SETTING THE WRITING RABBLE ON FIRE

by Jane Harrington

There may be a swath of summer still ahead, but if you’re a teacher, right about now you probably can’t get fall off your mind. I know I can’t. Each day when I watch the sun pop over the mountains and set the morning mist ablaze, I think about how I want to be that sun to my students. Not bake them and send them indoors to watch streaming video, but infuse them with artistic energy!

Laura Krauss Melmed’s nifty “endeavor to involve other people” in her literary life (see her July 9 post) got me thinking about how young writers, too, like to write in a crowd. And that got me thinking about NANOWRIMO.

If you’ve never heard of this, it’s “National Novel Writing Month,” run by the nonprofit Office of Letters and Light, a bunch of very clever writing zaniacs. (Neologisms like that are just the kind of word-fun encouraged by the Nanowrimoids.) It is probably best known as a collective of aspiring novel writers who binge-write for the month of November each year. I actually wrote a first draft of one of my teen novels during one of their writing sprees, and it was then that I discovered their ridiculously fun resources for educators and students.

Their “Young Writers Program” is chockfull of totally free and well-designed stuff: pep talks from popular authors; downloadable workbooks to help kids of all ages write stories with strong characters, settings and plots; and gizmos like the “Dare Machine”—today’s dare was to “make one of your characters speak pig Latin or another made-up language.” Students LOVE this, and the intense camaraderie of a writing month sparks some incredible scribblings.

If you want to see how the Office of Letters and Light can help you create in your students a burning desire to write, check out:  NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program.

http://www.janeharrington.com/

RESOLVE TO WRITE

by Pam Smallcomb

It's a brand new year, and like many of you, I am taking stock of myself and my writing habits. One bad habit I have seems to stand out (I am speaking of creative habits, since all my bad habits would take up far too much time to discuss), and I am betting at least some of you share this with me: I have trouble plowing through to the end of the first draft.

I'm gangbusters on the beginnings, and then somewhere mid-story, I stall. I stare at the ceiling. I think about my story. I ponder my characters. I wonder if they are believable. I outline my story (again). I stare at the ceiling. You get the picture. I've been reading about this problem, and talking to other writers, and I thought I would pass on some things that might help. I know I need all the help I can get.

1. Set a daily word count.

I've read that Stephen King recommends writing a minimum of 1000 words a day, six days a week. Ernest Hemingway supposedly kept to a strict schedule of 500-1000 words a day. Hemingway also said he liked to end the day while he was on a writing streak, so it would be easy to pick up the story again the next day.

Bottom line: set a word count goal (I'm going with 1000), and stop while your story is still fresh. Face it, if you write 1000 words a day you will eventually get to the end of your story. At the very least, you will feel like a writer, because you are writing!

2. Don't go back to the beginning each time you sit down to write.

Here is one of my biggest problems: every time I sit down to write, I start by reading the story over again. I fiddle with the wording. I delete sentences, and then add them back in. By the time I get to the new part of the story I should be writing, I've lost steam. Frankly, I'm a little sick of the story. It's not fresh when you have read the beginning a thousand times. I've discovered I'm not alone in this. A few writers have mentioned that they only let themselves read the last chapter (or even the last paragraph) they completed before beginning to write new pages.

3. Try not to think your story to death.

I am the first to admit that I love the comfort and direction that comes with an outline. But just as re-reading your pages begins to numb your enthusiasm toward your story, plotting a story too carefully can, well, make it boring to write. If you know exactly what is going to happen on every page, where's the fun? Sid Fleischman, who won the Newbery for his novel, The Whipping Boy, said in an interview with Reading Rockets:

“I don't plan my novels in advance. I've tried that, I find that I can't do that very well and that my best procedure is just to get a beginning with a few characters that give me some hope of conflict or story, just start and then improvise, as we improvise our daily lives. And I improvise the story day-by-day, never knowing the ending.”

Moral? Well, maybe that if you think too much you will end up 'reasoning' your story to death. I think there is something to be said for giving in to the story. Let your characters drive the bus and see what happens. Don't reread your entire book every time you sit down to write. Just finish your word count, and go have a cup of tea. You've done your job for the day. You've written. Even better, you've edged that much closer to the end, and won't that feel good when you've reached it? Yes, yes it will.

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

by Pam Smallcomb

I remember when I decided to focus on my writing, and I attended my first SCBWI Writer’s Conference. It seemed to me that at each presentation, I was given this advice:

“Show, don’t tell.”

I looked around at my fellow attendees and saw them nodding sagely. In my head I was thinking, “What in the heck are they talking about?” Since I was obviously the only one who didn’t ‘get it,’ I sat quietly and hoped to break this super-secret code on my own some day.

Eventually, I figured out that what these writers and editors were saying was that the actions of your characters should reveal their character traits and flaws (not to mention the plot itself). But how do you check for ‘telling’ in your own work? One way is to take a close look at your adverbs and adjectives, and consider each one a candidate for the old axe.

For example, the sentence “She looked at the box carefully.” doesn’t really tell you how she went about examining the box, nor does it reveal anything about her character, her emotional state, or the plot.

Instead you could write, “Her hands shook as she turned the box over and over in her lap.”

This sentence could convey nervousness, or excitement, or even fear (depending on what is in that box!).

Another way to check your own work is to keep an eye out for the verbs ‘is’ and ‘are’ (and the past tenses ‘was’ and ‘were’).

For example:

“David is charming.”

How is he charming? Does he remember everyone’s birthday? Have a smile that can melt ice cream? Perform magic tricks spontaneously? How does his particular charm manifest itself?

In other words, if I were to watch David in action, what would he do that would cause me to think of him as charming? ‘Showing’ instead of ‘telling’ is what draws your reader into your story, and makes them bond to the characters. It allows your reader to become the character.  It forces the reader to watch the characters and deduce what their actions mean. It doesn’t spell everything out the way ‘telling’ does. It’s a less passive experience all around.

An exercise that students can do to help them see the difference is to first make a list of adverbs and adjectives, then write two sentences: one ‘telling’ and one ‘showing’.

Ex. Loudly:

I watched Rosi clap loudly when Ralph won first prize.

When they announced Ralph had won, I glanced at Rosi and covered my ears.

Ex. Grumpy:

Sid was pretty grumpy when I woke him up.

Sid slammed me in the side of the head with his pillow when I woke him up.

I recently watched the BBC version of Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit. More importantly, I watched the characters. The actions and mannerisms of each character were unique: from the servant Flintwinch’s gruff behavior, to Amy Dorrit’s gentle and kind-hearted manner. You knew Amy Dorrit was kind-hearted not because everyone pointed to her and said, “Now there goes a kind-hearted girl!” but because Dickens shows us. He shows Amy saving part of her lunch to take back to her father in debtor’s prison. He shows her taking care of people. He doesn’t tell us to think of her as kind. We begin to think of her as kind, as we watch her actions.

When trying not to ‘tell’ your story you can remember the old adage, “Actions speak louder than words.”

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

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Stop To Cross The Street: Tips For Young Writers

by Jacqueline Jules

               As a teacher who regularly conferences with students during writing workshop, I find myself asking many of the same questions repeatedly:  

            Are you sure you want two lines of exclamation marks? Let’s count how many times you’ve used the word “then.” Do you think you could cut a few of them out?

            Having the same discussion over and over again has prompted me to make a list of tips for young writers, modeled after the esteemed Jane Yolen. Last winter, at the New York conference of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, I heard her engage an audience of over a thousand with a clever list of guidelines. She began with “Eschew the exclamation point” and “Go easy on adverbs,” ending with a charge to all in attendance to go home and WRITE. In this spirit, I offer my own list for my students and young writers everywhere. 

• Tip Number One: Use Your Inside Voice. Limit your use of exclamation points and capitals. Ten exclamation points in a row and capital letters are like shouting at your reader.

• Tip Number Two: Stop To Cross The Street. Watch out for the conjunction “and.” More than three “ands” in the same sentence can be a signal to stop and use a period. 

• Tip Number Three: Dare to be Different. Beginning every sentence with “then” or “the” can be dull for the reader. Rearrange your words to vary the sentence structure.

   

• Tip Number Four: Play With Words, Not Fonts. Spend your writing time choosing the perfect descriptive word, not the prettiest font type or size.

• Tip Number Five: Be Active. Use action words to describe what happened and avoid using “was” unless it is necessary to your meaning. For example, say Rapunzel “walked” across the street instead of Rapunzel “was walking” across the street. Repeated use of the word “was” weakens the action. 

• Tip Number Six: Break it Up. Divide your stories into paragraphs. Indent or skip a line at the beginning of each new topic. It can also be easier for a reader to follow dialogue when you begin a new paragraph for each speaker. 

• Tip Number Seven: Switch Places. Check to make sure your sentences are in the best order. Switching sentences or words around can make writing flow in a more logical manner.

• Tip Number Eight: Remember the Reader. Too many parenthetical asides and distracting details can confuse your reader. Make things as clear for your reader as possible.

• Tip Number Nine: Be Smooth. Use transitions such as “After we went to the mall, we went home,” rather than Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 to indicate a change of time or scene. Chapters divisions are for novels, not short stories.  

• Tip Number Ten: Make a Pretty Picture. Your job as a writer is to make a picture in your reader’s mind. Make sure you have included enough color and detail for your reader to see the same story you see in your mind.

        

Jacqueline Jules

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: SALT IN THE SOUP OR HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE

by Jacqueline Jules

The more I work with student writers, the more I think about how I developed my own writing skills. When did I become careful about punctuation and spelling? When did I start making a conscious effort to add sensory details or to build a story arc with a satisfying conclusion? Looking back, I see that I learned to write the same way I learned to cook—by testing recipes and listening to advice.

As a young bride, I remember my mother-in-law tasting my soup and pronouncing it too salty to eat. You can bet that I followed the recipe more carefully the next time. I also remember a professor, my first year of college, who wrote in red ink, “Don’t bother passing in a paper with this many typos again.” My embarrassment over both incidents has changed to gratitude. Now I measure how much salt I put into my soup and I proofread my manuscripts carefully. Editors at publishing houses frequently admit that stories submitted with grammatical errors are tossed without reading. If I had never listened to that professor, I wouldn’t be the author of twenty-two children’s books today.

The first book in my Zapato Power series, Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Takes Off, is dedicated to my writing group. Dedications like this are not uncommon. Authors frequently pay homage to the critique groups who made the suggestions that transformed a mediocre story into a publishable one. Editors are often thanked as well. Every time I read my Thanksgiving picture book, Duck for Turkey Day, I am grateful to my creative Albert Whitman editor, who gently but firmly guided me into writing an important new scene for the book.

      

Contemporary writing curriculums all urge educators to teach the writer, not the writing. While I understand that this advice is to discourage teachers from overwhelming young writers with too many suggestions at once, I still find the distinction puzzling. In my own experience as a writer, I know I have learned a great deal from the revision process of a particular piece, often guided by others who pointed out places in my story that didn’t make sense or fell flat. And I have seen my students come up with absolutely brilliant ideas for revision when I have questioned a sentence that confused me. I trust that my students will find that the lessons learned from fixing one story will carry over to the next. It is the recipe that guided me and most of the authors I know to publication.

Jacqueline Jules

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

PENCIL TIPS: Remember the Reader

posted by Jacqueline Jules

After years of participating in critique writing groups, I have learned to spot problem areas my critique friends would question. “That part is confusing.” “This part is too wordy.” “The story doesn’t peak my interest until the fourth paragraph.” And when I miss something, I am grateful when my critique friends point it out. As an author who hopes to impress editors, I want mistakes corrected before I submit.

But students just learning the joy of putting a story down on paper can be reluctant to make changes. Many students think editing should be limited to the correction of spelling and grammar mistakes. Asking a student to re-write a story that does not make sense can be a painful experience. How does a teacher encourage a student to fix confusing or nonsensical passages without squashing creativity?

In my work with young writers, I encourage them to think of their readers. We compare writing to playing an instrument or performing in a play or dance concert. Students readily agree that they want audiences to have a good time when they perform. Using this logic, it is easier to accept why a paragraph should be changed to make a story more enjoyable. Some details distract the reader from what an author is really trying to say. Run-on sentences can be confusing. Cryptic asides can puzzle readers. And sometimes all the little things we explain at the beginning are not needed. Ask your students if they know someone who takes too long to get to the point. For instance, a woman who talks for ten minutes about what she ate for breakfast, when she is trying to tell you how she cut her finger. Most students will smile, remembering such a person in their lives, and understand why they don’t want to keep their readers from the most interesting part of a story. Thinking about the reader helps all writers do their best work.

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/