Real Characters — Real Life: An Interview with Harry Mazer

by Diana Bocco

Harry Mazer is one of the most acclaimed writers of the "realistic" novel for children today. Among the highlights of his career are numerous awards, works published in France, Germany, and Finland, and the making of his book Snowbound into a NBC-TV movie special. Controversy has surrounded Mazer's work from the beginning, mostly owing to his use of strong language and his bold approach to controversial issues. Not surprisingly, it is that same crude depiction of reality that makes his books so authentic and appealing to young fans.

Mazer also writes in collaboration with his wife, the novelist Norma Fox Mazer.

DB: There's a long gap between the moment you decided you wanted to be a writer, and your first published work. Why do you think it took so long to move from one point to the other?

HM: Whatever the source of a writer's talent, practice is necessary. I didn't practise enough when I was a student, so I had to do it when I decided to become a writer. Ten years of preparation was the goal I set myself. Ten years of practice: writing and discarding and rewriting. If I were starting out now I would still make a ten-year plan.

DB: Why did you decide to write for children instead of for adults?

HM: Why did I write for children? It isn't as if these things are calculated. One thing leads to another. I was writing pulp fiction and my agent suggested I try a children's book. I did. It didn't have to succeed. If it hadn't, I would probably have turned to something else. But it did. One book led to another. I enjoyed the writing. Publishers were satisfied and children enjoyed the reading.

DB: Where do you get the ideas for your books? <

A name="para08">HM: All my books grow out of my life and my family and people I meet. But also from my dreams, imaginings, brooding and things I can't get out of my head. Worries. I think, 'What if the worst happens? What if my car goes off the road in a snowstorm? (Snowbound) What if my parents had died when I was a kid? (When the Phone Rang) What if my plane were shot down on the last day of a war? (The Last Mission) What will I do? Will I be ready? Will I be brave enough?' That's how a lot of my books start.

DB: Reading your books, one feels that the characters almost 'jump off' the page. Do you place special emphasis on developing your characters?

HM: There's character and there's plot. For me, a story starts with character. I have to get 'under the skin' of the character for the story to come to life. It's the inner life that makes a character 'jump off the page.'

DB: How do you get in touch with young people's feelings so that they find your stories believable?

HM: The way I get in touch is to examine my own feelings. I think, 'If it were me, how would I act?' Or I might think about my family, my children, [my wife] Norma, or friends, and imagine them in this situation. But the final arbiter of feeling is me.

DB: Although your central characters are usually boys, you wrote The Island Keeper with Cleo Murphy, a girl, as the protagonist. Why?

HM: I initially conceived The Island Keeper as a boy, but I soon saw that making the character a girl added something fresh. Girls are traditionally passive characters in survival stories. Boys were the doers. The girls trembled and wept.

DB: Did that make a difference in the way the book was received by your readers? Were you concerned about that while you were writing the story?

HM: I think that making the girl the protagonist brought readers to the book. There was a new spirit abroad: women and girls feeling their strength. Girls welcomed Cleo. My concern when I was writing this book was Cleo. I worried about her. Would she be able to survive? I wanted her to succeed. I was proud of her when she did.

DB: Do you think that children's writers feel pressure from schools or parents to leave out of their writing issues such as premarital sex or cursing?

HM: Censorship has accompanied my fiction throughout my career, starting with The Dollar Man. Typically, a parent of a 7th- or 8th-grade child finds words in my books that they find offensive and don't want their child exposed to. But it's more than words. There's often a depiction of the world that these parents want to shield their kids from. Or they may have religious principles. Whatever. Their attack on language is just a way to put fear into the hearts of writers, librarians, teachers, and administrators.

DB: What's your position on censorship?

HM: Censorship is a blight on children's books. I don't believe in censorship in any form. I never censored my own kids or tried to steer their reading. I had enough respect for their intelligence to allow them to choose their own books and to make their own judgements.

I don't write school books. I don't teach morals. I don't teach reading. There is a need and a place for expert instruction in all of these areas. I regard fiction for the young exactly as I do fiction for adults. I am pleased that young adults (a.k.a ten- to fourteen-year-olds) are reading my books. I believe they read my books because the characters in them are doing things that interest and amuse them and that sometimes leave them open-mouthed and thrilled with excitement. I can only hope that a character or a story leave them with the feeling that they've experienced something about life.

DB: Do you think that society expects children's writers to understand children in a way most people don't?

HM: I don't think society takes children's writers terribly seriously. I sometimes feel that most adults believe that if they only concentrated — focussed just a little — they could whip off a wonderful children's book.

DB: Do you have a specific routine for writing?

HM: When I'm writing, I work every day at the same place, starting at the same time, and with a specific number of pages to do at each sitting. These are excellent rules, and I strive to follow them, but I don't always succeed.

DB: Do you work on more than one project at a time?

HM: As a professional writer, I work on more than one project at a time. To do otherwise would leave me with long periods when I would be waiting to hear from agent or editor. New ideas have to be developed and accepted, contracts have to be signed. Everything takes time, and I may be working on several different projects at the same time, though not with equal intensity.

DB: Can you talk about any works in progress?

HM: I've just completed a book called The Wild Kid about a slightly retarded boy who happens across a wild
kid in the woods. Simon and Schuster will publish it this spring.

NEXT >>