I’m overwhelmed (delightfully so!) at how many pointers you’ve offered. I really appreciate it!
I love everything you’ve written about what you used to eat at the time, especially with friends. When it comes to writing food into the story, I’ve gone mainly from what I remember eating at that time, as well as references to food in contemporaneous books and food features in old girls’ magazines (e.g. “Here are the unhealthy options you eat, and some healthy alternatives!” “Everything I Eat in a Day: By A. Teenager”).
Your note on the differences in how your one friend would behave around her social group as opposed to her parents is also interesting to consider. My character is in the very early stages of teenage rebellion, and it’s more against her childhood friends than her parents – less “Let’s smoke ciggies behind the bike shed” and more “I would like to be friends with someone who smokes ciggies behind the bike shed because she seems pretty nice and takes me seriously. This is beginning to pose a challenge because my ultra-anxious childhood best friend goes into a horror-spiral at the notion of expanding our friend group.” Writing someone with parents who are somewhere on the continuum of strict is an interesting challenge, because my parents were very hands-off (to the point of being a little bit neglectful). I was such a homebody and tended to only rebel in ways that adults didn’t pick up on, so I never got grounded. There was also no limit on what I read or watched, which was a great relief to me as I loved all kinds of books, TV and movies and would have pitched a fit if they hadn’t allowed me to read The Color Purple or The Virgin Suicides. My parents could definitely be strict about some things – I was not technically allowed to take the train up to the city to window-shop without an adult, and there wasn’t really an open discussion about when I would be allowed to do this. (The lack of an open discussion meant I just started sneaking up to the city after I turned fifteen and telling Mum I was in Freo, lol.) My mum was also very clear that she didn’t want me going to anti-war protests after September 11 2001. I think she was picturing fire hoses and police dogs, though I don’t know if that ever really happened at the anti-war protests in Perth.
All this is to say, I’d love to pick your brain about your experiences growing up in Perth – for my other characters as well as my Indian girl character. I’m very keen to broaden my perspectives about what growing up in Perth at the time was like, so that my characters feel distinct from each other. Would you mind if I messaged you down the line?
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I love everything you’ve written about what you used to eat at the time, especially with friends. When it comes to writing food into the story, I’ve gone mainly from what I remember eating at that time, as well as references to food in contemporaneous books and food features in old girls’ magazines (e.g. “Here are the unhealthy options you eat, and some healthy alternatives!” “Everything I Eat in a Day: By A. Teenager”).
Your note on the differences in how your one friend would behave around her social group as opposed to her parents is also interesting to consider. My character is in the very early stages of teenage rebellion, and it’s more against her childhood friends than her parents – less “Let’s smoke ciggies behind the bike shed” and more “I would like to be friends with someone who smokes ciggies behind the bike shed because she seems pretty nice and takes me seriously. This is beginning to pose a challenge because my ultra-anxious childhood best friend goes into a horror-spiral at the notion of expanding our friend group.”
Writing someone with parents who are somewhere on the continuum of strict is an interesting challenge, because my parents were very hands-off (to the point of being a little bit neglectful). I was such a homebody and tended to only rebel in ways that adults didn’t pick up on, so I never got grounded. There was also no limit on what I read or watched, which was a great relief to me as I loved all kinds of books, TV and movies and would have pitched a fit if they hadn’t allowed me to read The Color Purple or The Virgin Suicides. My parents could definitely be strict about some things – I was not technically allowed to take the train up to the city to window-shop without an adult, and there wasn’t really an open discussion about when I would be allowed to do this. (The lack of an open discussion meant I just started sneaking up to the city after I turned fifteen and telling Mum I was in Freo, lol.) My mum was also very clear that she didn’t want me going to anti-war protests after September 11 2001. I think she was picturing fire hoses and police dogs, though I don’t know if that ever really happened at the anti-war protests in Perth.
All this is to say, I’d love to pick your brain about your experiences growing up in Perth – for my other characters as well as my Indian girl character. I’m very keen to broaden my perspectives about what growing up in Perth at the time was like, so that my characters feel distinct from each other. Would you mind if I messaged you down the line?