Editing Enid Blyton (section)

==Writing style and technique==
Blyton worked in a wide range of fictional genres, from fairy tales to animal, nature, detective, mystery, and circus stories, but she often "blurred the boundaries" in her books, and encompassed a range of genres even in her short stories.{{Sfnp|Briggs|Butts|Orville Grenby|2008|p=260|ps=none}} In a 1958 article published in ''The Author'', she wrote that there were a "dozen or more different types of stories for children", and she had tried them all, but her favourites were those with a family at their centre.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2439|ps=none}}

In a letter to the psychologist Peter McKellar,{{Efn|McKellar had written to Blyton in February 1953 asking for the imagery techniques she employed in her writing, for a research project he had undertaken. The results of his investigation were published in ''Imagination and Thinking'' (1957).{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 3390|ps=none}}}} Blyton describes her writing technique:
{{blockquote|I shut my eyes for a few minutes, with my portable typewriter on my knee&nbsp;– I make my mind a blank and wait&nbsp;– and then, as clearly as I would see real children, my characters stand before me in my mind's eye&nbsp;... The first sentence comes straight into my mind, I don't have to think of it&nbsp;– I don't have to think of anything.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 3412–3418|ps=none}}}}

In another letter to McKellar, she describes how in just five days she wrote the 60,000-word book ''The River of Adventure'', the eighth in her [[Adventure Series]],{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 3552|ps=none}} by listening to what she referred to as her "under-mind",{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 3452|ps=none}} which she contrasted with her "upper conscious mind".{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 3432|ps=none}} Blyton was unwilling to conduct any research or planning before beginning work on a new book, which coupled with the lack of variety in her life{{Efn|In her leisure time Blyton led the life of a typical suburban housewife, gardening, and playing golf or bridge. She rarely left England, preferring to holiday by the English coast, almost invariably in Dorset,{{Sfnp|Druce|1992|p=29|ps=none}} where she and her husband took over the lease of an 18-hole golf course at [[Studland Bay]] in 1951.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2154|ps=none}}}} according to Druce, almost inevitably presented the danger that she might unconsciously, and did, plagiarise the books she had read, including her own.{{Sfnp|Druce|1992|p=29|ps=none}} Gillian has recalled that her mother "never knew where her stories came from", but that she used to talk about them "coming from her 'mind's eye{{'}}", as did [[William Wordsworth]] and [[Charles Dickens]]. Blyton had "thought it was made up of every experience she'd ever had, everything she's seen or heard or read, much of which had long disappeared from her conscious memory" but never knew the direction her stories would take. Blyton further explained in her biography that "If I tried to think out or invent the whole book, I could not do it. For one thing, it would bore me and for another, it would lack the 'verve' and the extraordinary touches and surprising ideas that flood out from my imagination."{{R|Herald06}}

Blyton's daily routine varied little over the years. She usually began writing soon after breakfast, with her portable typewriter on her knee and her favourite red Moroccan shawl nearby; she believed that the colour red acted as a "mental stimulus" for her. Stopping only for a short lunch break, she continued writing until five o'clock, by which time she would usually have produced 6,000–10,000 words.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 1859|ps=none}}

An article in ''[[The Malay Mail]]'' published in 2000 considers Blyton's children to have "lived in a world shaped by the realities of post-war austerity", enjoying freedom without political correctness, which serves modern readers of Blyton's novels with a form of escapism.{{R|MM00}} Brandon Robshaw of ''The Independent'' refers to the Blyton universe as "crammed with colour and character", "self-contained and internally consistent", noting that Blyton exemplifies a strong mistrust of adults and figures of authority in her works, creating a world in which children govern.{{R|Ind04}} Gillian noted that in her mother's adventure, detective and school stories for older children, "the hook is the strong storyline with plenty of cliffhangers, a trick she acquired from her years of writing serialised stories for children's magazines. There is always a strong moral framework in which bravery and loyalty are (eventually) rewarded".{{R|Herald06}} Blyton herself wrote that "my love of children is the whole foundation of all my work".{{R|NoddyBBC}}

Victor Watson, assistant director of Research at [[Homerton College, Cambridge]], believes that Blyton's works reveal an "essential longing and potential associated with childhood", and notes how the opening pages of ''The Mountain of Adventure'' present a "deeply appealing ideal of childhood".{{Sfnp|Watson|2000|p=88|ps=none}} He argues that Blyton's work differs from that of many other authors in its approach, describing the narrative of The Famous Five series for instance as "like a powerful spotlight, it seeks to illuminate, to explain, to demystify. It takes its readers on a roller-coaster story in which the darkness is always banished; everything puzzling, arbitrary, evocative is either dismissed or explained". Watson further notes how Blyton often used minimalist visual descriptions and introduced a few careless phrases such as "gleamed enchantingly" to appeal to her young readers.{{Sfnp|Watson|2000|p=89|ps=none}}

From the mid-1950s, rumours began to circulate that Blyton had not written all the books attributed to her, a charge she found particularly distressing. She published an appeal in her magazine asking children to let her know if they heard such stories and after one mother informed her that she had attended a parents' meeting at her daughter's school, during which a young librarian had repeated the allegation,{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2625–2645|ps=none}} Blyton decided in 1955 to begin legal proceedings.{{R|EBSChrono}} The librarian was eventually forced to make a public apology in open court early the following year, but the rumours that Blyton operated "a 'company' of ghostwriters" persisted, as some found it difficult to believe that one woman working alone could produce such a volume of work.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2645|ps=none}}