By Parker McKenzie
Children’s author Gareth Vanderhope’s writing process is simple: “just allow creative ideas to flow.”
“Many of those ideas distil from years of life experience where little stories sort of bubble away in your mind. Those thought bubbles rise from under the ocean and they find a way to the surface of your mind,” he says.
“The first stage is just allowing creative ideas to flow and not worrying about writing structure of style or sentence, grammar or anything like that.”
Vanderhope wrote and published the children’s novel The Hills Kids, which follows the adventures of Archie, Pippa and Ollie with their dog Kimba through the foresty neighbourhoods of the Dandenong Ranges.
He says capturing the core essence of experiences, as he did with his own childhood growing up in the hills, can create narratives throughout works.
“You’re collecting stories and experiences, which in themselves can be great little stories, but finding a way to create that into a novel requires a certain element of what I call glue, you need to bind ideas together,” he says.
“Those stories then become a part of this collage of characters, scenes and environments that then make sense in the context of an entire novel story.”
His advice for anyone aspiring to create a children’s novel is to “just write the story.”
“Don’t worry about how you’re writing it, whether it’s good writing or bad writing,” he says.
“Be prepared for a gruelling process of polishing your work, but at the same time create a safe space and a team of people for providing feedback, so that when you get feedback from people, it doesn’t harm your creative process or confidence.”
Vanderhope previously worked as a sound designer, a role which saw him work on two Academy Award-winning films.
He says his experience in sound design is reflected in The Hills Kids and aspiring writers should draw on their own experiences when writing.
”A big part of the way that I wrote the book is creating soundscapes and using words as a way of creating the sounds in the imagination of the characters and also when they verbalize,” he says.
“Soundscapes and sound design can happen in music creation, filmmaking and in my case, I’ve put it into writing.”
Vanderhope says writing can impact the lives of people and influence readers, which is something to be mindful of when writing a children’s book.
“When you’re writing for children, something that I had to carefully consider is being a mentor through the process. I am essentially telling a story, but I also have a responsibility or a duty of care to the kids who read the story,” he says.
“While you want to be engaging, fun and thrilling, there’s also a challenging but important responsibility.”
For more information on Gareth Vanderhope and The Hills Kids, you can visit garethvanderhope.com, or a hard copy of the novel can be bought from the Belgrave Book Barn.
