A Fly on the Wall

Highlights from the Richmond Children's Writers September Meeting

Our September meeting was fantastic! Everyone is back from vacation and ready to rock and roll. Here are a few of the more interesting things we discussed:

We all like wacky picture books, but how wacky is too wacky? Can a picture book be too far out? Take this book for example: Dinosaurs Love Underpants. Dinosaurs are a perennial kid favorite, true. And underpants, as discussed in our August meeting, can work for a kids' book. Having said that, Dinosaurs Love Underpants, for me, was just too wacky. But . . . it is a published book, which is nothing to sneeze at. Just goes to show that one person's too-wacky-for-me is another person's book deal. We had some wacky submissions this month, and predictably, those stories drew a variety of reactions from the group.

After reading a chapter from a young adult novel, we discussed this concept:

"The wind howled" is stronger rather than "She heard the wind howling." This is due to fact that in the second sentence, the main character is inserted between the reader and the action. The first sentence makes the reader feel he is the one who is hearing the wind howl. That translates into a more engaging text, which is another way of saying the writing is stronger. Fiction writers would do well to take a good look at sentences phrased with "She saw" or "He felt" or "I heard" or any verb that tells what the main character is perceiving, and rewrite it in a way that allows the reader to experience the sensation as directly as possible.

A submission from a different young adult novel led us into a discussion about novel writing technique. Writing fiction is a complex task, and requires finding the right balance of a lot of moving pieces. Each scene has to move the story forward. It has to do at least one or two other things too, like develop character, set the scene, infuse a mood, build tension, and such. But the primary job of a scene is to move the plot forward. All those other things can be worked in. Each chapter, each scene, has to accomplish several different things at once.

If there were a goddess of multitasking, I imagine she would look something like this.

We will conclude with the September writing prompt:

Write a wacky action scence that weaves in two other elements (choose from character develoment, setting description, mood, or tension). Bonus points for including either dinosaurs or underpants.

Now, write away!

Location, Location, Location!

by Pat Tabb

I once heard a writing instructor mention that writing is about fluency.  And fluency finds its impetus in momentum.  “The secret,” she said, “is to keep your work moving, even if you have to try something quirky to fool yourself into staying with it.”

This advice came to mind much later, when I switched from writing shorter works to middle-grade novels.  As with any writing project, I began well.  The keys just seemed to tap away for me.  Then, somewhere in the long middle of it, I was in a writing rut.  I needed to shake things up, “fool” myself into seeing it to its finish, but how? 

A writer friend of mine mentioned that she changes location regularly to keep herself interested and involved in her projects.  Really?  I never considered that I had to move myself just to keep my story moving.  In fact, I thought that my study, set up for writing, was the best place to stick to my routine.  “Even if I can’t get out,” she said, “I’ll change rooms during the day.”  Maybe she had a point.  Was I slowing down from just staying in the same place too long? 

I tried changing rooms, but I was still stuck.  Then I picked up my writing and “took a hike.”  A brief writing session at a Starbuck’s, where folks were obviously on the go, seemed to kick up the verve in my story.  A quiet spot in the library where others were reading, studying, and writing, worked wonders.  Encouraged by their industriousness, I set to work.  Oddly, even while driving out and back, I found my mind clicking with scenes and dialogue.  Any outing provided the impetus I needed, whether writing in a new spot or back at home, too.  Who would have thought it?  (Other writers, it seems; for example, Emily Bronte, who wandered the moors of Yorkshire and Joseph Addison, who trudged a footpath along the River Charwell in Oxford.)  So now when I’m stuck, I change to another location to move the writing along.    

How about you?  What kind of writing atmosphere or location works best for you when you need writing momentum?

Story Sense: Writing from the Back Door

by Pat Tabb

In a rush of excitement, I recently began building a story about three characters thrown together through adverse circumstances.  After a number of chapters, I found a flaw. One of them, a girl we’ll call Allie, was the main protagonist and it was her story that was supposed to drive the rest of the narrative.  Problem was, she had a lot of competition from her “peers.”  I needed to establish her at the front door of the book so as to make that clear and to keep the other two strong characters “in their places.” There was no way past it—I had to take a few steps back and write that infernal prologue, where she would make her grand entry.

I wrote the prologue—well, the first prologue.  Then I wrote another.  When I started constructing a third (each telling a different angle of the story), I threw up my hands.  I had written enough of the story to know what it was about, but not enough to know exactly where I was headed; thus, the introduction kept folding on me. 

That’s when I decided to walk around to the back door of my story’s structure.  After asking questions about where I thought Allie (and the other characters) would land at the story’s end, I honored the pictures that came to mind.  Immediately, I took this scene to paper.  It was easier than I had thought.  I had written enough to know my characters fairly well and could project the ending. 

The back door was a great way to explore my story’s introduction.  The prologue that “fit” was much more apparent.   I could make good decisions about what and how much I wanted to reveal about Allie upfront.    

The next chapters took better shape as well.  Now that I am in full swing, halfway through the writing, I am more focused and more productive as I see each chapter a step toward the final scene.  (Although I must admit that the ending still gets a good tweaking now and then.) 

It’s a thought worth considering:  Is there a final scene in mind for your current story? If so, how will it serve the development of the narrative from page one and on?