Finding Ideas for Picture Books
Where A World Class Writer Found Her Idea for a Picture Book
Finding ideas for picture books can seem daunting. Hans Christian Anderson Award winner, Margaret Mahy found inspiration in a motel swimming pool.
The Experience that Started her Thinking
One day, when Mahy was staying in a motel in New Mexico, she decided to go for a swim. The pool was deserted, except for a pair of young lovers standing in the shallow end, coiled together in a passionate embrace. Every time Mahy swam towards them she began to feel embarrassed, resentful and indignant. She wanted them to clear off and go and find a private swimming pool. But when she had finished that lap and was swimming away from them, she felt overly critical and territorial and accused herself of being jealous of them.
Her Emotions Became Engaged
Slowly her indignation grew stronger than her tolerance, and she began to imagine she was growing a dorsal fin, and was gliding through the water like a shark.
“I could see myself soundless, menacing, and ruthless, my skin set with sharp close-set denticles, my silent crescent snarl filled with rows and rows of teeth. The lovers would suddenly see my dorsal fin approaching. They would leap from the water screaming. I would have the pool to myself…” (Quoted in Margaret Mahy: A Writer's Life by Tessa Duder; Harper Collins; 2005)
She Reflected on this Aspect of her Shadow Side
After her swim she continued to think about the shark she had fantasised about becoming. She was haunted at her inner ‘sharkness’, at the person who had wanted to own all the space in the pool, and at how tempting and empowering she found the shark persona to be.
Accepting this Darker Aspect of her Personality Empowered her Imagination
Her ability to accept and explore her shadow is a large part of her power as a writer. Most people would have pushed away this thought, embarrassed or ashamed by what is usually considered unacceptable, especially in a woman. But instead she engaged with the thought, reflected on what sharks meant to her, on an occasion in her childhood where she had caught a small shark with a hand line and had watched it die, and on the warnings adults gave about sharks in the sea where she loved to swim.
The Great White Man-Eating Shark is Created
She decided to write a story about the scariest shark of all, and the picture book, The Great White Man- Eating Shark was born.
A boy called Norvin is very plain and not very sociable, but is an excellent actor. He is annoyed to find his favourite beach crowded, so he makes a shark suit and takes to the water. He scares the crowds away, and for a while he’s delighted to swim up and down like a silver arrow, until a lady shark discovers him and falls in love. Needless to say Norvin is out of the water in no time.
It’s fascinating to see how Mahy’s subconscious has taken the original components – the water, the territorial lone swimmer and the amorous couple, and has rearranged them to produce a story that is ultimately a joke on herself.
You can read more about Margaret Mahy, about humour in children’s books and about finding fresh ideas by clicking on these links.
