This is Just a Test -- Collaborative Writing

Guest Post by Madelyn Rosenberg and Wendy Wan-Long Shang

When we worked on our new middle-grade novel, This Is Just A Test, the two of us (Wendy Wan-Long Shang and Madelyn Rosenberg) collaborated, sending our manuscript back and forth, back and forth, until it was complete. In school, kids collaborate all of the time, on science labs, social studies projects, sports teams, and of course, on writing assignments. Most of the teachers we’ve talked to say that the main way their students collaborate on writing is through peer editing. We thought we’d offer a few ways to have them collaborate on the writing itself.

Character

Our character, David Da-Wei Horowitz, is Jewish (like Madelyn) and Chinese-American (like Wendy). Little pieces of our own experiences and culture went into forming that character, along with plenty of things that are just David’s alone.

Have your students work in pairs to build a character. Think of it like the Build-a-Bear workshop: You’ll be discussing what the character looks like on the outside, but to create a true character, you can’t forget the stuffing – the things that go inside.

Have your students go back and forth, adding one trait at a time until they decide the character is complete.

What does the character like?

What is the character afraid of?

What does she want?

What does he like to eat?
How does she get along with her mother?

This Is Just A Test is set in the 1980s so it counts (much as we hate to admit it) as historical fiction. This assignment can work well as an introduction to historical fiction. Are your students studying World War II or Ancient Civilizations? Have them create a character from the time period they’re studying. How would that character’s fears and foods and fun be different from today?

Setting

Now that your students have a character, have them collaborate on a setting. They can brainstorm and draw. Complete sentences aren’t necessary, just words, phrases and ideas. The focus can be close (the character’s bedroom) or from farther away (the city or woods).

Story

Try brainstorming again, with plot, before having your students sit down to create their story. Make sure they negotiate: Would our character do this? Would our character say this? And make sure they read for voice. Assignments like this help them learn to pay attention to each other’s writing styles so they can make them similar – so that the text and dialogue sound like they’re coming from the same narrator and the same characters.

Is the character serious or sarcastic?

Does she use certain phrases?

If there is interior monologue, how does the character talk to himself?

When our agents said they couldn’t tell which one of us had written what in our book, that was when we knew we had a true collaboration.

Feel free to throw out a few touchstone words to help students find inspiration (yellow, hard drive, cantaloupe) a sentence they have to use (“Oh, it’s on.”) or even a situation (“It was not the sound they expected to come out of a space ship.”) If you’ve chosen to go with historical fiction, provide some old newspapers and photos.

Another type of collaborative story is where authors take on different characters with different perspectives instead of joining forces for one. Given our current political climate, the idea of exploring situations from different perspectives is especially appealing. Our story would have been completely different if it had been told from the point of view of Scott or Hector instead of David.

Shout Mouse Press explored different perspectives on a large scale, when they had students work together to create The Day Tajon Got Shot. Author Jen Malone and six co-authors approached the night of a dance from different perspectives in Best. Night. Ever.

Consider a prompt where each student takes on the perspective of a different character. You can divide into larger groups for this one. Students must agree on plot and setting, but they have more independence in creating their characters. They’ll have to consider, though, how the actions of one character influence another.

For more on Madelyn Rosenberg, visit www.madelynrosenberg.com.

For more on Wendy Shang, visit www.wendyshang.com

For more writing prompts by Madelyn and Wendy on collaboration, 

Reading Rockets  or Kate Messner's website.

SHOWING CHARACTER THROUGH ACTION

by Claudia Mills

          One of the cardinal rules of writing is “Show, don’t tell.” This means that rather than telling readers that your character is bossy, you need to show her actually being bossy. Rather than telling readers that another character loves to daydream, you need to show her lost in reverie – and show us what the content of her fantasy is.

          

             In my new series, Franklin School Friends, my characters are defined by their interests and passions. Kelsey (Kelsey Green, Reading Queen) loves to read. Annika (Annika Riz: Math Whiz) loves math. Izzy (Izzy Barr, Running Star) loves to run. You get the idea! In each book, my challenge is to find a way for the girls to support one another (in trying to win a reading contest, a Sudoku contest, or a race) while using their own distinctive talent and abilities.

           So: as Izzy is trying to win a 10K race, Kelsey inspires her with the story of Atalanta’s famous race in Greek mythology and Annika helps her calculate how fast she needs to run each kilometer to beat her rival. When Kelsey suspects her rival, Simon, of cheating during a schoolwide reading contest, Annika figures out how many pages Simon would need to read in an hour to make good on his reading claims; Izzy spies on Simon with the plan of running fast if she gets caught.

       

   Here’s a way to share this characterization challenge with students.

1)    Let students pick a fun activity to be the focus of a scene. Examples might be: running a race, baking a cake, building a snow fort, starting a lemonade stand.

2)    Choose names for three characters to be part of the scene, preferably with a mix of boys and girls (and not using names of any kids in the class).

3)    Give each kid a character trait (e.g., shy, imaginative, clumsy, funny, determined, impatient, reckless, conceited, talkative). Or: give each kid a passion/talent (loves sports, science, math, music, reading).

4)    Then: how can we SHOW this in the scene? If our characters are baking a cake, what would the shy character be doing? The imaginative one? The clumsy one? The funny one? What would the sports-lover contribute to the baking? Maybe she’d volunteer to use her arm muscles doing the mixing or she’d be jogging in place as the cake bakes. What would the scientist kid contribute? Maybe wondering how differently the cake would turn out if they left out the flour or baking powder? What would the musical kid be doing? Maybe making up a cake-baking song for them all to sing?

The takeaway point for the students is: character is shown through ACTION. We know what kind of person someone is by seeing what he DOES. So: provide a fun activity, gather together a group of imaginary kids, and let them reveal themselves to us!

Claudia Mills is the author of over 50 books for young readers, including How Oliver Olson Changed the World (an ALA Notable Book of the Year) and The Trouble with Ants (which just received a starred review in Publishers Weekly), as well as the Franklin School Friends series of chapter books from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Claudia lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her family and her cat, Snickers. Visit her at www.claudiamillsauthor.com.

Inhabiting Your Character or Historic Subject

by Mary Quattlebaum

How might we bring a greater awareness of our characters or historic subjects (George Washington, Harriet Tubman) to the page?

This is one of my favorite exercises as a writer—and one my students of all ages seem to relish and learn from. It’s playful and illuminating.

*Be your character or historic subject for a day (or at least a few consecutive hours).   Try to bring all your senses to it.

*Put on the clothes (or at least some) she would wear.  Eat the breakfast she would.  Do chores of the time (wash dishes, for example, or find a stable and pat the horses).  Play a game or read a book in the way your character would.

*Move like your character.  Let yourself inhabit that excited child or hungry dog or frightened slave. Skip down the street or sniff your dinner deeply or hide in a shed at night and peek out.  Walk as your character walks.  (For my picture book Underground Train, I rode the Metro in Washington, DC numerous times while inhabiting my child narrator, trying to experience the sounds and sights as she would.)

*Enact certain scenes, especially if they have intense action or emotion (within reason, of course).  For example, for an escape scene, have someone truss you up and feel yourself first bound and then trying to figure out how to escape.

*What does your character really like to do?  Do that!  What does your character hate to do?  Try that too, always being your character.

*Take on the physical proportions and usual posture of your character.  If your character is short, get down on your knees and see/experience as she would.  If your historic figure is tall, stand on a chair.  Is a character aggressive?  Puff out the chest.  Sad?  Let yourself slump.

*Jot down your reactions, thoughts, feelings, etc.  Weave into the writing or be conscious of as you revise.

*This can be done at any time during the writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising) to deepen a sense of character/historic subject and their world, provide more telling details, and heighten kinesthetic awareness.

www.maryquattlebaum.com

MYSTERY WRITING

by Mary Amato

Writing a mystery can be a challenge for a professional writer, let alone a beginner. Not only do you have to write a story, but you have to keep track of clues. A fourth grade teacher brought me into her classroom to work on mystery writing with her students. In preparation, she shared with me the curriculum guide for this unit, which I felt was too complex.

I simplified the unit, asking students to focus on a theft (which made the action concrete), and using only the characters of villain, sleuth, and one suspect that turns out to be innocent.

Begin by having students create a graphic organizer: Who is the criminal/villain? What does your criminal/villain steal? Who is your sleuth/hero? Who is the suspect who turns out to be innocent?

Next, have your students write a short outline of what happens in each scene:

Scene 1: Describe the villain committing the theft.

Scene 2: Describe the sleuth discovering that X has been stolen.

Scene 3: Describe the sleuth searching for clues. A clue must lead the sleuth to believe that the suspect is guilty.

Scene 4: Describe the sleuth interviewing the suspect. The suspect should have an alibi.

Scene 5: Describe the sleuth setting a trap for another theft.

Scene 6: Describe the villain trying to commit this left, and the sleuth catching the criminal in the act.

Having a simple structure allows students to focus on writing and character development.

After your students have outlined the story, then let them write it!

Here's my video showing my process for writing Edgar Allan's Official Crime Investigation Notebook.

 www.maryamato.com

Crafting a Creative Character Description

by Mary Amato

When introducing a character, many writers begin and end with a list of the physical traits of the character: eye or hair color, height, etc. Try a different approach: direct commentary. Say something about this character’s effect on the world around him or her.

Illustration by Eric Brace
Please Write in This Book

Listen to Roald Dahl capping off his description of the formidable Miss Trunchbull in Matilda: “Thank goodness we don’t meet many people like her in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush—climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away.”

In The Whipping Boy, Sid Fleischman doesn’t tell us what the prince looks like. Instead he says: “The young prince was known here and there (and just about everywhere else) as Prince Brat. Not even black cats would cross his path.

For your next personal writing project, choose one character to receive special treatment. Ask: How do others see or respond to this character? Write a sentence or two about the character’s effect on the world.

If you're a teacher, here's how to approach this lesson.

1. Read the above examples first.

2. Choose a character from a book you've all read and brainstorm commentary about the character. If your students are too young to understand the concept of commentary, try using the term "gossip." If you were gossiping to someone else about this character, what might you say?

3. Ask your students to do this with a character in one of their own stories.

Have fun coming up with surprising ways of making characters come alive.

http://www.maryamato.com/

PIECING TOGETHER A MYSTERY

by Pam Smallcomb

Kids love mysteries. I love mysteries, too. It’s one of the first genres I latched on to when I was young, and it has followed me into adulthood. In many elementary schools, children study the mystery genre and try their hands at writing them as well.  It’s not easy to explain to kids how to go about writing a mystery. It’s a rather mysterious thing, when it comes right down to it.

 At its core, a mystery is a puzzle. Just like a puzzle, a mystery story has pieces. A mystery starts with a question. The more puzzling the question, the better. This question will be what you solve in the story.

For example:

Who took the jewels from the sealed tomb?

What if my best friends stopped talking to me and I didn’t know why?

And of course, the traditional…

Who is the murderer and how did they do it?

Another piece of your mystery is your main character. He is the one who solves the mystery. He is your detective (whether amateur, accidental or professional). He’s the one who will figure out the clues in your mystery. In other words, he’s your hero.

When developing your main character, consider giving him/her unique character traits. Set him apart from the pack. Eccentric habits are great. Remember,  Hercule Poirot was a fastidious neat freak who loved his waxed moustache, and Sherlock Holmes played his violin to relax.

Kids can have eccentric habits, too (as we parents well know). For example, your main character could:

Chew gum constantly.

Never go anywhere without her stuffed yellow cat.

Talk to his pet tarantula about the clues in the mystery.

Another way to "build" your detective/main character is to give him special skills.

Maybe your hero:

Knows baseball history inside and out

Plays the piano brilliantly

Likes to collect coins

But how can you use this special skill when you write your mystery?

If you know the ending of your mystery - what your hero/detective  is searching for - what he needs in order to solve the mystery, you can go back and lay in a special skill that will help. A special skill that will be useful in solving the mystery.

Here’s a simple example:  let’s say that your mystery involves a valuable coin (maybe a rare penny!) that has been stolen. The bad guy takes the coin and stashes it in a penny jar where he hopes to come back and get it later. Make your hero a coin collector. He is the one that recognizes it from all the coins in the jar. Use your hero’s skills to help solve the mystery.

Expertise in a subject is just one kind of special skill. Here are a couple of examples of different special skills from other authors:

Cam Jansen:

Her photographic memory comes in very handy when she has to solve a mystery. She can remember everything she sees, including  all those visual clues.

A Series of Unfortunate Events:

Each Baudelaire orphan has a special skill, even little Sunny with her strong bite. Sister Violet is an inventor; brother Klaus reads everything he can get his hands on, and remembers what he’s read.

Artemis Fowl:

Artemis is an Irish child prodigy and a ruthless master criminal who has amassed his family’s fortune using his special talents in crime. He is an eccentric anti-hero.

You might want your hero to have a sidekick as well. The advantage of having a sidekick is your hero can discuss the mystery with him. Best friends make good sidekicks. Lots of times sidekicks can be funny. They can comment on the action in your story. But remember, your main character must solve the mystery in your story. Dr. Watson just helped out.

Of course, there is a lot more to writing a mystery including: victims, villains, clues, suspects, alibis and motive.  Beginning your mystery with an intriguing question and a protagonist that has eccentric habits and special skills will give you (or your student) two important pieces of the puzzle.

To find out more about writing mysteries (and fill in some of those other puzzle pieces), take a gander at Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America by Sue Grafton. There is a specialties section that focuses on mysteries for young people and short story mysteries.

OUR SEPTEMBER BOOK GIVEAWAY WINNER IS:  M.G. King. I’ll contact you soon about sending you the signed copy of I'm Not.

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS

by Pam Smallcomb

What is it that makes us keep on turning the pages of a book? An enthralling plot will certainly help, but interesting stories alone won’t necessarily keep our interest. What we need to keep reading is to become captivated by the characters in a story.

Movies and books are filled with fascinating characters. How did the screenwriters and authors develop them? One tool used in writing both screenplays and novels, is to create a character bio.

Students can write a character bio to get to know their main character, as well as his/her supporting cast, before they begin to write their story.

There are many different systems for documenting the scenes and characters in your story. Celtx is a screenwriting tool that is available on-line for free (which is a definite plus). Here is an example of the types of questions you will find there:

Character’s description?

Here you can write a brief summary about your character. I like to think of this as a high-level view, with little or no detail. You can start with something like “Sarah is a high school freshman, living in a small mid-western town. She is the only child. She’s shy. She loves singing.”

It’s a chance to put down anything and everything you can think of about your character. Don’t worry about the details. Just brainstorm. You will come back and update this later, to reflect everything you have learned about your character.

Detailed physical description?

This section includes a place for you to enter the character’s age, distinguishing features, hair color, eye color, height and weight. Now you know what your character looks like.

Key character traits?

When you are thinking of character traits, I think it’s helpful to start with the ones you know for certain, and see if they help you to think of others.

For Sarah let’s say these:

Shy

Musical

Obsessive

Fearful

Loyal

Caring

Sometimes one character trait will lead to another. If I decide Sarah should be obsessive (maybe about singing?) then she must have some fear as well (maybe she is afraid of losing of losing her dream? Maybe she has a fear of singing in public?). One character trait will often point you to the next one. If Sarah is loyal, then I think she should be caring as well. I’m starting to see she might be a good friend, or maybe she has always tried to be a good daughter. A small picture of Sarah is starting to form in my mind.

The next section is on motivation. Now things start to get interesting.

What is the goal of this character?

Go back and look at your summary paragraph. Mine said that Sarah was an only child, living in a small mid-western town. Maybe she feels stifled? Maybe Sarah’s goal is to break out of her small town life.

What is the character's plan to achieve the goal?

Once you figure out your character’s goal, you can decide how she is going to get there. What does Sarah have? She has her singing. Maybe Sarah wants to make it as a singer.

There are other sections that will help you to refine and get to know your character better: family background, habits and vices, education, personality, likes and dislikes.

Students can use this tool in another way: to analyze a character in a story. Filling in the different sections about a book character will help them see how the author used certain character traits, goals, and even physical descriptions to his advantage.

Developing complex and interesting characters requires some elbow grease and time (and it’s something I am always struggling with), but it’s time well spent if in the end you have yourself a ‘page-turner’.

    

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: CREATING BELIEVABLE AND AUTHENTIC CHARACTERS

by Joan Waites

When presenting to students or adults about the art of picture book illustration, I’m often met with surprise when I describe the amount of research I do when working on any given project. “Don’t you just make it up in your head?” they ask. Oh, if only I could work that type of magic!

As you can see from the photo of my messy desk, taken at the very start of a new picture book project (due out in fall 2012), it is filled with art guidelines from the publisher, photographs, doodles, and even props. This particular book revolves around a main character who was a wealthy plantation owner, living in the 1700’s. But what did he look like? What did he wear? What did his home, his wife, his children and his plantation grounds look like? My job was to make the authors’ characters and story come to life on the page.

After reading the manuscript over and over again and collecting photographs, books on costume, hairstyles, food, and even pictures of children’s toys and plants that would be found at the time and location of the story, I began to develop a sense of who the main character was. His imagined facial features and body type, where he lived, and how he might have dressed was all incorporated into my preliminary sketches. Most often, I will also use live models to pose for me. Family, friends, and neighbors have all appeared and been turned into various characters in my books. Some illustrators have the opportunity to travel to a location to get a better sense of the story they will be illustrating, but of course that is not always possible. Surrounded by all the information on my desk, I can travel into the story and imagine myself there.

Whether the characters are actual historical figures or a fluffy bunny that lives in the meadow, giving the reader a sense of who that character is by written description or in the illustrations is essential. For example, the little bunny that lives in the meadow can be shy, fierce, or lazy. A shy little bunny might be described or shown wearing glasses hidden behind a tree with his nose in a book. The lazy bunny might be a bit overweight, snoozing in grass that is strewn with partially eaten carrots, while other bunnies are shown in the background going about their busy day.

Using these examples, have your students create a believable character using words or pictures. Older children can be assigned a true historical figure or someone fictitious who lived during a particular period in history. Younger students can use an imaginary character to describe and/ or illustrate. Have students collect photos from magazines or the internet, books and props that will give them a sense of who their character really is/was. Using a digital camera, students can also have their classmates dress up and pose for each other, using the printed photos as reference for their drawings.

Using some of these ideas among many others can be a great way to create believable and authentic characters that will come to life on the page!

http://www.joanwaites.com/