For Writers

Writing (& Teaching) Setting-specific Story Details

By on September 23, 2015   /   For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

If you’re a writer and/or teacher, you may be feeling the MUF-love emanating from your screen right now. That’s because today’s post about writing using setting-specific details is in your honor. Yep, it’s all for you. And for your readers. And for your students. And maybe even for your labradoodle named Cocoa who was briefly abducted by aliens and now spends his days pawing at a MacBook, composing original similes.

As a writer and a teacher, I love to explore and teach about the gloriously complex world of writing. I’m always learning something new and trying to improve my own writing craft. That’s what made me decide it was time to revisit my teaching roots and share something I’ve been working on in my own writing. And I brought J. K. Rowling along to help!

(Well, okay, that J. K. Rowling thing may almost, maybe, kind of be a lie. But I use a brief excerpt from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. And I allow my voice to climb toward falsetto as I do a very poor imitation of Professor McGonagall. So it’s pretty much like J. K. Rowling personally created this MUF post. Except she really didn’t. But I still couldn’t have done it without her.)

Anyway, enough parenthetical rambling! For today’s post you don’t need to do much reading. Instead, you can kick back with your Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (or other favorite beverage), click the video below, and spend 3 minutes learning how setting-specific details strengthen a story and make it more believable.

If you’re a writer, I hope the video will give you something to think about in your own writing. If you’re a teacher, maybe you can use the video as a springboard to a writing lesson with your students. And if you’re neither a writer nor a teacher? . . . Well, maybe Cocoa the labradoodle will enjoy the brief respite from composing all of those similes.

Writing & Creating Story Setting with Specific Details

Have any favorite books or series where the author brings the setting alive? Any great examples of rich, setting-specific details from a book you’ve read? Feel free to post in the comments below.

T. P. Jagger The 3-Minute Writing TeacherAlong with his MUF posts, T. P. Jagger can be found at www.tpjagger.com, where he provides brief how-to writing-tip videos as The 3-Minute Writing Teacher plus original readers’ theatre scripts for middle-grade teachers. He also has a 10-lesson, video-based creative writing course available at Curious.com.

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Digging Into Revisions

By on September 18, 2015   /   For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

When I was younger, school taught me to brainstorm an idea for a story, write it, then turn it in. I’d get feedback and a grade, but that was the end of it. I’m so grateful when I see my daughters not only write in school, but also practice revising. Very few things come out amazing in the first draft (and often the second, third, and fourth drafts, too). Every time you put writing away for a bit then look at it with fresh eyes, or receive feedback from trusted critique buddies or publishing professionals, there’s a chance to take your work up at least a level or two. But sometimes, it’s hard to know where to start.

Once yocongratulations_sm_nwmaau finish your first draft of a book, assignment, etc. I think the most important thing to do is CELEBRATE! So many people want to be writers and have all kinds of ideas swimming around their heads, but don’t find the time to actually sit and get them down on paper or into a computer. Congrats for finishing your draft!

Years ago, I used to leap into revisions in a very unproductive way—by trying to make the prose sing. That’s very important, but if the bones of your story aren’t strong enough, you can spend tons of time polishing up areas that will have to be cut. Concentrate on the big picture items first. Once you get them as strong as possible, that’s the perfect time to tweak your prose to perfection.

I’ve learned that I’m much stronger at voice and writing dialogue than plotting, so that’s where I usually start with a revision. I use Joyce Sweeney’s Plot Clock as much as possible while planning a new novel or picture book. Sometimes surprises pop up that take my plot in an unexpected direction. I love when my characters take over and start to lead the story! Sometimes, I’ll go back and rework the Plot Clock soon after I finish a draft, other times I jot notes on it and don’t completely redo it until I finish several rounds of revisions.

If you’d like, you can take a peek at some notes I shared a few years ago after taking Joyce’s Plot Clock Workshop, or you can sign up for Joyce’s newsletter then log in to her site to watch her free hour and a half Plot Clock webinar.

            Here are some other revision tips:

*Look at your characters and see if they’re all necessary and unique enough. Get to know them better through interviews. I love keeping a list of the traits, sayings, etc. of each character (and it tends to grow throughout the first draft and continues to expand and morph through rounds of revisions).

*Is every scene needed?

*Did you take the most obvious route? Play around with all the possibilities you can think of. What can really make your story and characters unique? What can surprise your readers (but looking back, they’ll hopefully have enough clues to realize how everything led up to that moment)?

*If you hit a section that you know needs to be stronger, but aren’t sure how to fix it, you can try setting a timer for ten minutes and brainstorming all the possibilities. You can also play with the time of day that you write. My inner critic gets tired late at night, and I’ve found that I take more chances with my writing then. It’s a great way to attack a scene I know I need to change, but am not exactly sure how.

*Now is a fantastic time to get feedback from trusted critique buddies. If possible, see if you can work on another project or character sketches, so you can view your story with fresh eyes when you receive their comments.

At the end, you can fine-tune your story. Make sure every word is needed and the strongest possible choice. Look for often repeated words. Read your story out loud and see where you stumble. Or have someone else read it out loud—it’s amazing how much clearer you can see your work when read by another person. If others hear it too, do they laugh at the right time or lose attention during scenes that can be streamlined?

Here are a couple of older Mixed-Up Files posts about revision that you might want to read:

Revision–the BIG picture

Revision: Churning Spilled Milk into Ice Cream

            I’d love to know what revision strategies work best for you!

Mindy Alyse Weiss writes humorous middle grade novels with heart and quirky picture books. She’s constantly inspired by her two daughters, an adventurous Bullmasador adopted from The Humane Society, and an adorable Beagle/Pointer mix who was rescued from the Everglades. Visit Mindy’s Twitter, Facebook, or blog to read more about her writing life, conference experiences, and writing tips.

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The virtues of the pencil

By on September 14, 2015   /   For Writers, Writing  

I have a thing about pencils. Most writers do. We can hold this magical instrument in our hand — like a musician with a violin or an artist with a paintbrush  — and we can create a world that didn’t exist before. And all this magical instrument requires is a little sharpening now and then to keep it working.

189320-drawing-of-hand-writing-with-pencil Despite my love of pencils however, I write on a modern invention called a computer, and up until recently, I did all my revising on one too.

But a troubled WIP that I’d revised way too many times on my computer led me to pick up a pencil and edit the old-fashioned way. I’d forgotten how different it was to look at the pages with my fingers curled around a pencil and scribble my edits instead of type them. I’d forgotten how editing by hand changed the way I viewed the story. Simply said, I’d forgotten the magic of the humble pencil.

We all know that people write less today than generations before us, which is no surprise, given the multitude of electronic devices at our disposal, and the fact that kids aren’t even taught handwriting in most U.S. schools anymore. Some people bemoan this trend, citing that the difference between writing on a keyboard versus with a writing instrument is huge. Experts say that handwriting is a complex task requiring numerous skills — feeling the pen and paper, moving the writing implement, and directing movement by thought. These same processes don’t occur when typing on a keyboard — you just have to press the keys.

QWERTY_keyboardSome neuroscientists even go so far as to say that giving up handwriting may affect how future generations learn to read, because drawing letters by hand improves recognition. Research has found that note-taking with a pen instead of with a keyboard may give students a better grasp of the subject. Students at Princeton and UCLA who took longhand notes were better able to answer questions after a lecture, perhaps because they summarized and comprehended the material as they wrote their notes instead of typed them.

While doing my hand-edit, I rediscovered the flexibility a pencil and paper allows — scribbling in the margins, crossing things out then adding them back in again, and flipping back and forth between pages instead of scrolling up and down a screen. With a pencil and paper, it was all there right in front of me, a visual and tactile record of my edits in various stages of creativity.

I missed my old friend, the pencil.

I’m happy to see there are some signs that writing with a pencil (or pen) isn’t going the way of the rotary phone. In France, for example, students are still taught handwriting, beginning at age six. Ah France. They think writing by hand is a key part of cognitive development. Merci.

Also, pencil collector and lifelong pencil lover Caroline Weaver recently opened a store in New York — CW Pencil Enterprises — that sells numerous varieties of pencils. pencils Many of them sell out quickly.

And the ballpoint pen, first invented in the 1940s, is actually still the most widely-used writing instrument today. I bet you have one in your purse or backpack right now.

So I hope there is hope that pencils and pens will still be around for future generations. Pick one up and hold it in your hand. Voila! Your brain magically becomes the keyboard. Whoa. What a concept.

Michele Weber Hurwitz is the author of The Summer I Saved the World…in 65 Days and Calli Be Gold, both from Wendy Lamb Books/Penguin Random House. Visit her at micheleweberhurwitz.com.

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