What Inspires Me to Write Children’s Books and YA Novels

People sometimes ask me where my stories come from. I wish I had an exciting answer. The truth is, most of them start with something very small.

A question. A memory. Something one of my daughters says. A conversation I overhear. A feeling I remember from years ago. Sometimes it’s simply an idea that appears at completely the wrong time and then refuses to leave me alone.

I usually start with “What if?”

What if a little girl desperately wanted to dance but believed she wasn’t good enough?

What if a boy discovered an old box of seeds and, without realizing it, began bringing his grandfather’s forgotten garden back to life?

What if a dog came into someone’s life at exactly the moment they needed him?

That’s often all I have in the beginning. I don’t always know where the story is going. I just know there’s something there that I want to follow.

Why I Write for Children

There’s something special about writing for children because children still allow themselves to believe in things adults have learned to question.

A garden can be magical. A pair of ballet shoes can hold a little hope. A tiny act of kindness can become an adventure. And a question that seems simple can lead somewhere surprisingly deep.

I love that.

But I also don’t want every story I write to feel as though it’s trying to teach a lesson. Children are clever. They know when someone is trying too hard to teach them something.

I’d rather tell them a good story.

If kindness, courage, patience, confidence or empathy happens to grow naturally from that story, even better.

And Then There Are the Teenagers...

Writing for teenagers is completely different, and I enjoy it for exactly that reason.

Being a teenager can be wonderful and absolutely awful, sometimes within the same five minutes.

You’re trying to work out who you are while everyone around you seems to have an opinion about who you should be. Friendships change. First loves hurt. Families aren’t perfect. You make mistakes. You worry too much about things that might not matter five years from now, but they matter enormously right now.

I remember those feelings.

And raising two teenage daughters has made me realise that, although the world around teenagers has changed enormously, many of the feelings haven’t.

That’s the part I’m interested in.

When I wrote The Dog Who Found Me, for example, I wasn’t thinking, I need to write a book that teaches teenagers about love, loss and second chances.

I was thinking about a boy who was struggling and a dog who came into his life.

The rest grew from there.

I Don’t Have Everything Planned

This might be my favorite part of writing.

I can begin a story believing I know exactly what is going to happen, and then a character does something I hadn’t planned at all.

Suddenly I’m changing chapters, moving scenes around and wondering why I bothered making an outline in the first place.

It can be frustrating.

It’s also what I love about it.

Somewhere between the first idea and the finished book, the characters begin to feel like people rather than words on a page.

And sometimes they surprise me too.

Why I Keep Writing

I think books give us somewhere to go for a while.

Sometimes we read because we want an adventure. Sometimes we need to laugh. Sometimes we want to escape everything around us. And sometimes we find a character going through something we’ve felt ourselves and think, Oh. So it isn’t just me.

Those are the books I remember.

I don’t expect every story I write to change someone’s life. That’s a very big job to give a book.

But if one of my stories makes a child laugh, helps a teenager feel understood, starts a conversation between a parent and child, or simply makes someone want to read one more chapter before going to sleep, that’s enough for me.

And then, usually when I’m supposed to be doing something completely different, another little “What if?” appears.

So I start writing again.

Christie Mathew