Write your own WOW story

Guest Post by Mary Amato

In my latest book, Our Teacher is a Vampire and Other (Not) True Stories, the kids in Mrs. Penrose’s classroom get advice from their favorite author about how to write a great story. The author teaches them a simple process that she calls writing a WOW story. 

I developed the idea of the WOW story after reading Aristotle in graduate school. WOW is my easy way of remembering what the wise philosopher had to say about what makes stories work. WOW stories have three parts: a main character who wants something, an obstacle that gets in the way, and a win by the main character at the end. Here’s an example.

Want: A cat wants a saucer of milk.

Obstacle: A dog gets in the way.

Win: The cat sings the dog a lullabye; the dog falls asleep; and the cat wins by getting the milk.

Want to write a WOW story of your own? To write this story, think about what kind of personality traits your cat and dog might have. Is your cat shy or sassy? Is your dog grumpy or mean? Do your characters talk? What do their voices sound like? Think about where the story takes place. Inside a cozy house? In a scary, dark alley? Close your eyes and imagine the story like a little movie in your mind. Then open your eyes and try to write it.

You can also come up with your own ideas for WOW stories.

Make a Wow Book

In Our Teacher is a Vampire and Other (Not) True Stories, students write WOW stories and make them into books over their spring break. You can make a book, too. You will need sheets of blank paper of any size and a stapler.

Fold a few pages of paper in half so that it looks like a book and staple it twice on the outside along the fold line. (If your paper is wider than 3 inches, you’ll need a long-arm stapler to reach the fold line.)

To make your WOW book have a special look and feel, use one sheet of thicker, colored paper on top for the cover. After you fold it, put black masking tape on the fold to make a decorative reinforcement. Then you can staple it on the outside of your book along the fold line.

 Write your title on the front and your WOW story inside.

BIO: Mary Amato is an award-winning children’s and YA book author, poet, playwright, and songwriter. Her books have been translated into foreign languages, optioned for television, produced onstage, and have won the children’s choice awards in Ohio, Minnesota, Utah, and Arizona. She teaches popular workshops on writing and the creative process around the country. Visit her online at www.maryamato.com

FICTIONAL FOODIE

by Mary Amato

Have you ever read a novel in which the character talks about his or her favorite food? Or perhaps the emotional climax of the novel takes place over a plate of steaming dumplings. One fun way to make the experience of reading a picture book, chapter book, or novel even richer is to prepare and share a food that was a part of the book.

In my book Stinky and Successful: The Riot Brothers Never Stop, a puffy breakfast treat called Dutch Babies play a starring role. I received so many letters asking about this home-cooked dish, I decided to create a how-to video for my recipe. http://www.maryamato.com/how-to-make-a-dutch-baby

Make some pasta after reading Strega Nona! The next time you read a book, look for a culinary opportunity and get out that bowl and spoon.

www.maryamato.com

DEAR AUTHOR

by Mary Amato

Writing a letter to an author is a wonderful way for a child to connect. What you want, though, is for the child to receive a letter in return. To make sure this happens, you need to have the correct address. Sometimes authors have contact information on their websites. Often this is just an email address. While email can be quick, sending and receiving snail mail can be much more meaningful. Snail mail addresses are harder to find, but there are a few tricks to make the experience more successful.  Here is a info sheet that explains the dos and don'ts for contacting an author. Share this with a child and give it a try.

http://www.maryamato.com/how-to-write-to-an-author

POST IT!: FIGHTING THE BLANK PAGE

by Mary Amato

Young reluctant writers are often turned off or afraid of the blank page. I made up an imagination game involving Post-it notes that gets kids excited. Give each child ten blank sticky notes. Tell your class that you are all going to create a new language by labeling ordinary things in the room with sticky notes. Each child has to choose ten objects in the room and invent new words for those things. Emphasize that you should be able to pronounce the new language. Let's use the clock as an example. In my new language I might label the clock, "hitzer." Kids will realize the importance of vowels!  Set a time limit for the labeling and when kids are done writing the labels let them put the labels on the objects. Take a group tour of the room, practicing how to say each new word. I created this game as a teacher after remembering the fun I had as a child trying to invent my own language. The new words gave rise to lots of stories about my newly invented culture. Have fun!

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NAMING YOU CHARACTER

by Mary Amato

A frequent question kids ask me is: how do you come up with your character names? I have fun with symbolism, metaphor, and connotation. The girl whose sisters tell her she is a chicken? Henrietta in The Chicken of the Family. The brothers who like to invent fun? Wilbur and Orville Riot from my Riot Brothers series.

Have fun using literary elements to create fictional character names for the following characters. There is no right or wrong. Examples are given for the first four.

A race car driver: Lefty Turner

A bus driver: Miles A. Head

A barber: Harry Shears

A smart guy: Noah Lott

A nurse:

A horse trainer:

A teacher:

A dancer:

An athlete:

An annoying brat:

A dentist:

Share ideas and be as creative as possible. You could use these characters in stories or poems.

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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

MINI DIARIES FOR WRITING AND RESEARCH

by Mary Amato

Keeping a mini diary is a fun way to encourage both writing and research. Share Cronin and Bliss’s funny picture books, Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, and Diary of a Fly. First read for enjoyment. Then read it again and ask students to identify what facts they are learning about the animal. Next, invite students to create their own Diary of a…. Here’s how:

1.     Have students choose an animal that they really love.

2.     Take students to the library and let them find books about their animals and/or do web research.

3.     Ask students to create a fact sheet on the animal for reference.

4.     Make a simple blank book by taking four sheets of paper, folding them in half and stapling at the fold with a long-arm stapler.

5.     Invite students to pretend to be the animal and write one diary entry. Students can add illustrations and keep adding entries each day for a week.

At the end of the week, share your diaries.

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WISH POEMS

by Mary Amato

I'll piggyback on Joan Waites' Snowy Day post and share a holiday season idea that I adapted from poet/teacher Kenneth Koch. Wish Poems. First gather up the kids and have a chat about wishes. What is a wish? Have you ever had a wish come true? Does a wish have to come true for it to be meaningful? What are you wishing for right now? What do you think your grandmother (or your goldfish or that old man who lives on the corner) is wishing for?

After brainstorming for a while about wishes, write two wish poems...one silly and one serious. I really believe in the importance of letting kids express both types of sentiments. The wish poems can be illustrated and/or shared aloud.

Finally create a special box for secret wish poems and explain that anyone can write a secret wish poem and that the author should NOT sign his or her name. Kids can put a secret wish poem in the box anytime. Secrets generate a lot of interest and even your reluctant writers will want to do this. After about a week or two, on a specified day, share the secret wish poems aloud, not revealing the authors. I guarantee that your students will love this activity.

 Make sure to check out Koch's wonderful book, Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry.

www.maryamato.com

TALKING TOOTHBRUSHES

by Mary Amato

One of my most popular creative writing exercises is very simple. Choose two inanimate objects and imagine they are having a conversation. You can make this into a fun classroom lesson that you can use to discuss voice, dialogue, character, and point of view.

1. Define what an inanimate object is.

2. Brainstorm a list of objects—perhaps even asking each student to come up with a list of 8-10 objects. Put all the suggestions into a big bowl and ask students to each draw two objects.

3. Give them 5 minutes to write a dialogue between the two objects. If a student gets stuck, suggest that one character asks the other, “What do you want?” Discuss what was easy or hard about this. Brainstorm how the conversations could be revised, if desired.

Look at how plays/scripts are formatted and talk about how formatting dialogue can help a reader to understand who is talking. Allowing students to act out their dialogues in pairs is really fun and motivating. Enjoy!

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WHAT MAKES YOU THRUM?

by Mary Amato

What makes you thrum? After my sister read my latest book, Guitar Notes, she told me how crucial it is to ask yourself: What makes my soul thrum? She was using the word I use in the book to describe the profound feeling of joy and connection that my characters get when they are playing music. They feel the thrum, the soul's vibration.

This is my assignment for all teachers. Ask yourself: What is my biggest passion? What makes my soul thrum? Is it reading a great novel? Is it paddling your canoe on a quiet pond? Is it singing in your church or temple choir? Is it putting on a puppet play with four-year-olds? Get out an index card and your #2 pencil and write down what makes your soul thrum. Do it. There is something about writing down a passion that facilitates a commitment to that passion. Tape it to the wall by your desk in your classroom. Ponder ways you can find and share your thrum as often as possible. The richest teaching comes when a student sees an adult who is passionate and unceasing in the quest for deep joy.

Guitar Notes, my new novel about the power of music:

http://thrumsociety.com/

THE POWER OF SONGWRITING

by Mary Amato

When I was in the eighth grade, my teacher Mr. McCauley brought in a record: Paul Simon's “I am a Rock.” He played it and we analyzed the lyrics as poetry. The excitement of getting to listen to popular music (at the time, Simon & Garfunkel were huge) during class electrified the whole room. The power of metaphor hit me that day and stayed with me forever. My newest book, Guitar Notes, is a novel about the power of songwriting and I wrote and recorded songs that accompany the book, a project that had its inspiration way back in Mr. McCauley's class.

Here's what you can do. Bring in a current song, print out the lyrics or have them up on your smartboard. Listen to the song and then talk about what literary elements the songwriter used and why. I have two ready-to-use resources to share from my new book's website. One is a lesson plan in song revision; and the other, in case you want to follow up by encouraging your students to write their own songs, is a songwriting lesson. Rock on!

www.maryamato.com

CREATE A WORLD

by Mary Amato

Fiction writers have the fun of creating an entire world. Teachers and parents can encourage kids to use cheap materials like shoeboxes and peeps to invent a 3D scene. As they are constructing the scene, ask them to be thinking of a storyline for the character (s) in the scene. 

Make a storybook to accompany the scene or simply allow for verbal storytelling. When I was a child, I told many stories as I played with my dollhouse. Creating a unique scene can facilitate even more interesting stories.

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THE CURSE OF THE BLANK PAGE

by Mary Amato

 You know the look. A student who is supposed to be writing is staring at the blank page. You can almost smell the panic. The blankness seems to be seeping into the kid's brain, causing all possible ideas to evaporate.

           In Jonah Lehrer’s great new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, he notes that few creative breakthroughs have occurred while the artist or inventor is actually sitting down staring at the blank page.

          Guest blogger Nancy Viau addresses this in her “Are You Bogged Down?” entry with some great suggestions to kick-start creativity. I’m going to add a simple idea that can be easily used in the classroom. If I’m working with students and I notice one falling prey to the curse of the blank page, I walk over and whisper: “Close your eyes and imagine that the story is playing like a little movie in your mind…what do you see?” The student begins to talk, describing the scene. I say, “Oooh, that’s great! Write that down!”

         Boom! Curse broken.

http://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/

SHARING MISTAKES

by Mary Amato



Illustration by Max Amato



One of the greatest teaching tools and gifts that you can give a student is to share mistakes that you have made. Did you fail to proofread a memo to your boss and discover later that you made a grammatical error? Show it to your students. Did that fancy dessert you made for a potluck turn out horribly because you did the math wrong when you doubled the recipe? Laugh about it with your students. Did you get sudden stage fright on karaoke night and forget the melody? Replay it for your students. Did you have to revise your latest poem twenty-five times to get it right? Dig those 25 crumbled sheets out of the trash can and display them.

Whenever we are learning something new—whether we’re a kindergartner learning how to write the alphabet or a 50-year-old newbie taking beginner piano lessons—we assume we’re the only ones making mistakes. Sometimes new learners will give up rather than face the multitude of mistakes that are required to learn a new skill. Help your students to embrace their mistakes by sharing yours. Remember, the only real mistake is not trying.

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