teaching

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Sweatin’ the Small Stuff

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Or, Details: How to Find ’em, How to Use ’em

Use details! is an exhortation every fifth-grader knows–that is, if his teacher knows anything about how to teach writing. It’s practically a mantra with me. Details put a reader into the  setting, smelling the popcorn or feeling the sultry air or hearing the sizzle! of sparklers on a warm July evening.

Sometimes the details are easy to find just by closing your eyes and casting back to a memory. But for the quirky and unexpected, you just have to be there. Some writers carry a small notebook to tuck in a pocket or purse and whip out when a sensory impression smacks them: the laugh of a passer-by or a unique body-build. I have sometimes carried notecards for the same purpose, so I can arrange and classify them later.

Anyone can train herself to notice and note details. The test of a good writer, though, is how to use them. You may have read novels that read like inventory lists. Just because you have pages of fascinating notes about  life on the prairie doesn’t mean you have to use them all. I sometimes compare it to making oatmeal-raisin cookies: you don’t spoon out the dough and then poke in the raisins. You stir in the raisins, so they’re integrated with the dough. When it comes to details, you don’t stud your narrative with them to prove how much research you did. You fold them into the action, so they add the scene without distracting from it.

I like to show rather than tell, so here are some examples of how I used random research facts  to enhance a story.

Fact: A “swazzle” is a reed used by renaissance puppet masters to affect the puppets’ voices.

            His lips twitched, but the light was too dim to show it for a smile.  He reached under his cloak and took out a small object, a reed of some kind.  When he tucked it into his mouth, I knew it for a “swazzle,” used by puppet masters to produce a high, shrill voice.  But never used to better effect than that night.  “Easily,” he said, in an eerie tone that made me shiver.                                                                                            The True Prince

Fact: In Elizabethan court garments, sleeves were often made and attached separately.

“Look, lads!” Gregory called.  I looked, and a little cry escaped me.  He had slipped on a pair of beaded yellow sleeves and struck a pose, singing, “In yellow sleeves to honor his maid, he rides far afield with the beauteous lady–“

            “Where did you find those?” I asked, a shade too quickly.

            “Why, here at the bottom of the court pile.”

            From the other end of the table, Master Stewart frowned.  “I’ve been searching for ’em of late.  They don’t belong there, nor on thy twiggy arms.  Put ’em on the pile to be steamed and stuffed.”                                                                                             The True Prince

 

Fact: London Bridge once sported a central tower, where the heads of traitors were displayed.

West of the Bridge, where the exuberant current piled up against the piers on its way seaward, the watermen ply their trade–hundreds of boats, all sizes and sorts, busily ferrying people from London to Southwark and back again, their oars blurring like dragonfly wings.  Little one-seater wherries dart here and there, cleaving a path among the covered barks and cargo vessels, while jeweled barges of the nobility glide on the rise and dip of long oars.

            The sight was so lively, so merry, I almost laughed out loud–until the swoop of a raven’s wing drew my eye to the memorial tower nearby.  Spiked to the wall, about fifteen feet up, the heads of three traitors stared a grim warning to boats and foot travelers alike.  Traffic passed unheeding below their eyeless gaze.                           The Playmaker

 

Fact: Yaito was a bizarre form of Japanese therapy for aches and pains.

Sogoji was beside one of the beds, where Mrs. Lanski lay facedown.  Her dress was unbuttoned, and he was setting fire to her bare back.

            “What are you doing?” I yelled.  He jumped and quickly raked a pile of smoking grass off the lady’s back. 

            “Hazel.  You early?”

            “Not much.  What’s going on?”

            His hands fluttered like startled sparrows.  “When Lula-san has aches and pains, she ask for yaito–“

            The missus herself slowly turned her head.  “Why, Hazel.  Sogoji said you might be over today.  Good to see you, honey.”

            Sometimes you feel like the whole world has flipped over without you–or that you’ve flipped, all by yourself.  I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

                                                                                                My Friend the Enemy

Fact: Intense periods of history breed their own slang terms, and World War II was no exception.  However, no one was likely to use this much slang unless he was showing off:

The next morning Frank asked for cackleberries and gaskets, meaning eggs and pancakes, knowing we never got both.  But Mom just laughed and said he’d learned a new language while he was away.  After breakfast he told her she was the best egg buster in the business and he was off to visit the feather merchants but would be back in time for blanket detail and chow that night.                                                           My Friend the Enemy

 

Fact: Remember vaporizers stuffed with Vicks?  How many kids do, these days?

Sunday was miserable, for a lot of reasons.  We all stayed home from church: I was sneezing and coughing, Estelle was still crying, and Mom just ran out of steam.  As though to make up for it, she kept the vaporizer on all day, filling the house with the nose-biting smell of Vicks as we slept off and on like soldiers with battle fatigue.

                                                                                                My Friend the Enemy

Fact: During late-May through early-June, cottonwood trees release their seeds, which are carried on the wind by white fibers.

  The wind was picking up, blowing fluffy white cottonwood seeds off the trees.  A gusty ghost-shape swirled by.

            “I’ve changed my mind,” Gee announced.  “I want to sleep inside after all.”

                                                                                                The Middle of Somewhere

Fact: Up until a couple of years ago, tourists visiting Big Brutus (a huge electric shovel used for mining coal in SE Kansas) were allowed to climb the steps leading up to the top of the boom.

Finally, Pop returned to take charge of Gee, and when I got my chance to climb to the top of those 150 steps, it was worth the wait.  I could see all the way to Missouri, or it sure seemed like it.  Kent Clark talks about stepping back to look at the big picture, and if that wasn’t a big picture I don’t know what is . . . .

                                                                                                The Middle of Somewhere

Fact: Early movie cameras were temperamental and subject to static-dust.

I sighed; even Sylvie sighed.  Sam straightened up from his camera-crouch and opened the lens, then squirted a puff of air inside with a rubber syringe: his habit after every take, to blow dust off the film.  “It looked o.k. to me.  We don’t have that much film stock to waste.”

                                                                                    I Don’t Know How the Story Ends

Fact: Before the invention of the “Moviola” film-editing machine, silent films were painstakingly cut by hand.

“Here, you need to take this knife and scrape that end of the film–Careful, not too hard.  Just enough to get to emulsion off.”  After scraping, I brushed the frame lightly with glue and lined up the ends exactly on the splicing block.

The whole episode went together like that, a bit here and a piece there, much of it in silence except for the scritch of the knife and the pulse of the overhead fan. . . .  

            Glancing at the Seth Thomas clock on the wall behind me, I gasped.  “It’s been over an hour!”

“Some fun, huh?”

            “I was just thinking–it’s like rearranging time!  Suppose your life was on a film, and you could cut any part you wanted, or move the pieces around to tell a different story?”

                                                                                               I Don’t Know How the Story Ends

As with any skill, practice makes perfect. But finding and using details to enhance your fiction writing is also fun.

 

 

perspective

Point of View, Part Two: Perspective

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In our previous post, we talked about empathy and “feeling with” another person’s point of view. But POV is not just an individual’s emotional response to a given situation, but the angle from which they see it. We call this perspective. Think about point of view from these two perspectives:

It goes deeper: perspective involves the age, life experiences, and thoughts an individual brings to every circumstance in life. Parents and children who have lived together in the same household for a number of years already know some of each other’s thoughts and experiences. But how well do your children or students know you?

Here’s one way to find out, and stretch their young perspectives at the same time.

 

EXERCISE

Imagine how the significant grownups in your life would respond to the following statements. Try to think beyond “No” or “Yes,” “Good idea” or “Are you nuts?!?!” What reasons might they give for their answer?

You: I don’t want to go to church today.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I flunked the algebra test.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I’ve started saving up my yard-mowing (or baby-sitting) money for a motorcycle.

They: ____________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

You: I’d like to get a summer job.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I find a lot to admire in our President.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I think going to college after I graduate high school would be a waste of time.

They: ____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Now, choose two of the scenarios above and imagine a disagreement ensuing (it might not take much imagination!). In your notebook, write an entire page of dialogue for each, showing how the discussion would develop.

Before you start, try to be fair to the other party’s point of view. What would their perspective be? Assuming they’re at least 30 years older than you, would age give them wisdom, or simply show how out of date they are? In your notebook, list at least three reasons they might give for their point of view.

Next, evaluate your own reasons: are you trying to understand where they’re coming from, or do you simply want what you want? List three legitimate reasons for your point of view, then write the dialogue.

Is it possible you could change someone’s mind? Or might it just be that you find your own mind being changed, just a little?

 

 

 

 

 

Transitive or “In-“?

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Why do you need to know the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb? This:

An action verb shows what the subject does, as in

Under the fairy’s enchantment, Percival slept.

Even if the subject, Percival, is not doing anything but sleeping, sleep is still an action verb.

But if the enchantment is broken and Percival wakes up, he’ll probably get busy doing something, such as

Percival explored the castle.

Percival found the tower room.

Percival kissed the Princess.

“Explored,” “found,” and “kissed” indicate that something should be explored, found, and kissed. “Castle,” “room,” and “Princess” receive the exploring, finding, and kissing, so they are the objects of those three action verbs.

Not all action verbs require or even make sense with an object. It’s hard to find an object for “sleep.” I sleep in a bed sounds okay, but I sleep bed does not. The snail creeps along the garden wall is fine, but The snail creeps garden wall is weird. Not to mention creepy.

In the same way, action verbs that almost always take objects sound oddly unfinished without them: “Tyler hit,” “Leslie stabbed,” and “I grabbed” leave us wondering what was hit, stabbed, or grabbed. Depending on the objects of those verbs, the scene described could be bloody or bland. For example,

Tyler hit the intruder with a baseball bat, Leslie stabbed him in the leg, and I grabbed his gun as he went down.

 Or, Tyler hit the books, Leslie stabbed the air with a pencil, and I grabbed my lecture notes. It was going to be a serious study session, for a change.

 

Verbs that generally take an object are called transitive verbs, because they transfer the action to a person or thing. Verbs that generally don’t take an object are called, logically enough, intransitive verbs.

But many verbs can be one or the other; you rely on the context to make the call. Our chilly cook above, for example, is understanding the verb “chill” as intransitive. Maybe because that is his inclination already. More likely, the recipe assumed an object, namely the dish under construction, as in “(You) Chill [whatever it is you’re making] in the fridge for an hour.”

Or how about this:

I tripped

(intransitive) indicates I’m a bit clumsy, or wasn’t watching where I was going. But

I tripped Jared

(transitive) indicates I’m a bully, or possibly that I want to stop a bully.

If you’re not sure whether a verb is transitive or intransitive, ask it a question. That is, ask “what” after the verb:

Percival slept what? (Nah–must be intransitive)

Percival kissed what? (Now, that’s a real question! A princess, or a toad?

I hope that clears up the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Just don’t be tripping anyone.

 

Thank you letter

How to Write a Thank-You Letter

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Kids today . . .

Or to be fair, it’s not just kids. Thank-you notes (as well as sympathy notes all other kinds of mailed correspondence) may be a dying art. A quick “thanks” over the phone or email is certainly better than nothing, but there’s no replacement for a hand-written note. The very act of selecting a card, writing a few lines, addressing the envelope, hunting down a stamp and putting it in the mailbox is an investment of time. That in itself is an expression of gratitude.

It’s never too early to start; even preschoolers can dictate their thanks and draw a picture (which is sure to end up on someone’s refrigerator, especially if their name starts with “Grand”).  Once a child can write sentences, it’s time to write notes. In Wordsmith Apprentice, I offer a simple formula for the kid who got everything for Christmas. Start with a simple chart of three columns with one line for each gift.

In the first column of each line, write the giver’s name.  In the second, write the name of the gift—and be specific!  Don’t just write “game,” write “Monopoly” or “Mario Kart.”  In the third space, note how you plan to use it or list one particular thing you like about it.

Once you’ve completed your list, you’ll have an outline of what to say in the Thank-you note.  Just put the thoughts in sentence form.  To make your letter more interesting, include one exclamatory or interrogative sentence. For example:

Dear Aunt Louise,

Thank you for the Jenga Blocks.  Carl, David, and I have already played many games.  I think it’s really exciting when we get near the end and everybody is so afraid that their block is the one that will make the whole tower fall down!  Thank you again for remembering my birthday.

Love, Jenny

Get a little artistic: use cardstock and add stickers or drawings or both. Fold it, envelop it, and don’t forget to mail it.

_________________________________________

In Wordsmith Craftsman, I went into a little more detail, but even though the kids are older, the formula is basically the same:

  • After your salutation (“Dear____”), begin with “Thank you for (the specific gift you received).”  If you just write, “Many thanks for the Christmas present,” the gift-giver may wonder if you remember what it was!
  • The second sentence or two should tell how you plan to use the gift.  This may call for some ingenuity, but don’t shy away from being specific.
  • Close with another expression of thanks or appreciation, such as, “You always know what I need.”  This last statement may be formal or casual, depending on how well you know the recipient of your thank-you note.

Examples:

Dear Gus,

Thanks so much for the book on World War II Aircraft you sent for my birthday.  I’ve already looked at all the pictures (at least twice!) and they’re fascinating.  I’ll get into the text this weekend.  I do appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Your friend, Alex

 

Dear Aunt Mary,

I was so happy to get the gloves!  The weatherman says a cold front is moving this way, so they’ll certainly be appreciated when we go cross-country skiing this weekend.  You always seem to know just what I need.  Thanks so much.

Love, Sarah

 

That’s not so hard, is it? The only hard part is taking the time, or making sure a busy kid takes the time.

 

serious writer

Encouraging a Serious Beginner

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Question: How would you encourage a student or adult who’s serious and wants to get better?

Answer: I love this kind of question! Motivation is the greatest challenge for a writing teacher, so if a student is motivated, you’re already halfway up the hill. Also, if a student realizes there’s plenty of room for improvement, you’re almost there. Here are my suggestions:

  1. Teach yourself to observe. When I was a kid, I had no intention of becoming a writer because I thought I had no imagination. That’s what writers did, didn’t they? They made up stuff and wrote it down. Didn’t they?

Au contraire. The best writers are excellent observers, because their material comes from the world around them, not their interior lives. Otherwise, who would be interested in anything they had to write? Writers communicate through experience, and that’s a commodity everyone has. So learn to observe and take notes. See my blog post, 5 Steps to Improving Observation Skills, for some practical tips.

  1. Practice your craft. College-level writing instructors tell me it’s astonishing how many students think they can succeed without practice—as if a killer idea or a volcanic imagination will propel them to the top of the best-seller lists.. All they have to do, someday, is vomit it all on paper. This in itself is an example of volcanic imagination.

Better to think of writing as an accomplishment on the order of wood carving or dressmaking. Learning to do it well enough for yourself is a skill. Learning to do it well enough for a paying customer is a craft. And achieving a level that makes critics and consumers gasp with admiration is an art. Writing at the craft level does not come naturally, any more than carving a decorative wall sconce to order. It takes practice. You can practice under a teacher’s guidance or on your own. I took only one writing class, but it wasn’t as helpful to me as writing my first, second, third, and fourth novels—all unpublished! The rejection letters for each weren’t fun, but the experience taught me a lot and didn’t cost me a thing but my pride.

  1. Learn from the best. No one is truly self-taught. We learn from examples, exhortations, and experience. I’m convinced writers learn most from reading, and half-consciously copying the styles and themes that appeal to them. But there are plenty of “how-tos” out there, both instructive and inspirational. Wordsmith, of course, is more on the instructional side. Others go deep into the heart: how language works and what a writer should strive for. No given book is going to be helpful to everyone, but my Redeemed Reader colleague Betsy has a nice roundup of books for teen writers here.

Observe, practice, learn. No shortcuts, but anyone who’s serious about it will be rewarded.

coach & Matt

How to Sound Gramatically Incorrect When You Really Aren’t

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“It’s a common mistake.”

One of my favorite TV series of all time is Friday Night Lights. Might have something to do with being from Texas because I’m not a football fan. I just appreciate that fanatical ambience. At any rate, one scene from the first season made me laugh out loud. Quarterback Matt Saracen is dating Coach Taylor’s daughter and the coach is starting to go all Dad in that brisk, steam-roller way of his.

Matt protests:

MATT. Look, Coach, this is just between Julie and I—

COACH. Julie and me.

MATT. Uh . . What?

COACH. Julie and me. It’s a common mistake. Go on.

Go Panthers!! That’s one football coach who was paying attention in English class. And he’s right—it is a very common mistake to default to “I” as a compound object. I’ve heard highly educated people make it.

By compound I mean any word or phrase joined to a corresponding word or phrase by a conjunction like “and” or “but.”

“Julie and I” is a compound joining a proper noun and a pronoun. As the subject of the sentence it would be just fine, such as

Julie and I are going to Diamond Mart to buy an engagement ring. (Whoa, Matt! You’re only 17!)
But “between Julie and I” makes the phrase the object of a preposition. In the objective case, the first-person pronoun changes form from “I” to “me.”

Suppose Julie said,

Matt and me are engaged.

First we would criticize her hasty decision, but we should get around to criticizing the grammar, too. Most of us were probably corrected early on from using object forms in the subject position: “Don’t say ‘him and me’ are friends. Say ‘he and I’ are friends.”

But some of us absorbed that lesson so well that “he and I” always sounds right, while “Don’t spread lies about him and me” sounds terrible. But it’s actually correct.

If you’re ever in doubt, try using the pronoun by itself:

“Don’t spread lies about me.”

“Don’t spread lies about him.”

“This is just between me” (even though that doesn’t make any logical sense).

Double-checking yourself when you’re about to say or write “____ and I” should help you correct at least some of that improper usage. It worked for me. In fact, now I’m absolutely insufferable about it. Go ahead—trying saying “Do you want to go paintballing with Harry and I?” and see how fast I jump down your throat!

P.S. About “thee.” A lot of confusion about this, too, but quickly: “Thou” is the subject form, “thee” is object, “ye” was originally the plural subject form, and “you” was the object plural. You’re welcome.

editor (2)

Six Ways to Drive an Editor CRAZY

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Famed editor Maxwell Perkins once remarked that “style” is nothing more than one author’s decision to misuse the rules of grammar. My former agent once said, “There’s a fine line between ‘style’ and sounding like a moron” (much like this fine line, I suppose).

rock band GIF

What I often say is, you have to obey the rules before you can break them. If there’s one place for obeying the rules, it’s in an author proposal.

The first step in getting a book published (by a publisher other than yourself) is submitting a query letter to an editor or agent. The letter is a three-paragraph pitch that introduces you, tells what your project is about, and explains why you are qualified to write it. If the editor is interested, she may ask for a formal proposal that goes into more detail about the work. It’s very easy to tank the project at this point, even if you have a killer plot or subject in mind, because your grammar trips all over itself. Editors are grammar sticklers—go figure.

Per that same agent, here are six common errors in author proposals that drive editors crazy:

  1. Novelists who overuse exclamation marks–as though the period key didn’t exist!
  2. “Writers” who seem to believe that all “emphasized” words belong in quotation marks. You know—“quotation marks.” Here’s an “idea”: cut it out.
  3. Your/you’re; its/it’s; there/their/they’re. We’ve talked about this.
  4. Ewe can knot relay on you’re spell chequer to catch everything. On the other hand, don’t ignore it either.
  5. Repetitive paragraphs. The agent suggests that you “print out a copy of your proposal or manuscript and look it over. If the first word of every paragraph is the same, you need to go back and change it. (Unless the first word of every paragraph is ‘I,’ in which case you need to be slapped by the person sitting next to you, then go back and change it.)”
  6. Dangling parentheses. That is, failing to include the close parenthesis (like this. It leaves editors dangling. And fuming.) (True confession: I do it all the time.

If you don’t make any of these mistakes, well . . . maybe you should write a book proposal.

This post originally appeared in the Wordsmith Teachers’ Lounge newsletter. The Teachers’ Lounge covers a wide range of topics and writing miscellany, with occasional giveaways. To receive the Teachers’ Lounge in your own Inbox (almost) every Wednesday, sign up here.

 

dependent clause diagram_0001 (2)

Everything You Need to Know about Subordinate Clauses (almost)

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I’ll just get this one out of my system:

So. A clause with an e on the end can be a) a separate item or provision in a contract, bill, or treaty, such as those “Terms of Service” nobody ever reads. (Ethics question: Is it lying to click “I have read the Terms of Service” when you haven’t read the terms of service? Is it a situation where you’re expected to lie, so it isn’t really lying? Discuss amongst yourselves.)

Fortunately, we’re talking about the other clause—the grammatical kind. A “clause,” in this sense, is a group of words with a subject and a verb that’s almost a sentence, but not quite. What makes it “not quite” is usually the addition of a subordinating conjunction. Observe:

James went to the theater last Saturday.

This is a complete thought. It tells you what James did, and when.  But this—

After James went to the theater last Saturday

–is not complete. It leaves us hanging. The only way it could seem complete would be if it answered a question (such as, When did Milton let the dogs out?). Otherwise, we can’t leave it alone; we want to poke and pry until we get some closure about James and the theater.

Dependent clauses (also called subordinate clauses) include a subject and verb like every sentence should. But they are not complete sentences because they depend on another complete sentence to make sense. Dependent clauses can function as adjectives (modifying nouns) or adverbs (modifying verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs).

  • Adjectival clauses are often called relative clauses because they relate the clause directly to a noun. Who, whose, that, and which typically introduce a relative clause:

The book that she wrote about leeches will be available next month.        (Modifying book)

A hobbit is a small person with furry feet who lives in a shire.                       (Modifying person)

  • Adverbial clauses are introduced by words indicating when, where, or how, such as when, where, before, after, during, while,

You had better finish your homework before the Smiths arrive.

Do you remember where you left your keys?

While Heath was climbing the fence, the rottweiler snapped at his heels.

  • But there’s more! Noun clauses. In this example, the entire clause what is showing at the cineplex this afternoon serves as the object of the verb checked:

Harry checked what’s showing at the cineplex this afternoon.

And here, the clause that you showed your work for each problem is the object of see:

I want to see that you showed your work for each problem.

And here, Whoever comes along with me is the subject of the whole sentence:

Whoever comes along with me should ask their parents first.

One more subject clause: What happens when atoms collide.

What happens when atoms collide is the topic of tonight’s science talk.

Did you notice that’s a clause within a clause? When atoms collide modifies the verb happens. Here’s how it looks in a diagram (because you’re dying to know!):

Dependent clauses can do all kinds of tricks: hanging from, curling up within, balancing over. Impressive! The linguist Noam Chomsky defines this capacity of enclosure (i.e., language units within other language units), as the distinctive mark of human language. That may not be true—human languages without that capacity have been discovered—but it’s pretty cool anyway.

There’s another type of clause we should look at, but it deserves close and philosophical consideration all by itself. That’s up next!

Observation

Five Steps to Improving Observation Skills

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What word of advice do you have for aspiring writers?

I get this question all the time—or if not all the time, often enough. I suspect all writers do. My first word is always the same: Pay attention.

Why? You can’t improve on God. It’s his world and his personality reflected in the near-infinite variety of animal and plant life, weather, terrain, sea, sky, and especially humanity. Even if you write the most far-out fantasy, your creation can’t come close to his for depth and color. That’s great news—think of all the material you have to work with!

That story you’re plotting in the Nebula cloud will be peopled with human-like personalities, even if they don’t look human at all. Without personality, there’s no story. And personality, along with all the other wonders of creation, is fully accessible to the aspiring writer who is trained in observation skills. Some suggestions:

  1. Keep a notebook, or notecards. I favor notecards because they fit easily in a purse or pocket and can be sorted and filed later. The idea, of course, is not that you carry it (or them) around to feel like a writer, but that you actually write your observations.
  2. Watch the weather. Note sky colors, cloud formations, the feel and smell of the air. Have you noticed the outside air smells different in different seasons? Spend some time outside at a particular time of day, or during a snowfall or 100-degree afternoon, feeling and smelling and writing down your impressions. Watch out for lightning.
  3. Note unusual faces, postures, mannerisms. I’ve noticed people in passing and thought, That’s how So-and-so looks! (So-and-so being a character in a novel I’m working on). You might not have time to whip out your notebook and write a lightning description, but keep a few details in mind and jot them down later.
  4. Listen to conversations. The food court at the local mall was once an ideal spot for listening unobserved. If the nearest conversation wasn’t very interesting, you could pick up your Kung Pao Chicken and Coke and take it to another table without attracting much notice. I don’t know how crowded food courts are now, but there are other possibilities: outdoor restaurants, airports, church, hospital waiting rooms. Unobserved listening isn’t about being nosy; it’s about broadening your knowledge of how people actually talk (as opposed to the stilted expository dialogue amateur writers tend to use) and what they talk about. Sometimes even what they think.
  5. Start a conversation. Writers are often solitary, introspective individuals who prefer lurking to engaging. Fortunately for us, plenty of people out there like to talk. A simple question in the checkout line, like, “Having a picnic?” (to a cart piled high with sandwich bread) or, “What are you going to do with all those avocados?” could at least get you some good recipe ideas. Even better, it might get you some good stories. A conversation I had with a young man in a pickup truck, way out in western Kansas, ended up almost verbatim in my novel, The Middle of Somewhere. I’ll always regret not following up with a woman at the local grocery who told me she had a fatal disease. That conversation could have had far greater consequence than fictional embellishment.

Before I ever published a novel, I corresponded with an author who quoted the old saying, “All is grist to the writer’s mill.” (At least, she said it was an old saying; at the time I wasn’t old enough to have heard it.) Meaning, there’s a world of material out there, so don’t spend all your time dialoguing with yourself.

You can’t improve on God. That’s my old saying.

Mikaila

Plan Your Writing, Write Your Plan

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Writing a Business Plan with Help from a 14-Year-Old Entrepreneur

In Part One of Wordsmith Craftsman (my writing course for high-schoolers), I included an assignment for “Business Reports.” Some parents were confused by this—what do business reports have to do with composition? To be honest, it was originally my husband’s idea (he who had begun his own consulting business and ran it successfully for 12 years). When he suggested it, my first thought was, “What do business reports have to do with composition?” But upon further reflection, I saw how it could fit. Part One of Wordsmith Craftsman is all about how to organize your thoughts: note-taking, outlining, summarizing, and communicating by letter. A “Business Plan” puts all that organization to practical use.

Mikaila on her way

Recently I reviewed Bee Fearless by teenage corporate mogul Mikaila Ulmer. In many ways, Mikaila is a typical 14-year-old (probably 15 by now), even if exceptionally energetic. But she’s the CEO of a multi-million-dollar business that began as a lemonade stand. If you’ve seen Me & the Bees Lemonade in your local Whole Foods or specialty store, or even bought a bottle, you may know that the idea came from a concern for the diminishing bee population. That’s why it’s sweetened with honey. The rest of the story is a combination of focus, personality, good timing, excellent mentorship—and planning. It’s rare that circumstances line up the way they did for Mikaila, but anyone can shape an idea into a workable plan, whether it’s how to start a local lawn business or how to get into your first-choice college.

And, not to dish on college (or not much), learning to form a workable plan—and then work it—is worth as much as a Bachelor’s in Communications.

The “Business Report” section in Wordsmith Craftsman addresses feasibility studies: determining the steps of a goal and the action to take, and finally determining whether the plan is do-able or desirable. It’s meant to help the student think through a goal before tackling it, and many of us could have done more of that at certain pivotal moments!

Bee Fearless goes more into detail about starting and running a business, which may or may not be the goal. But the practical tips make it worth a read for the practically-minded student. Or the student who could use a little more practicality. Mikaila began with a simple business plan of product development, budgeting, and growth. Her current business plan involves company description, market analysis, product line, sales, funding, and financial projections. Most of us will never get there. But we could all use a little more intentionality and focus.

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