Write stories you love
Top author SF Said explains how to get started if you want to write a book.
The author SF Said moved from Beirut, Lebanon, to London when he was two years old. He was “an urban kid” he told The Week Junior, living in a flat with his family. Said spent most of his spare time reading and writing.
When he was eight, Said’s mother gave him a copy of Watership Down by Richard Adams. The book’s length (500 pages) and its subject matter (a group of rabbits) meant that at first he felt a bit put off. From the first page, though, he discovered “the best book ever, an amazing epic story about rabbits.” One day, thought Said, “I’d like to try to write something even half as good.”
If you want to write books, Said recommends having a go at making something you love. Every time he starts a new book he thinks, “If I could have any story, what would it be? Whatever the answer is to that, that’s what I write.” Said says he is inspired by ancient stories of gods and magic and wants his books to be like modern myths.
Said works on his books for years. His latest novel, Tyger, took nine years and many drafts (versions). The only thing that didn’t change, he says, was the Tiger herself, who stalked his imagination, impatient to appear in Said’s work. Writing books takes a lot of work, says Said, but it’s worth the effort when people start to read and enjoy them. Tyger won Children’s Book of the Year: Older Fiction at the 2023 Week Junior Book Awards.
After more than 20 years, Said read Watership Down again – reading the same copy that had gripped his imagination when he was a child. “I thought it was even better,” he said. “A story about us and the big questions of human life. It has everything in it.” This was not a book only for children, he said, but a book for everyone, from eight to 88.
If you love a book right now, Said says you should hold onto it. “Have another look in 20 years’ time and see how this book has shaped how you think at the deepest levels.”