write the story down for her, which he did, as well as adding his own illustrations. After much additional work, the full story of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ was published in 1865. This book, along with ‘Through the Looking-Glass’, is amongst the most popular and famous children’s books in the English language.
The character of Alice, like most successful characters in stories, is based on real people that the author knew, and events he himself had experienced. ‘The Duck’ refers to Canon Duckworth; ‘Lory and Eaglet’ are Alice’s sisters Lorina and Edith; ‘Dodo’ refers to Carroll himself (as his stutter sometimes caused him to pronounce his last name as Dodo-Dodgson); ‘The Mock Turtle’ is the girls’ Drawing Master; the ‘Red Queen’ refers to the children’s governess; and even ‘The Hatter’ is said to refer to a furniture dealer in Oxford.
A lot of stories that children are required to write have very specific titles and themes assigned to them. One of the most effective ways for your child to bring a story to life is to relate the tale to real life situations that can be weaved directly into the story. However, simply integrating real life scenarios into a story does not necessarily make it a good story. Writing interesting stories requires a sound understanding of story structure and writing technique. Part of the success of Alice in Wonderland comes from what Roger Lancelyn Green referred to as ‘the perfect creation of the logical and mathematical mind, applied to the pure and unadulterated amusement of children…’
Inspiring a child in their story writing is at the heart of our creative writing series. All the stories that your child will write, using AE Publications’ Creative Writing workbook series, encourage them to think about and draw directly from their own life experiences. The workbook series will take your child through all the techniques they need to master, in order to write a good story. Your child will learn the key structural points that are required in order to write engaging stories. They will understand how to create characters that have depth and seem real to the reader. Each of the six workbooks requires your child to write two drafts of a story, which gives them plenty of opportunity to put into practice what they have learnt.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_writing & http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/alice-wonderland-story-first-told
