Tips

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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.

 

 

So, I have to write this report . . .

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or, How Not to Bore Your Teacher to Death–or Yourself

Report-writing may not be as common as it used to be in the old days (that is, when I was in school), but once in a while your teacher may ask you to unplug the PowerPoint and write a one-to-two-page book report, biographical sketch, or science-fair exposition.  This is not an overwhelming challenge if you take time to organize your material and put it together in clear paragraphs.  If you have trouble with that, check out Wordsmith Craftsman; organization and clarity are big subjects beyond the scope of this one little tip.

But let’s say you understand the basic principles of sentence and paragraph construction, and know how to make an outline and follow it.  There’s still the possibility that your report will be less than stimulating (in a word, boring), both to write and to read.  Frankly, teachers are accustomed to boring reports and are pleased if they just make sense.  But they’ll sit up and take notice if you add a spark of imagination to your reports–as long as the spark isn’t just fireworks to cover the fact that you don’t know what you’re writing about.

Some teachers like to give “creative” report assignments.  Others leave the choice up to you, and still others may not appreciate your flights of fancy at all.  Use your judgment, but a dash of creativity will make your report not only more interesting to read, but also more fun to write (really!).

You could begin a biographical sketch with, “Martin Luther King was born . . .” etc.  Or you could study a portrait or two contrasting news photos and describe the character you see in that face.  Back up your analysis by the three pivotal events of his life that shaped that character, and include the portrait or photos with your report.

You could open a report on the Constitutional Convention of 1787 with this sentence, “The first governing document of the United States was called the Articles of Confederation . . .”  Or you could take the point of view of a delegate summoned to Philadelphia and shut up in a stuffy room with the other sweating delegates to draft a new governing document.  A entire report written that way would amount to a novel, but a longish opening paragraph describing the room, the smells, the sounds, and a few of the famous delegates would set the scene and interest your reader enough to keep reading.

In my seventh-grade Texas history class I wrote a paper titled “Sam Houston and I,” whereby I took a time-machine trip back to 1840 and interviewed the President of Texas.  Is this an approach that might work for your next history project?

Here are some other ideas to keep in mind for those mid-semester papers:

BOOK REPORTS (fiction)

  • Describe the climax of the story from the antagonist’s, or villain’s, point of view.
  • Interview the main character.
  • Imagine a date with one of the main characters–where would you go?  What would you talk about?  How would he/she behave toward you?
  • Insert yourself into the climax of the story as an additional character, and describe how you change the action.

SOCIAL STUDIES REPORTS

  • Write a dialogue or debate between two historical characters who held opposing views.
  • Write the history of an object seen in a museum.
  • Write a newspaper “editorial” presenting one side of an historical issue.
  • Take pictures or buy postcards at an historic site.  Use them to illustrate your own brochure, with captions, quotes, and interesting facts (you can make up the captions and the quotes, but not the facts!)

SCIENCE REPORTS

  • Interview a scientist who is famous but now dead.
  • Write a radio play describing activities of the body, or any other scientific process.
  • Using the brochure example above, make and illustrate a brochure promoting travel on Jupiter, or “Black Hole Theme Park,” or a thrill ride through the circulatory system.

It really doesn’t take much to shake up the average school report. What further ideas do you get from these ideas?

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.

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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).

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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.

 

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The Worst Novel Ever Written

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What can you learn from bad writing?

You may have your own candidate for Worst Novel, but the general consensus, especially among sci-fi/fantasy fans, is The Eye of Argon by Jim Theis. It’s best described as a heroic fantasy on the model of Conan the Barbarian, whose protagonist burns and slashes his way from captivity to a ride into the sunset with his barbarian date. Self-published in a local fanzine in 1970, it found its way to the west coast and eventually online, where it became the target of mockery and geeky parlor games. To be fair, the author was only 16 when he wrote it, and he was so hurt by the novel’s reception he vowed never to write anything again (per Wikipedia).

That’s sad, because something could have been made of the story if he’d worked harder at his craft. The plot and pacing are not bad (judging by the chapter outline) and the visual imagery is sometimes striking. For example, here’s the opening paragraph, with misspellings and minor grammatical errors corrected:

The weather-beaten trail wound ahead into the dust-racked climes of the barren land which dominates large portions of the Norgolian empire. Age-worn hoofprints smothered by the sifting sands of time shone dully against the dust splattered crust of earth. The tireless sun cast its parching rays of incandescence from overhead, halfway through its daily revolution. Small rodents scampered about, occupying themselves in the daily accomplishments of their dismal lives. Dust sprayed over three heaving mounts in blinding clouds, while they bore the burdensome cargoes of their struggling overseers.

The chief fault is overwriting, a weakness that besets the blood-spattered, chest-heaving whole. Much could be improved with a simple strikethrough. Such as

The weather-beaten trail wound ahead into the dust-racked climes of the barren land which dominates large portions of the Norgolian empire. Age-worn hoofprints smothered by the sifting sands of time shone dully against the dust splattered crust of earth. The tireless [noonday] sun cast its parching rays of incandescence from overhead, halfway through its daily revolution. Small rodents scampered about, occupying themselves in the daily accomplishments of their dismal lives. Dust sprayed over three heaving mounts in blinding clouds, while they bore [and their] burdensome cargoes of their struggling overseers.

Substitute punchier adjectives and verbs for the lackluster ones, and you’d have an effective scene-setter. Unfortunately the quality descends as the purple prose becomes ever more bruised, making the novella a punching bag for aspiring writers who think, “At least I can do better than that.”

All writers can do better. One way to improve is by considering what the problem is with bad writing and how it can be fixed. The Eye of Argon offers a ready-made tutorial, especially for older teens who are interested in fantasy writing. Try pulling a few paragraphs from the original text and revise them to be shorter and punchier. You could learn a lot. (Warning: The storyline includes lots of overwritten blood and gore.)

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.

 

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The Unintentional Hilarity of Misplaced Modifiers

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They’re easy to misplace. Not by getting lost, but by ending up where they shouldn’t be in a sentence.

More a punctuation problem than a modifier problem, but you get the idea.

By law, English adjectives are always placed before the nouns they modify (the shy, quiet boy) unless they follow a linking verb (The boy was shy and quiet). That seems simple enough, but be careful with possessives (nouns that show possession):

Did someone lose a silver woman’s ring?

Could it be that a silver woman lost her ring? More likely that a woman’s silver ring is missing from someone’s finger.

I found a camo boy’s hunting jacket on the playground last Saturday.

A camo boy would have a great advantage while hunting but be rather conspicuous elsewhere.

There’s an easy fix for those two examples: simply swap the possessive and the adjective:

a woman’s silver ring

a boy’s camo hunting jacket

Here’s another adjective pitfall. When a noun is paired with an adjective to modify another noun (it happens) the result can be a head-scratcher:

I want you to meet Mr. Jones, our precious metal specialist.

Can’t wait to meet that precious Mr. Jones! Oh wait—you mean he specializes in precious metals. Why didn’t you say so? Why don’t you just hyphenate the adjective/noun combination, making it a single modifier: our precious-metal specialist.

That’s an easy fix, but hyphens are seen and not heard (in fact, this example came from an actual radio ad that had me speculating about precious specialists). Rearranging the sentence will make Mr. Jones less precious, but more special:

I want you to meet Mr. Jones, our specialist in precious metals.

Another example: “Rare earth” is the name given to a class of elements used in electronics. It’s also an adjective/noun combination that can leave the reader thinking, Huh?

The company made a rare earth discovery near Shantung province.

All kinds of rare discoveries could be found in the earth, but again, rare-earth (used as a modifier) could be hyphenated to clarify its status. Or rearrange the sentence:

The company discovered deposits of rare earth near Shantung Province.

I guess it’s still confusing if you don’t know what “rare earth” is in this context, but at least you could look it up in Wikipedia.

So, adjectives are usually placed before the nouns they modify. Adverbs may roam more freely:

Sarah limply raised her hand.

Limply, Sarah raised her hand.

Sarah raised her hand limply.

Your choice! (You can put your hand down now, Sarah.)

But that doesn’t mean an adverb can go just anywhere and park itself. Meaning matters. For example,

Teachers who rarely laugh in the classroom have a negative attitude.

Teachers who laugh in the classroom rarely have a negative attitude.

These two sentences come to a similar conclusion (sourpuss teachers make for unhappy classrooms), but one emphasizes the teacher while the other points to attitude. The best fix is to experiment with the adverb “rarely” (not to experiment rarely with the adverb) and settle where you and it are happiest.

Prepositional phrases and relative clauses can modify nouns and verbs. They can also raise havoc when they’re misplaced. What’s confusing about these sentences? How would you fix them?

Mom brought Kool-aid to the kids in paper cups.

(How did those kids get in paper cups? And where is the Kool-aid going to go?)

The waiter brought a steak to our table that was oozing blood.

(Somebody bring a paper towel for that poor table!)

I saw a Fourth of July Day parade on the way to the pool.

(I hope the pool is big enough for all those marching bands.)

Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon in 1969.

(After that, the moon could hardly kept itself swept with all those other men setting foot on it.)

In these examples, all you have to do is move the phrase or clause. For example,

In 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon—

thus restoring his proper place in history.

For the most part, correcting misplaced modifiers is a simple matter of thinking it through. Take time to look at those sentences you’re willy-nillyly writing. You have a logical brain that will tell you if something is off. And with a little practice, you’ll figure out how to fix it.

Interview

How to Interview

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If you’re a sports fan, you’ve probably seen countless on-the-spot interviews with athletes and coaches. Can you remember a single one? I’m guessing not, because the questions and answers almost never vary: What went wrong? (We didn’t bring our best game.) What went right? (We worked together as a team.) How do you feel? (The same way you would. Duh.)

Sometimes an interviewer tries, but just can’t make headway. TIME Magazine posted an interview with Joan Didion, a highly-respected essay writer dating from the sixties. Ms. Didion is now 86 and has been confined to her New York apartment since March, so she might not be at her sharpest. Or she might have just been bored. Whatever the reason, it’s the only interview I ever read where almost all the questions were longer than the answers.

There may not be much you can do with an unresponsive subject. But you may well have opportunities to interview: research for a paper, or a career opportunity, or a newsletter, or a book of family stories. Family stories, by the way, is a great opportunity for kids to gather information in a friendly setting and write it down. For any age, and any subject, here are some worthwhile tips:

  • Do your research! Gather enough information about your subject or your subject’s specialty to ask specific questions. Also intelligent ones.
  • Write more questions than you will actually use. If one line of questioning doesn’t seem to interest your subject, try another.
  • Make your questions as specific as possible. Instead of “How do you do your job?” go for something like, “What’s the most rewarding (or difficult) part of your job?” Instead of “Tell me about your book,” try, “If readers only remember one thing from your book, what should it be?”
  • Steer clear of “How do you feel about—” questions. The answer will most likely be what anyone would feel in a similar situation (Q. How do you feel about going to the Super Bowl for the second time? A. Great! Fabulous! A dream come true!). Or, your subject may feel the need to dissemble, or prevaricate. (Q. How did it feel when your closest rival won that award? A. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.)
  • Stick to the script. Except when you shouldn’t. Be considerate of your subject’s time; don’t take any more of it than necessary (unless it’s your grandma). On the other hand, if a question gets your subject excited and talkative, it’s okay to follow the rabbit trail for a bit. But be sure to allow time for a wrap-up question.
  • Be involved. Of course you’re listening and making notes, but try to listen on a deeper level. Is your subject animated or merely polite? Did he just glance at his watch? Is she leaning forward to stress a particular point? Body language and facial expressions can help you respond appropriately, and either wrap it up after you have all the information or stay just a little longer to chat.
  • Be sure to thank your subject. If you’re writing up the interview, offer to send the final copy or a link to the website (and do it!). If your subject is a professional who generously made time for you, a hand-written note of thanks would not be amiss.
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.

motivation 3

Ten Ways to Motivate Reluctant Writers, Part Two

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Motivation is the bane of the writing teacher.

Can anyone relate?

Good writing takes practice to learn, and there’s the rub. Kids who don’t like it are only going to practice under great duress, and then only as little as possible with the minimum they can get away with. But sometimes–I’ve seen it happen–an assignment or project will engage their imagination enough to give it some honest effort. All their assignments can’t be fun, but sparking up the usual grind with an imaginative exercise or two can help the medicine go down.

So, last week I started with a list of five potential motivators, but as often happens, ideas beget other ideas. So if the first five lit no fires, consider these:

  • Round Robin Stories. This is definitely a group activity, but could be fun for a family if there are enough willing participants (including parents!). Each participant starts with a story prompt, a setting, or an object (or all three). After writing the first paragraph of the story, each participant passes their paper to the next writer, who continues the story with the second paragraph, then passes it on for the third paragraph, and so on. This can be played in a random manner with no guidelines, but could be more fun (and easier on those of us with more pedestrian imaginations) if some direction was included. For example–
    • First paragraph: Place and time, up to three characters (they don’t have to be people).
    • Second paragraph: Something happens! The characters have a problem.
    • Third paragraph: They try to solve the problem; doesn’t work.
    • Fourth paragraph: They try another solution; doesn’t work.
    • Fifth paragraph: Everybody is unhappy.
    • Sixth paragraph: The last solution works and everybody is happy again—or not.
    • This could take place over a few days; no need to finish in one sitting.

At the end, of course, read them out loud. Everybody will want to know what the next person did with their particular contribution.

  • Imaginary Interviews. “Interview” your favorite sports hero, historical character, or fictional character. Write a list of questions about topics you’d really like to know, then imagine how the subject would answer.
  • POV Switch. Write 2-3 entries in the diary of a family member. Imagine an actual recent event and write it as though someone besides you—sibling, parent, possibly friend—were recording it in a their personal diary. (Talk about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes!)
  • Dream Journal. You know how dreams start disappearing almost as soon as we wake up? Try keeping a notebook handy to write as much as you remember of your most vivid dreams. (Share them only if you want to!)
  • Game on! Describe your favorite video game as if you were in it as a player. Keep a tight focus and describe only one sequence or one strategic play.

If none of these appeal to you or your students, they may provide a springboard to something else. Ideas beget other ideas, so keep thinking, and don’t be afraid to brainstorm occasionally with the kids.

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