A Character in Every Queue

I write from a small attic room in Bristol, and most of my characters begin their lives somewhere far less romantic: in a supermarket queue, on the number 8 bus, or halfway down the slide at the local park. Real children are astonishingly specific. One will refuse to wear anything but a particular red welly; another will narrate an entire walk as though commentating on a football match. Those tiny, stubborn details are the raw material of a memorable character.

When I begin a new story, I don't start with a plot. I start with a person. I ask myself: what does she want so badly that she'd climb a tree to get it? What does he carry in his pocket, and why does he never take it out? A character who wants something is a character a reader will follow.

Listening for the Voice

Children hear language before they analyse it, which is why the sound of a character matters as much as the sense. I spend a lot of time reading my drafts aloud in the kitchen, and my family have grown used to me muttering in the voices of a grumpy badger or a girl who only speaks in questions. If a line doesn't trip off the tongue, it usually isn't working.

Playful language is a wonderful shortcut to personality. A character who calls a bicycle a "wobbly velocipede" tells you something before the plot has done a thing. So does one who names every pigeon in the park. I keep a notebook of overheard phrases — "I'm not tired, I'm just resting my eyes" is a line I have been trying to earn a place for since 2019.

Rhythm helps too. Short sentences for a character in a hurry; long, winding ones for a dreamer. Read your work aloud and you'll hear when a voice goes flat.

What Young Readers Really Care About

Children are ruthlessly fair critics. They will forgive a wobbly plot, but they will not forgive a character who doesn't feel true. What they respond to, again and again, is emotional honesty. A character can be a mouse, a monster or a girl who lives in a lighthouse, but their feelings must ring true.

That means letting characters be unlikable sometimes. It means letting them be frightened, greedy, silly, or wrong. When I wrote a boy who lied to his grandmother about a broken window, I worried he was too prickly. Children loved him. They recognised the knot in his stomach, because most of them have felt it too.

It also means resisting the urge to explain everything. Leave a little space for the reader. If a character keeps a shell in her pocket and never says why, a child will invent a reason, and in doing so, they'll make that character their own.

Cosy Corners Where Characters Come Alive

Books need somewhere warm to land. At home, that might be a cushion pile in the corner of a bedroom, a blanket draped over a chair, or a torch under the duvet. In schools and libraries, it's often a rug, a beanbag, and a shelf at child height. A cosy reading space doesn't need to be expensive; it needs to feel like somewhere a story is welcome to stay a while.

When I visit schools, I notice that the most-read books are usually the ones nearest the cosy spot. If you're setting up a reading corner, think about light (a warm lamp beats a harsh strip), comfort (something to lean on) and choice (a small, tempting selection rather than a wall of spines). Rotate the books every few weeks so the corner feels alive.

Practical Ways to Build Characters at Home

If you'd like to encourage a young writer — or have a go yourself — try these:

• Play the "what's in the pocket?" game. Ask a child to draw a character, then list five things in their pocket and what each one means to them.
• Borrow from real life. Sit somewhere busy for ten minutes and describe one person without saying what they do for a living.
• Give them a contradiction. A tidy dragon, a shy pirate, a girl who is scared of the dark but loves thunderstorms. Contradictions make characters feel human.
• Read the dialogue aloud. If you can't tell who is speaking without the "said" tags, the voices need work.
• Let them want something small. Not to save the world — just to win the school raffle, or to hear their name pronounced correctly.

Above all, be patient. Characters, like children, take time to reveal themselves. Keep watching, keep listening, and keep a notebook by the kettle. The next one may already be queuing behind you.