Tamsyn Murray: how to write about your own family

http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/mar/04/tamsyn-murray-family-writing-tips

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Imagine bumping into your favourite author – you know, the one you want to BE when you get older. After you’ve done your best goldfish impression at them, your brain kicks in and you think of a question to ask. “How can I become a writer just like you?”

“Ah,” they reply, with a strange faraway glint in their eye. “You must write about what you know, so that it feels real to your readers. Write the story only you can write.”

Then they wander off, back to Authorland, and it doesn’t occur to you until much later that they write about dragons and snorgfluffles and magical cabbages – things that almost certainly are not real. But they’re your favourite writer… you can’t ignore their advice so you get your thinking cap on: what do you know about?

Halfway through, your mind drifts back to that squabble you had with your mum this morning, over who’d left half a sock in the toaster. It was your third argument this week – in fact, you know quite a lot about falling out with your family. And – LIGHTBULB – suddenly, you realise that’s it, that’s exactly what your favourite author does: write about their family. They just disguise them as dragons and snorgfluffles and magical cabbages. But how do you disguise yours? Here’s how I did it in – erm – every book I have written so far.

1. Change their names – very important this one and not just because your brother is called Fartface (I’m kidding…he’s not, is he?). Perhaps change the way they look too – give them a beard or something. In fact, this tip is true if you decide to base any of your characters on real people, especially if you are going to make them evil. Put it this way, do you think I really had a terrible maths teacher called Mr Peterson who was so boring that even our calculators switched off in his lessons? Of course I didn’t, I changed his name in the Completely Cassidy books so that he wouldn’t get upset with me. My really boring maths teacher was called Mr Rooney…

2. Keep it real – but not too real. I like to think that the best fictional families take a pinch of reality, a teaspoon of exaggeration and a pint of imagination. In the Weasley family, for example, we have a wonderfully warm Mum, an ever-so-slightly-crackpot Dad, infuriating but pretty cool older brothers and a goody-two-shoes little sister who makes everyone else look bad most of the time. That’s a reasonably standard combination of characters – maybe you have some of them in your own family – but their characteristics are exaggerated so that they are larger than life. And everything they do revolves around magic. (Hint: that’s the imagination part)

3. Keep a diary – secret ones are the best. Write down everything that happens, no matter how small or embarrassing it seems at the time, especially if it is hilariously funny (and even if it isn’t). How else are you going to have enough stories to power your entire writing career? Make sure you don’t forget to change a few details here and there, to protect the innocent. A word of warning though: be careful which secrets you let out of the bag. Is your teenage brother going to be happy if all his rugby mates find out about his almost-completed Frozen sticker book? I don’t think so…

4. Don’t be afraid if your family is unusual, especially compared to your friends’ – embrace that

unusualness

unusuality

weirdness. It was good enough for The Addams Family and The Moomins (seriously, look up Cousin Itt). But actually, families are weird and they’ve changed a lot in recent years – so maybe weird is the new normal? Personally, I think family is whatever you want it to be and I love reading about different domestic set-ups. The real problem is if your family is too boring to write about.

5. Put yourself in their shoes – not literally, of course, because you’d look pretty ridiculous in your mum’s strappy sandals, but do think about things from the point of view of others. There are two sides to every argument so try to consider where the other person might have been coming from. How did they feel about the time you melted their model T-Rex with the hairdryer? Why did they eat the last slice of pizza, the one that was supposed to be for you? If you can imagine how they might have felt about something, you can use that in your writing. But repeat after me: don’t forget to change their names.

So there you have them, my top tips for hiding the fact that you are writing about Great Aunty Mildred and her stinky cockapoo!

Accidental Genius is the first book in Tamsyn’s new series, Completely Cassidy, about hapless heroine Cassidy as she tries to find her special talent. To celebrate the launch of her new series, Tamsyn is running a short story writing competition on the theme ‘My Secret Talent’. There are some fantastic prizes up for grabs. For more information on how to enter go to www.completelycassidy.co.uk/competitions.