For Writers

STEM Tuesday Field Work — Writing Craft and Resources

By on March 20, 2018   /   Field Work, For Writers, STEM Tuesday, Writing  

This month we’ve focused on books about scientific field work. What about the field work of a writer? Whether their subject matter is fact or fiction, frogs or fractals, writers have important research to do out in the field.

We all know that sensory details help to create a more engaging read, but how do you craft those sensory details? Research in the field!

 

 

 

 

Here is an exercise to help you with auditory information. It will train you to become more aware of the ever-present sounds around you, will help you gather specific sounds on site, and will strengthen your descriptions of sound qualities.

Creating a Sound Map

The set-up:

  1. Place yourself “in the field.”
  2. On a plain piece of paper draw the largest circle that will fit.
  3. Put a dot in the middle of the circle. The dot represents you. The circle represents the furthest edge of your hearing.

Listen:

  1. When you hear a sound, record it on the map in relationship to the dot and the edge of your hearing.
  2. Record the sound as a word, color, shape or symbol – whatever represents it best.
  3. Try to indicate qualities of the sound: is it loud? moving? staccato? raspy? repeated?

Keep going:

  1. Continue listening until your map is full.
  2. Do you notice any trends in what you have recorded? Are there more human or natural sounds?  Are there more sounds on one side? Why? Were their sounds that surprised you?
  3. Try writing about the sounds of this place in a descriptive paragraph.

Sound maps have become one of my favorite tools for collecting sensory data. Try them in a variety of places and you will grow your ability to enrich your writing about scientific field work.

—

Heather L. Montgomery writes for kids who are WILD about animals. She reads and writes while high in a tree, standing in a stream, or perched on a mountaintop boulder. www.HeatherLMontgomery.com

THE O.O.L.F. FILES

This month, The Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files look at field work options for young people.

Want science you can do while fishing? Or at the beach? Or in a sports stadium? SciGirl has got you covered!

http://pbskids.org/scigirls/citizen-science

From tracking the seasons through tulips to tracking hummingbird migration, students can get busy collecting data with Journey North.

https://www.learner.org/jnorth/

If you prefer to do field work from the comfort of your living room – or classroom – Zooniverse is for you. Tons of opportunities to help scientists spy on cheetahs, count cute seals, or train an algorithm to detect plastic on beaches.

https://www.zooniverse.org/

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A Sense of Atmosphere

By on March 19, 2018   /   For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

As an artistic quality, atmosphere is easy to spot—sometimes. A moment of high suspense in a scary movie, for example, is highlighted with an accompanying soundtrack; a musical comedy in a theatre might showcase brightly painted backdrops and set pieces. In literature, though, atmosphere must be conveyed through descriptive phrases and other text details. It might be a little more challenging to cultivate atmosphere in books, but it’s just as important for the audience. A convincing sensory environment in a story makes for a tale in which one can get lost, a quality sought by all readers—and certainly by middle grade. Memorable and fulfilling books allow the reader to step inside, breathe the air, sense the mood—these are books with atmosphere.

Since setting and atmosphere are so intertwined, let’s break down setting first: How does a writer create a setting that pulls the reader along for a trip outside their ordinary? It’s a skill worth practicing if you write middle grade, and one worth recognizing if you are a parent, teacher, or librarian. Setting is a lot more involved than its old standby definition you probably learned in elementary school (the time and place of the action). Setting is indeed time and place, but also consider:

  • Weather
  • Hour of day
  • Season and month of year
  • Landscape
  • Geography (natural and manmade)
  • Color, lighting, and shading (of outdoor or indoor light source)
  • Regionalism (the dialect, customs, traditions, and local setting characteristics in a story)
  • Communication systems, language, and vernacular
  • Environment
  • Character observations
  • Socioeconomic factors
  • Back and forth flow of time: impact of past (events, family) and expectations of future

Whew! And when used effectively, the setting details can help this necessary story element become an extraordinary component—one that allows a reader to sink in for a more fulfilling read. All of these setting characteristics work collectively to create the offshoot of a well-composed, well-built world: atmosphere.

Atmosphere is tricky to define, but most literary terminology sources suggest it has to do with the mood or overall “feel” of the scene, based on the setting description, tone, and other literary devices. The mood of the character can match this mood in the air of the scene, but it doesn’t have to. In fact, sometimes the actions and attitudes of the characters can serve as a literary foil to the atmosphere, heightening suspense or making a bittersweet mood even more poignant.

How does a writer cultivate atmosphere? Imagery, word choice, and connotation all contribute, as do character reactions and pace. Some figurative language devices like symbolism and metaphor can add to the developed atmosphere, as well. When seeking inspiration for establishing atmosphere, writers might use photographs, illustrations, history, music, colors, travel experiences, dreams, patterns, and nature.

From my to-be-read pile, I chose a few middle grade openings to think about in terms of atmosphere: one realistic, one sci-fi, and one fantasy.

The Ethan I Was Before by Ali Standish – In the opening chapters of this first-person novel, the atmosphere is heavy and uncomfortable, much like the oppressive heat in Ethan’s new town of Palm Knot, Georgia. As a twelve-year-old boy terribly conflicted over the loss of his best friend, his narration has few lengthy descriptive passages. But Standish provides all the right details through environment, weather, temperature, and observations about this sleepy locale (a rusty parked truck, an untended baseball field, a cracked highway, a murky bay) that readers need in order to feel like they’ve stepped into its atmosphere.

Last Day on Mars by Kevin Emerson – This middle grade science fiction offers up opening chapters with a crisp, tense, nervy atmosphere in which the conflict increases at an alarm-inducing pace. Set in Earth Year 2213, humans living in a Martian colony must evacuate the planet and its rapidly deteriorating conditions. A prelude serves up danger and emotion before delivering a fearful and mysterious clue; here, descriptions are futuristically foreign, yet technologically familiar enough to pull readers in. The main characters resist an acknowledgement of the danger throughout the first chapter, which only serves to increase the suspense. As a solar radiation storm begins to flare, protagonists Phoebe and Liam start a quest of discovery in an atmosphere of uncertainty and confusion.

A Single Stone by Meg McKinlay — This middle grade dystopian abounds with atmosphere from the first paragraph. Young protagonist Jena has a crucial job to perform for her isolated society—she is the leader of a small team of girls who must find harvests of mica inside the mountain. In the opening pages, Jena is crawling through a narrow, natural crevice with only a thin rope connecting her to the six other girls who follow her lead. In the dark, with the chilly rock of the mountain hugging her close on all sides, every movement and every touch seems amplified and intense; the reader immediately feels as if she too is crawling, squirming, wishing for a harvest spot, counting on having enough air to keep going. The dark, the mountain, even the bones Jena happens to grasp accidentally all work to establish a tangible, claustrophobic opening atmosphere—though, paradoxically, Jena seems to feel no such confinement.

The atmosphere of each title considered here had me invested as a reader from the opening chapters. Feel free to comment on the post if you know of a great, atmospheric MG to recommend, or with how-to ideas for writing settings and situations with strong atmosphere! Thanks for reading!

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Interview with Shannon Hitchcock + Giveaway

By on February 26, 2018   /   Author Interviews, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Giveaways  

Today, I’m thrilled to welcome middle-grade author, Shannon Hitchcock, to the Mixed-Up Files to talk about her latest novel, ONE TRUE WAY, which hits bookstores tomorrow, February 27, 2018. But first, here’s a little bit about Shannon and her fabulous novel.

The ALAN Review hailed Shannon Hitchcock as, “A New Voice in Historical Fiction.” She’s the author of the Crystal Kite award-winning novel, THE BALLAD OF JESSIE PEARL, and a second novel, RUBY LEE & ME, a nominee for the 2017-18 Nebraska Chapter Book Golden Sower Award, Pennsylvania’s Keystone Award, an Iowa Children’s Choice Award, and Japan’s Sakura Medal. ONE TRUE WAY, which received a starred review from KIRKUS REVIEWS, is her third novel.

 

Welcome to Daniel Boone Middle School in the 1970s, where teachers and coaches must hide who they are, and girls who like girls are forced to question their own choices. Presented in the voice of a premier storyteller, ONE TRUE WAY sheds exquisite light on what it means to be different, while at the same time being wholly true to oneself. Through the lives and influences of two girls, readers come to see that love is love is love. Set against the backdrop of history and politics that surrounded gay rights in the 1970s South, this novel is a thoughtful, eye-opening look at tolerance, acceptance, and change, and will widen the hearts of all readers.

 

ONE TRUE WAY is about two middle-school girls growing up in the seventies who develop feelings for each other. You mention in the Author’s Note about how you got the idea. Why was it so important to you to write this particular novel?

I grew up in a conservative church that taught homosexuality is a sin. I had never really questioned those teachings until a person I love came out to me. I wrote ONE TRUE WAY to make sense of it all.

All three of your published novels are historical. What is it about that genre that appeals to you?

I grew up on a hundred-acre farm in a family of storytellers. I loved hearing my grandparents and uncles talk about the times before I was born. All of my favorite books were historical too. I loved Little House on the Prairie, Heidi, Caddie Woodlawn, and the biographies of women like Annie Oakley, Nancy Todd Lincoln, Lucretia Mott, and Betsy Ross. I have a theory that the type of books you loved as a child are probably the kind you’d enjoy writing as an adult.

The characters in ONE TRUE WAY are so richly developed. Are any of them based on people you’ve known?

Probably the best example is Reverend Walker. She’s based on my real-life minister, Vicki Walker, who helped with the theological aspects of my book.

I love the period details in the book. Can you tell us about some of the research you had to do?

I started with my yearbook from 1977. I looked at our hairstyles and clothes. I googled songs from 1976 and 77 to fact check my memories. I watched a lot of YouTube clips of Anita Bryant and her Save Our Children campaign. Probably the most important research was reading every LGBTQ themed YA book I could get my hands on. I made note of what content would be appropriate and inappropriate for a MG audience.

In the book, you do a wonderful job with a few characters who have to reconcile their religious teachings with the notion of homosexuality. Can you tell us how you came to formulating those ideas presented?

Three books were invaluable to me: Defrocked: How A Father’s Act of Love Shook the United Methodist Church by Franklyn Schaefer, Crooked Letter i: Coming Out in the South by Connie Griffin, and When Christians Get It Wrong by Adam Hamilton. Once I had formulated my own opinions, I discussed my beliefs with the Reverend Vicki Walker. I knew I was on to something when she said, “You have no idea how many parents have sat where you are, struggling to accept their gay children, and how many children have sat in the same seat, afraid of disappointing their parents.” If ONE TRUE WAY can help those families in any way, I will consider it a success.

For those who would like to read more middle-grade LGBTQ-themed books, do you have any recommendations?

I’ve actually compiled a list which is on my website here.

For more about Shannon and her work, visit her website. You can also connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks, Shannon! And thanks for offering a free signed copy of your book to a lucky winner (U.S. and Canada only). To be eligible to win, leave a comment below. I’ll pick a winner at random Wednesday night at 9 p.m. and announce who won on Thursday.

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