Children's Fantasy Fiction

by Lucy Reynolds
16th February 2012

Do you write within this genre? If so, what inspires you, who inspires you and where do you go to write?

Replies

Inspiring authors for me are Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books for younger readers, Tamora Pierce and Dianne Wyn Jones, and Eoin Colfer.

Neil Gaiman, as brilliant as he is, I think writes more for an adult market?

I have a rough draft of a children's fantasy novel that really needs looking at with fresh eyes! I got muddled somewhere along the line about the age of my main character (and audience) and need to re-work the whole thing.

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Jo
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Jo Burnett
16/02/2012

Hi Lucy. The novel I am currently working on is a children's novel. It's not technically fantasy. It's sort of paranormal/adventure. I got the idea for it in a dream! It was such a vivid dream that I can still remember exactly what it was like even now. In fact I've just posted the first part of chapter one in the shared works area if you want to take a look :)

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Gayle Bentham
16/02/2012

I used to describe myself as a children's fantasy writer until someone told me no child could possbily understand it, so I suppose I write for young adults. I can trace my inspiration all the way back to the Hobbit (which I read when I was 8) and more recently things like Neil Gaiman and JK Rowling (although I try to avoid too much similarity to Harry Potter). More often, I'm inpsired by walks in the hills or the woods, from which I rapidly return to my favourite green armchair, a cup of tea, a laptop and a pen, to jot down any illustrations that might pop into mind.

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Mark
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Mark Rudd
16/02/2012