The dream I chase is known as BeAnAD [bean-add]. And no, I’m not counting beans. BeAnAD stands for “Being an Author Dude,” and this pursuit has consumed way too many hours of my life to keep track of.
Reading.
Writing.
More reading.
More writing.
A quick break for writer’s cramp.
Then still more writing. And reading.
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As the years zip by like a Crisco-coated monkey on a Slip-and-Slide, I perpetually catch myself “reading like a writer.” I’ll stop to admire an original simile such as this one from Jeanne Duprau’s The City of Ember:
She pressed a finger against the side of Granny’s throat to feel for her pulse, as the doctor had shown her. It was fluttery, like a moth that has hurt itself and is flapping in crooked circles.
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| Or I’ll pluck that tidbit of setting that effectively paints the mood of a scene such as this excerpt from Gary D. Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars:
I walked home under gray clouds whose undersides had been shredded. They hung in tatters, and a cold mist leaked out of them. And lately, I’ve given myself some official homework as I study the craft of other writers. I’ve been reading through a variety of children’s books, recording three things for each chapter: 1) The word-for-word START of the chapter. 2) A few sentence SUMMARY of the chapter. 3) The word-for-word END of the chapter. |
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For example, I’m currently going through this start-summary-end process with Ivy and Bean, a chapter book by Annie Barrows. My notes look like this:
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Chapter One: No Thanks
START: “Before Bean met Ivy, she didn’t like her.” SUMMARY: Bean’s mom encourages Bean to go play with Ivy, the new girl across the street. Bean doesn’t want to because she’s convinced Ivy is boring. END: “So for weeks and weeks, Bean didn’t play with Ivy. But one day something happened that changed her mind.” Chapter Two: Bean Hatches a Plan START: “It all began because Bean was playing a trick on her older sister.” . . . |
This start-summary-end look at each chapter helps me create a basic outline for the flow of a story and consider how my own writing might be improved. How does the start of a chapter draw me in and make me want to read on? What sort of conflict and/or action (either major or minor) moves the chapter forward? How does the author use the chapter ending to propel me into the next?
So . . . are you looking for a way to give your writing a boost? Read a children’s book with a pad of paper and a pencil in hand, recording a start-summary-end outline as you go. When you’re done, study it. Consider it. Then create a chapter-by-chapter, start-summary-end outline for your own manuscript, looking for opportunities to strengthen your creation.
My BeAnAD dream may not be worth a hill of beans at this point. But hopefully, that will change one day. And when it does, I may have to stop and thank Ivy and Bean for their help along the way.
