Catran, Ken
The award-winning children’s writer of over 30 acclaimed novels for young adults, as well as a highly successful television scriptwriter. His books for young adults engage with the historical, the fantastical, and science fiction.
Listener Profile 26th October 1981
Auckland television writer Ken Caton has been very busy since he took up full-time writing nearly six years ago. Before then he had had a variety of Jobs which he used as "meal tickets" so that he could devote his spare time to his "career" of writing.
When TV1 and TV2 were established as separate entities he took the plunge and for two years precarious living as a freelance writer. Gradually he got more and more work until now he has reached a peak.
He has written for Hunter's Gold, Close to Home, Radio Waves, Mortimer's Patch, Castaways and Under the Mountain.
Also, he has scripted a number of documentaries and wrote TV2's first drama Spanish Lady.
Catran says he'd like to try novel writing some time and believes TV writing is excellent training for this as it teaches the process and structure necessary for producing a novel.
Next year he will be working as a series writer for Close to Horne and is hoping that the government will introduce private television which he feels will open new avenues for writers in New Zealand.
He lives with three Cats and a collection of Edwardian and Victorian books.
Man who makes living writing for TV
Press, 4 October 1984
Ken Catran is a rare individual — he manages to earn a living by writing drama full-time for New Zealand television. Catran, the script writer for the science fiction series, “Children of the Dog Star ” describes himself as a solitary person and an observer.
He learnt a lot about communication and the art of dialogue while working at many different jobs, none of which he found interesting, from the age of 18 until he was in his late 20s. “In some ways these jobs helped my career because I met a lot of people and learnt to assess them. I learnt to develop someone’s personality through what was said,” he says.
Catran wrote short stories from the age of 15 and in his late 20s he thought about writing a children’s novel about life in early New Zealand. However, he became involved in Australian television drama instead, writing adventure scripts about a man and his children voyaging around the Pacific.
When New Zealand’s second channel started transmission in 1975, Catran wrote two one-off plays for TV2 and then decided to become a writer full-time. The going was tough at first but determination paid off.
“I started working on a hand-to-hand basis. The phone would ring just as I was wondering if the bailiffs were going to call.” One of his first one-act plays, about an influenza epidemic in New Zealand, was nominated for a Feltex Television Award in 1976. He wrote the story lines for “Close to Home,” four episodes of the children’s adventure series, “Hunter’s Gold,” and episodes of “Mortimer’s Patch” for the first series.
Catran’s first science fiction work was the television adaptation of Maurice Gee’s imaginative piece, “Under the Mountain,” produced by Tom Finlayson for TVNZ.
Catran believes that successful writing is a matter of adapting to different styles easily and getting “under the skin” of different characters. The secret in writing for children, he says, is not to treat them as children. “They are young adults, so I write adult dialogue.”
It took Catran three months to write “Children of the Dog Star,” working doggedly at home in his study. He prefers to work in the mornings, having the afternoon off, and then at night working into the small hours catching up on deadlines.
He has recently completed work on another television drama series, “Hanlon” (now in production), and is now working on a commissioned feature film script “I’d like to write another kidult series — this time set around computers and the new technology. Both are subjects close to modem kids’ hearts,” he says.
Catran began work on “Children of the Dog Star” in mid-1982. “I wanted an interesting story with three kids and a modern
pursuit,” he says. He deliberately created the main character as a young girl and, avoiding stereotyping, was determined she should have a very modem interest — astronomy.
She even has her own high-powered telescope. Catran felt in a similar way about the street-wise Ronnie, and avoided any of what he refers to as a “Man Friday” image in his character.
“Ronnie is a character in his own right, making his own decisions. My three are very unlike the Famous Five,” he says.
Catran enjoys writing “kidult” series but is aware of the dangers of merely putting children into adventures. “If you do something interesting and original it makes them think and talk about it, perhaps even to do a school project. I wanted to bring in other factors and in this story I have woven in a relationship between the planetary system and agriculture,” he says.
He has also introduced a touch of mystery — the swamp site where the alien craft Kolob landed some thousands of years ago. The Maori people in the area have placed a tapu on the land.
His work for KiwiTV screens included:
