What would E. Nesbit write if she was alive today?
She would write for television because you cannot make money from magazine publications anymore, plus she is good with serialisation.
She would write a show for children, because that‘s what she‘s REALLY GOOD at. But maybe also include some references they wouldn‘t get, and maybe also do some guest writing for other shows, like X-Files for instance.
She would have a whole bunch of stuff in there. Of course we would have time travel, but with an educational and very British touch [cough cough I know a show that could use more female writers cough], but there might also be magic, and while that would be enchanting, fans would point out a lot of mistakes in her magic and time travel system and she would not even try to discuss it 😂 She would make the magic system complicated on purpose to avoid anybody really understanding it [cough, cough Elder Wand cough]. She also would put in loads of fairy tale and other intertextual references to books and films and other shows, and whatever supernatural stuff would be going on, there would be a cute mascot and the magical stuff would be somehow related to reading or words. There would be very fine costumes and merchandise galore (someone has to feed her patchwork family, because YES, even with modern contraception she would have more than the average number of children, some adopted most likely). There would be monsters and seemingly baddies who then turn into good guys. She would love a good twist and a mystery.
She would have some weird romantic subplots all of which ending in very happy marriages, or at least engagements. There would be love triangles everywhere. The group of not-very-well-behaved children with hearts of gold and very clever, very modern slang dialogue would roll their eyes at this but still be happy in the end. They would comment on how tropey that is - there would be tons of lampshading. There would be a tomboyish girl main character and an arrogant boy and there would be voiceover DEFINITELY. There might be family reunions and perhaps, but only perhaps, there might be some queer or gay characters adopting a child. She would get roasted for some stupidity she would say about that but then she would learn from that experience.
All of this would have a nostalgic touch - perhaps channeling the Romantic Gothic, the 19th century or maybe even 1920s or 1950s. She would include very subtle and not very revolutionary hints at Socialism and gender equality, but nothing too daring for the mainstream - but perhaps one or two radical Christian groups would ban the show for some occult references, even though the Christian morals underneath would be pretty obvious to everyone. There would be supernatural elements and a bit of scary stuff, but nothing too bad. There would 100% be a crossover to another show she is working on in some way, or her husband is, or some old friend etc. So basically, yes, there‘d be several crossovers and at least one spin-off.
The cast would be stellar because she would know everyone in the business. She would not allow anyone to cast a person she does not agree to personally. She would love to work in creative teams. She would cast the same actress of the tomboy as herself in her own biopic. She would nevertheless have a cameo as some weird lady deus ex machina in each and all of her shows, as a famous writer or a mad cat lady or a steampunkish inventor and she would LOVE doing that so much that she would be invited to tons of interview shows and charity sketches and she would participate gloriously! If asked for autographs at conventions she would be very flattered, but if it would be too much of a bother she would pretend to faint. She would love to host competitions for cameos and fan fictions and new storylines, so that she would not have to invent everything by herself, and it would be good marketing. She would have her own charity, something for children most likely. She would promote the Labour Party publicly. And yes, she would be a feminist nowadays, a mild one though, not a figurehead.
After having written stuff for children for a while, she would try to create a show for adults, something along the lines of Once upon a Time or Buffy or some Jane Eyre parody in modern setting [I wanted to write „with cars and computers“ to add the distinctly Nesbitian modernism, but then I realized that yup, that‘s The Eyre Affair. So yeah, that‘s what she would write. But as a TV show], or maybe even something like the Poe Dinner Party, because she would enjoy the mystery and the literary referentiality. She would claim that her heart beats for writing for the stage (musical or not) and she would try that, but nobody would really care for that part of her work. Her other work however, would be, as it is, bestselling stuff with super long runs. She‘d probably be made a Dame before long.
