Month: July 2016

Good morning! It’s Mini-Lesson Monday at Teachers Write. If you want to start with a warm-up, head on over to Jo’s blog, and then you can come back to today’s mini-lesson.

Our guest author today is Mara Rockliff, who joins us from Pennsylvania. She’s written many historical picture books, including Around America to Win the Vote (coming out August 2) and Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France. Mara is here today to talk about evaluating the reliability of research sources…

Research sources: whom can we trust?

Hey teachers and librarians! I’m so happy Kate invited me to hang out with you all today. So, I’ll just dive right in and say we’re living in a golden age for research. No matter what we’re interested in, it’s never been so quick and easy to find information. Of course, as we all know, it’s also never been so quick and easy to find information that is wrong!

Teaching students (and ourselves!) how to sift through all that information and decide which sources can be trusted is a daunting task. I mean, there’s basic good advice like “Don’t rely on Wikipedia”—unless you want to write about the Brazilian aardvark. But solid-looking sources can include serious errors, too.

Some researchers use the Two-Source Rule, which says, “If you’re not sure about a fact, look for a second source.” Over the years I’ve learned to add, “…and then it’ll turn out the first source used the second source, or they both got it from the same third source, so if it seems suspicious, keep digging till you figure out what’s going on!” (Okay, it may not be the snappiest rule, but it does help me avoid embarrassing mistakes.)

When I visit schools and talk to students about primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, I like to use the example of a game of Telephone or Whisper Down the Alley, where the information gets more and more garbled as it’s passed along. That’s why the boring-looking, small-print stuff at the back of a book—endnotes and bibliographies—are my favorite part. Why take someone else’s word if I can go back to the source?

But just because a source is primary, that doesn’t mean it can be trusted! When I researched Around America to Win the Vote, I found hundreds of articles printed in newspapers across the country between April and September of 1916. One of them said this:

This struck me as a little fishy. I knew that just driving cross-country was a really big adventure. There weren’t any road maps then. Sometimes there weren’t even any roads! Zigzagging to hit every state would certainly take longer than six months and much more than ten thousand miles.

So where DID they go? I went through all those articles and marked down each stop on a map. When a Philadelphia paper said “Yesterday the suffragists were here,” I put a green marker on Philadelphia. If it also said, “…and now they’ve left for Wilmington,” I put a yellow marker on Wilmington, Delaware. Then, when I found a Baltimore paper saying that the suffragists had just arrived from Wilmington, I could switch that yellow marker to a green one (since the stop had been confirmed) and add a green marker for Baltimore, too. And here’s what I found out about their route.

So, if primary sources can be wrong, and secondary sources can be wrong, and Wikipedia can be really, really wrong…whom can we trust?

We can trust ourselves—to research thoroughly, notice inconsistencies, use our common sense, and keep on digging till we’re satisfied. Let’s call it the “Tons of Sources Plus a Brain Rule.” Yeah, I know, that isn’t very snappy either. But it works!

Today’s assignment is a research challenge from Mara! 

This historical marker stands outside Georgia Gilmore’s former home at 453 Dericote Street in Montgomery, Alabama. It contains three factual errors. The first person to find each error and post it in the comments will receive a signed book for your classroom, your choice of any of my books I have on hand. (I’ve got extras of all but one or two.) If all three errors haven’t been found by 9 p.m. Eastern time, I’ll tell you what they are. Cite your sources, please! 🙂

Now that we’ve been writing together for a couple of weeks, it’s possible that the shiny newness of writing camp is starting to wear off. Maybe you’re looking at your notebook, looking at some of the writing samples shared in comments, and having some doubts about your work. One great solution to that is checking in with Jen on Sundays at her blog Teach Mentor Texts, where you’ll find plenty of support and encouragement. 

Today’s guest essay tackles that topic, too. Our visiting author is Kristen Kittscher, a former middle school English teacher and author of the tween mystery The Wig in the Window (Harper Children’s, 2013) which garnered a starred review from School Library Journal and was named to ten Best of the Year lists. Kristen lives with her husband in Pasadena, home of the Rose Parade—the inspiration for her most recent novel, The Tiara on the Terrace. She joins us today to talk about what to do when we’re doubting our work.

Battling—and Deafeating!—Your Inner Critic

Greetings! By this point in the summer, you are in the thick of things and have been soaking up much wisdom from Kate and her fabulous guest faculty. Hopefully the lessons have inspired you and, slowly but surely, you’re hitting your stride as you work toward your goals. If that’s the case—stop reading now! Wait for more brilliant words of advice tomorrow.

But if you are finding yourself having trouble gaining and keeping momentum as you write, I thought I’d share some of the usual demons that block my own progress – and strategies for shutting down those negative voices.

1. “I just don’t have enough time.” 

When I first started writing, it took me a while to recognize that – more often than not – this lie was my self-doubt masquerading as a practical concern. To beat it, I followed the advice in Dorothea Brande’s brilliant book Becoming a Writer religiously. There’s not enough space to outline her technique here, but basically? Set a time each day – at first for just fifteen minutes – and write anything during that time, even if it’s to complain about not being able to write. Lock away the pages and don’t look back until a week or more passes. When you’ve done that successfully, increase the time and keep at it. It sounds like you’re doing nothing, but in fact, you’re training your unconscious to flow more readily when you need it to. It works. If you’re really having trouble, give it a shot! (Julia Cameron outlined similar techniques later in her The Artist’s Way, which might also be helpful to you.) Other tips: wake up a half hour earlier and write before you do anything else.

2. “My writing isn’t good enough.”

Maybe your writing isn’t good yet. Who cares? It’s not time to judge yet. No one asks a friend who just took up the oboe when she’ll be playing for the New York Philharmonic, but tell a friend you’re writing a novel, and a second later he’ll be breathlessly musing about your being the next J.K. Rowling. It doesn’t make any sense that writing would be different from any other craft, but culturally we (and others) seem to expect it will be. Whether or not you’re any good yet is immaterial. You can only get better – and it’s spending the time that will make you so.

3. “I’m not really very creative.”

Hogwash. Think of the last vivid dream you had. Your unconscious was capable of making all that up, wasn’t it? Writing is simply finding better ways to bring the rich reserves of your unconscious into your conscious mind – where you can give it cohesive form.

4. “How can I be sure this is even worthwhile?”

You’ll never be sure. Even when and if it’s published! Sharing a book with readers is a wonderful, magical experience—and of course our goal with any writing project is to communicate and connect with others—but you will never really know for sure how you are really connecting. The writing and process is the worthwhile part. If you don’t find it so—stop now. Really. You’ll be miserable otherwise.

5. “This will take forever. I’ll never finish.”

Maybe it will take forever. But time will pass whether you finish your writing project or not. It’s really up to you if you’d like to have a finished manuscript by the end of that time passing. If you wrote 500 words a day for five months, you’d have 80,000 words. That’s the length of a typical YA novel. No one’s saying they’ll be usable words, but they’ll be there for you to work with, no matter what. Your inner critic might offer up very different allegedly “practical” concerns, but as long as you remember that most negative voices are either others’ beliefs that you’ve internalized – or your own efforts to impede your unconscious – you’ll get better and better at shoving them aside.

A caveat: if, no matter what, you’re finding it hard to gain a sense of flow, consider that perhaps your unconscious knows something you don’t and that the resistance is serving a real purpose. You might be experiencing some life turmoil, grief, other changes that really make it impossible for you to create right now. And that’s all right. There’s more to life than writing. I think?

Hope you can shut off your critic, enjoy your writing, and absorb some more of the wise words of wisdom to come!

Good morning! Guest author Anne Nesbet joins us for today’s weekend reflection. Anne is the author of THE WRINKLED CROWN, A BOX OF GARGOYLES, and THE CABINET OF EARTHS. As her website says, she writes “curious books for curious people,” and she joins us today to talk about finding the story hidden in your research…

From Research to Story

Since a couple of lessons this week have been about research, I thought it might be worth tackling today one of the most mysterious, wonderful, and (sometimes) difficult phases in a writing project: turning research into story. I prefer to think of this as “finding the story hiding in the research,” because the placebo effect is real, friends, and if I tell myself the story IS THERE, then that means I just have to FIND it, which feels somehow less daunting than making the whole thing up.

(By the way, although here I’m going to be talking about writing stories set in actual moments of history in actually existing places, I know from experience as the author of fantasy novels like THE WRINKLED CROWN, for which I had to learn quite a bit about instrument-making, that the “research-to-story” transition has to be navigated even when we’re writing about magical or imaginary places.)

So where is the seed of the story hiding in our research? And how do we breathe life into that story? My first historical novel comes out this fall from Candlewick; it is called CLOUD AND WALLFISH, and it’s set in East Berlin in 1989. I happened to be living in East Berlin in 1989 and had hundreds of pages of notes on daily life behind the Iron Curtain. Plus my inner archive-rat (very like a pack-rat, but with longer, more elegant whiskers) had carefully collected newspaper clippings, souvenirs, scraps of interesting paper. I had no shortage of research materials! But for twenty-some years those materials lived in their boxes–and the memories of East Berlin lived in my head–without turning into a fictional story. After all, I didn’t start publishing books for children until 2012, so I kept my East German archive without thinking of it as the basis for a novel.

One day that changed. I noticed one item in particular in my collection: the map of East Berlin, with that puddle of blankness where West Berlin was located. East German maps left West Berlin blank, as if its being occupied by the United States, France, and Britain had wiped it entirely off the map.

I looked at that blank spot, and this time I asked myself a question: What would a child do with a map with a blank spot in the middle of it? And I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that question: Fill that blankness with an imaginary world!

And right there I had found the seed of a story. Suddenly a character had slipped into the room: a child who would draw imaginary worlds on the blank parts of a map of Berlin. I wanted to know more about this character: whom he or she might be, where he or she might have come from. And I went through my collection again, rereading my old journals, looking at the old photos, studying the old newspapers, and this time I let my characters (already I was quite sure the child must have a friend, and that one of them must come from the other side of the Wall) guide me through all of this wonderful debris I had been holding onto for so long. “Is this part of your story?” I asked them, pointing to some little piece of history, or picture of the Wall, or a description from my diary of the East Berlin donut stand. “How about this? Or this?” And we figured out together which of these random fact and details might become part of the story, might be woven into fiction.

Whatever sort of story you are writing, research is almost certainly a part of your writing process. (We don’t know everything about anything, after all!) You may be digging through historical materials. You may be trying to remember what the inside of that funny old clothing store looked like on East Main Street, back when you were a kid. You may be researching the possible reproductive habits of dragons! An important first part of the process is creating a collection: your own archive of nifty facts, curious images, maps and quotes. A good collection hums with potential. You have a hunch something can be done with these wonderful objects/pictures/details! It’s just a matter of finding your way in.

As my Berlin story shows, an object in that collection can sometimes create the beginnings of a character: someone who would have loved that object–or hated it–or perhaps who lived in that funny-looking house in that picture–or who used to sneak into a neighbor’s garden to pick strawberries, so much sweeter when they’re still warm from the sun.

Then that character can help you reassess your collection: where (for instance) are the items that generate conflict? How do the items in your collection affect your character? Threaten your character? Fill your character with longing for something he or she doesn’t have? . . . . And soon you’ll find you have more than just a character: you have the makings of a plot!

My East Berlin tale grew into a friendship-and-spying story called CLOUD AND WALLFISH. It comes out this October, so I am now working hard on a new project, inspired by my mother’s childhood in Maine. My mother died relatively young, so I can’t ask her questions directly, alas. But I went back to Maine and spent some time reading through the local newspaper for the year 1941–and was amazed by the treasures I found there. Really, if you ever feel stuck, reading through old newspapers is guaranteed to give you all the new material and inspiration you could possibly want! The ads alone are well worth the effort–I’m still smiling about an ad I found for “Skits Stretchy-Seat Underwear.”

And sometimes you’ll find story-generating gems, like this review of a concert by the town’s new amateur orchestra: “The only discordant note in the entire evening’s performance was a disturbance in the balcony which occurred during the final selection. Later it was disclosed that the disturbance was caused by a musically minded mouse who arrived without having a reserved seat.” !!

It feels like a good day for some research “Show and Tell”: what interesting nuggets do you have in your collection? Is there a particular object or image or anecdote that inspired a recent story of yours? How did your story begin to emerge from your research? Share in the comments! And may wonderful, deep stories grow from the research seeds…..

Happy Friday! Be sure to start the day at Gae’s blog for Friday Feedback. Give some feedback, get some ideas on your own work, and learn strategies for offering helpful, thoughtful critique! 

Our guest author reflection here today is from Michelle Cusolito, whose debut picture book FLYING DEEP will be released in 2018. She’s sharing her journey with this book, along with some thoughts on following curiosity wherever it leads…

Curiosity: It’s good for Students, Teachers, and Writers

When I was teaching, if my students asked me a question I couldn’t answer I’d say, “I don’t know, but let’s find out!” This would sometimes send us on wild investigations together.

Now that I’m a writer, I’m often asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” Most authors get some version of this question. For me, the answer is, “My curiosity.” I don’t subscribe the old saying, “Write what you know.” I prefer, “Write what you’re curious about.” Follow your curiosity. Follow your passions.

I’m primarily a non-fiction writer, but I believe the same applies to fiction writers. Most people write about topics they want to delve into more deeply; topics or themes they are curious about. Some folks investigate a theme by writing fictional stories in which main characters grapple with that theme. I mostly write non-fiction on the topics I love. My curiosity about the world drives me.

Let me give you some examples.

Back when I was teaching fourth grade, my friend introduced me to his friend Don. During the usual “get to know you” chit chat, I learned that Don used to pilot Alvin, a deep-sea submersible that dove to previously unheard of depths. The naturalist in me was fascinated by Don’s description of black smokers (underwater geysers blasting toxic hot water), clams as large as dinner plates and tube worms 6 feet tall.

But I was also fascinated by the people who would take on that job. How did they survive the crushing pressure two miles deep? How did Don, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall, pretzel his frame into a sphere that was roughly 6 feet in diameter? How did they last down there all day without a toilet? I wanted to know more. I knew my fourth graders would be fascinated, too, so I invited Don to visit our classroom to tell stories and share pictures. We were mesmerized. We learned new and excited science (All food chains DO NOT start with the sun!) along with interesting tidbits about the lives of pilots and scientists who dive in Alvin (They pee in a bottle!) My lessons on ecosystems, food chains and the lives of scientists were forever changed by Don’s visit.

Flash forward many years. I was writing books for children. I had an agent, but we hadn’t sold anything, yet. I was still following my curiosity and writing books on topics that fascinated me. The manuscript that landed me my agent, a picture book titled Frog Frenzy, investigated the annual migration of wood frogs. I had spent four springs, out in the field, watching migration and taking notes. I researched in books and on-line. And once I had a manuscript that I felt good about, I consulted with one of the premier experts on the subject who fact-checked it for me. I spent five years researching, writing, and revising that manuscript. That’s a long time. But I never got bored with my subject. I loved what I was learning.

I have many other examples, but I’ll skip to the manuscript that will be my first published book: Flying Deep. It was November of 2014 and I had decided to participate in PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month). The goal of PiBoIdMo is to generate 30 picture book ideas in 30 days. I came up with 32, mostly terrible, ideas.

But one of my notes said, “Hydrothermal Vents- Scientists in the Field? NF, Don C, WHOI”

Translation:

 Write about “hydrothermal vents”- those black smokers I mentioned earlier.

 Perhaps write it for the “Scientists in the Field”

 “NF”-means it will be non-fiction (some of the ideas I listed were fiction).

 “Don C” means try to interview Don-the pilot I mentioned earlier.

 “WHOI”- means research on the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Website and visit WHOI.

On December 1, 2014, I was out for a walk. I normally carry a small notebook and pen on my walks, but on this day, I forgot. Of course, the first line of a picture book about Alvin popped into my head.

“Imagine you’re the pilot of Alvin, a submersible barely big enough for two.” I recited that line over and over in my head, afraid I would lose it before I got home. But then I realized I had a new-fangled tool in my pocket: a smart phone with a “Notes” app. I sat down to type that first sentence and more came flooding in. I typed wildly with one finger, trying to capture everything. Thirty minutes and 500 words later, I looked up.

I had a first draft. A terrible, inaccurate and wonderful first draft. There were so many gaps and errors in my knowledge (Alvin fits 3 people, for example). BUT I had a structure and I knew how my book would flow. All I needed to do was complete enough research to write it.

 I called Don and interviewed him over the course of about 4 hours.

 I read every book I could find- both kids’ books and adult books. (Turns out, there was already a

Scientists in the Field Book on the topic, but it didn’t matter. My approach was different).

 I watched films.

 I scoured the WHOI and NOAA websites (Two reputable, reliable on-line sources).

Through all of this, I revised, researched more when my knowledge fell short, and revised again. By the time I visited WHOI to see their model of Alvin, I had a pretty solid working manuscript. Then I was connected with Bruce Strickrott, Manager of the Alvin Group. He talked to me for more than 3 hours during August of 2015 and took me inside Alvin. I left both energized and aware of places my manuscript was inaccurate. I revised again. The revisions and research would continue all through the fall of 2015.

In February of 2016, 1 year and 3 months after my original idea, I received an offer on my book. But I’m still not done. Just a few hours ago, (I’m writing this in mid-May) I sent Flying Deep to my critique group so they can read the latest version which includes changes based on notes from my editor. There will be several more rounds before the text is complete.

Start to finish, this book (700 words plus back matter) will have taken me nearly two years to complete. And that’s less than half as long as Frog Frenzy and many other manuscripts I’ve written. Despite that, I’m still not bored with the topic. Why? I am infinitely curious about the natural world and people who study it.

So, how does this apply to you, dear teachers, who are writing with us this summer? I encourage you to sit with your notebook or laptop right now and make a list. What are the topics you love? What are your passions? What fascinates you? Challenges you? Intrigues you? What puzzles you or bothers you? Write quickly. Get everything down.

Then, examine your list. What ideas tug at you the most? Which topics can you imagine exploring for the next month or two or twenty-two? Ponder them for a moment. If something comes to you right away, like when I was walking, write it down. If not, take a bath. Take a walk. Take a shower. Go for a bike ride. Stare into space and let your mind wander. No matter what you do, bring a notebook and pen so you can write down whatever comes to you. Write a terrible, (possibly) inaccurate and wonderful first draft.

Get it down in all its messiness. Read it.

What tugs at you now? Follow your passions and write more.

Good morning! Today’s Thursday Quick-Write is courtesy of guest author Nancy Castaldo, whose fabulous works of nonfiction include SNIFFER DOGS: HOW DOGS (AND THEIR NOSES) SAVE THE WORLD and THE STORY OF SEEDS.  She joins us today to talk about weaving facts into narrative…

Turning Facts into a Scene

Fact nerd alert! I confess that I love facts. For me, facts are the jumping off points to creating story. They could be something simple like – Humans use their eyes. A dog uses its nose. That fact will lead to questions and questions help flesh out the story – in this case the story of sniffer dogs.

Let’s look at a sentence from my book SNIFFER DOGS: HOW DOGS (AND THEIR NOSES) SAVE THE WORLD):

“I’m crouched behind a pine tree in a North Carolina forest waiting patiently for Lex, a mixed-breed live-find dog to locate me.”

This sentence begins to expand that fact into a scene by introducing character and setting. Let’s take another look at that section.

“The woods are quiet except to the occasional bird whistle. And then I hear it – the bell on Lex’s collar!”

Now I’ve introduced other senses into the scene, which gives the reader a stronger experience. These techniques are also used for fiction writing. Take a look at how the writer incorporates theses techniques on the page of any narrative nonfiction.

Today’s assignment: Expand one of the basic facts below into a scene using character, setting, and perhaps dialogue (must be authentic for nonfiction! ). Keep in mind that there are many other techniques to use – for example, suspense. Don’t be afraid to do a little research. Write on!

Fact #1 Deciduous trees lose their leaves in the fall.

Fact #2 Journalist Nellie Bly raced around the world.

Feel free to share a paragraph or two of today’s writing in the comments if you’d like!

Good morning! Wednesday is Q and A day on Teachers Write, a chance to ask guest authors for advice on all your questions about writing craft. Though many authors pop in for Q&A Wednesday, we have two official guests today – Cynthia Lord and Kekla Magoon!

Feel free to address questions specifically to either author or pose them generally. Both Cindy and Kekla will be popping in throughout the day to reply to questions in the comments. Please remember that the first time you comment on this blog, your post must be approved by a moderator before it appears. This can take a little while, so don’t fret if your comment doesn’t show up right away – and thanks for your patience!

Good morning! Today’s guest author is Lisa Papademetriou, author of the Confectionately Yours series and A TALE OF HIGHLY UNUSUAL MAGIC. (Fun fact… Lisa’s alter-ego Ivana Corrrectya has a hilarious grammar blog!)

Plot, Character, and Destiny

When I was ten years old, my grandmother gave me a magic book.

It was a book of fairy tales, and it was in English. This was extraordinary to me, because my grandmother was from Germany. She explained that this book was a gift to her from her father, my great-grandfather, who had bought it from a bookstore in France during World War I. He had wanted his daughter to learn English, and she did. It was helpful, no doubt, when she immigrated to the United States just before the outbreak of World War II. For some reason, my grandmother never gave it to my father. She gave it to me. My father became an architect; I became a writer. That book had an effect on my life, but I don’t think that it would have had the same effect on just anyone. It affected me, in part, because of who I already was, and who I was becoming. As Heraclitus famously said, “Character is destiny.”

My husband says that every person is a package deal. No one is perfect in every way—every single one of is a mixture of good and bad qualities. By the same token, your characters will be a mixture of good and bad qualities, and his or her destiny is linked to those qualities. The seeds of their journey exist at the beginning of the story. By the end, those seeds have borne fruit.

In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle said that too much or too little of any virtue becomes a vice. For example, in Macbeth, his main virtue is ambition. That is the seed of his character that grows throughout the play. But the balance of this virtue steadily falls out of balance. Too little would make him lazy. That’s not his problem. His problem is that he has too much, and it makes him ruthless.

Let’s look at another character. Dorothy, from The Wizard of Oz. At the beginning of the story, her virtue is that she is spontaneous and a dreamer. But too much spontaneity is recklessness, and too much dreaminess is foolishness. These flaws lead her into her adventure, the end of which is the correction of these flaws. Right? She sees the “man behind the curtain.” And she realizes that there is no place like home. 

In other words, there are two things at play in any destiny, the character and the character’s destiny, which is simply another way of saying plot. E.M. Forster pointed out that, “Incident springs out of character, and having occurred it alters that character.” As the plot moves forward, the character will change by degrees, until his or her destiny is fulfilled.

How do you know which way your character is going to go? From virtue to vice, or from vice to virtue? Well, are you writing a tragedy or a comedy? I highly suggest that you begin with the end in mind. Even if you do not know exactly how your book will end, you probably have a sense of the ending, what feeling or response you would like to provoke in your reader.

Today’s Assignment: Let’s work on our characters a little bit. I want you do explore your character’s virtues and flaws. Write a scene or memory in which his or her main virtue is clear. Then rewrite the scene with the virtue out of balance—make it into a flaw, and see what you can come up with. Have fun – and feel free to share a paragraph or two from today’s quick-write in the comments if you’d like!

Good morning! It’s a brand new week on Teachers Write, and that means that Jo’s Monday Morning Warm-Up is waiting for you. 

Guest author Elana K. Arnold joins us for today’s Mini-Lesson Monday.

Elana is the author of THE QUESTION OF MIRACLES and FAR FROM FAIR, two novels that do a beautiful job addressing tough issues in a voice that resonates with middle grade readers. That’s Elana’s topic for today’s mini-lesson…

Dealing with Heavy Topics When Writing for Different Age Groups

None of us is immune from the hard parts of life. As a parent, I wish I could shield my kids from all the scary, heavy things that are part of life: Death, Loss, Fear, Depression, The Great Unknown… Oh, how I wish I could feel all the hurt and pain FOR my children, happily, on my own skin, to protect them.

I know, of course, that doing this would be doing them a great injustice, because wading through the dark stuff can allow a person to mature and can reflect light and wisdom that is deeply meaningful and rewarding. But the impulse is there! Protect, deflect, defend.

So I understand when I read a review of my books for young readers, which do dip into really tough stuff, that questions why I “go there.” A recent Goodreads review of my most recent middle grade novel, FAR FROM FAIR, says this: “Life is precious. Our children deal with enough.”

I agree; life is precious. And that is exactly why we must embrace and wrestle with all of its aspects, the comforting and the uncomfortable. And, whether we admit it or not, our children are dealing with “enough.” They’re dealing with the same stuff, the same fears and worries and doubts. As a writer, it’s my job to create a place where kids can confront big questions. A book is a great place to practice saying “no.” If the topic feels too intense, the reader can put the book down and walk away. And isn’t that what we want for our kids? The opportunity to engage with risks on their own terms, and in a gentle way? Well, it’s what I want for my kids, and for my readers, and so I provide it through the stories I share.

But, depending on the age of the reader, the depth of the conversation may change. A great piece of parenting advice I once got was: Answer the question the child asks, but just that question. For example, if a kid asks, “Where do babies come from?” I might respond, “Babies grow inside a mama’s body until they’re strong enough to be born.” Then, I’d wait for the inevitable follow-up questions. They might come immediately, or days later, but they would come: “Well, how did the baby get in the mama’s body? What do you mean it takes two people to make a baby? How does the sperm from the daddy get into the mama? Oh! Did you and Daddy do that to make me?”

As a writer, I follow the same process. I believe almost any topic can be tailored to the age of a child; of course, what one person feels is “appropriate” for, say, a seven- year-old might be vastly different from what another person feels is “appropriate.” For me, the key is to follow the almost-intuitive responses that might guide us to answer our own children’s questions. Of course, each parent would approach the “where do babies come from?” question differently, and each writer will approach the “tough stuff” differently, too, according to her own heart. And that is okay! The way I write about the tough stuff will be different from the way you write about the tough stuff. For every hand, there is a glove. For every approach, there very well may be a reader who needs just that approach.

Today’s Assignment: Here’s an exercise to help you decide for yourself how you might want to deal with one “heavy topic” across different age ranges.

Step One:

Pick a “heavy” topic. One that matters to you! Death is a good one to practice with.

Step Two:

Put two characters in a room: a six-year-old child and a grandparent. Have the six-year- old ask, “What is death?” (Or whatever the topic may be). Have the grandparent answer the question… just the question! Then allow the child to ask a follow-up question, and follow the discussion where it goes.

Step Three:

Repeat the scene. This time, make one of your characters 12 and the second character parent-aged, somewhere between 35 and 50. Have the 12-year old ask about death, this time with the understanding that all 12-year olds have some preexisting knowledge. Allow the conversation to unfurl as it may.

Step Four:

Put two teen characters in a room. One of them asks the other about death… Maybe, “Are you afraid of dying?” In this scenario, allow the two teen characters to express fear, doubt, comfort… anything goes.

You will see that the conversations are different in interesting ways. Look at the three dialogues you’ve created. What are the differences between them? Make a list! Then, perhaps more importantly, ask yourself, what are the similarities between them? These similarities will illuminate your personal truth: the things you think are valuable to impart regardless of the imagined reader’s age.

Be brave! Be honest. Dive in. And feel free to share a snippet of your writing or reflections on this activity in the comments today!

Note from Kate: If any of you will be at ILA in Boston later this week, please be sure to come to our panel about this topic on Saturday! 

Humor Breaks the Ice: Funny Books That Spark Discussion of Tough Topics – with Elana K. Arnold, Kate Messner, Mike Jung, Jo Knowles, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, and Audrey Vernick

Good morning! Sunday is check-in day at Jen’s blog, Teach Mentor Texts, so be sure to visit her today for some words of encouragement and to check in for some encouraging conversation with fellow TW participants. 

Our guest author here today is Susan Hill Long, whose books include THE MAGIC MIRROR: CONCERNING A LONELY PRINCESS, A FOUNDLING GIRL, A SCHEMING KING, AND A PICKPOCKET SQUIRREL and WHISTLE IN THE DARK. She joins us today to talk about literary models in our writing lives. 

Writing is about the only profession people assume can be leapt into, like a well-made canoe — plop down, start paddling, and soon you’re there! Published, and sporting a healthy glow, besides. Not you, of course. You’re here! You’re doing the work, learning and practicing and sharing along the way. You know that writing is more like carving the canoe, from a giant log that first you must fell in dark woods where you may have been lost for a while.

Luckily, there are many tools available to the lumberjack/paddler/writer. There are classes. There are advanced degrees. There are craft books and podcasts and peers. But one thing I sometimes hear from writers, beginning or expert, is how they stop reading, when they start writing. “I don’t want to be influenced,” they say. Or, “I don’t want to discover someone’s already written my book.” Or, “If I read Kate DiCamillo’s latest marvel, I swear I’ll pack it in.”

These are understandable concerns. But to give up reading is to ignore the writer’s ultimate (and most enjoyable) tool. Have you ever seen art students arranged around a painting in a museum, copying the work of a master? Of course – that’s partly how it’s done. Like many, I am self-taught. That is, I didn’t attend an MFA program or take creative writing classes. I majored in Art History, which prepared me for a vibrant career as a “temp.” But I’m only “self-taught” insofar as I had enough desire to learn and to practice that I used the countless works available to me for study. In this pursuit I’m in excellent company.

In her slim volume THE SCENE BOOK: A Primer for the Fiction Writer, Sandra Scofield tells of a friend who structured her own story using an admired book’s chapters one by one to lay out scenes. In the end, her novel was, Scofield says, “very much her own, she had a story she was proud of, and she had learned a lot.” Scofield tells us, too, that “Alice Munro has said she enters others’ stories wherever she has a notion, as one enters a room in a house. She connects this habit to her ideas about building up a story of her own around its “soul” in a way that leads to its structure.”

Before starting to write her first manuscript, Kirby Larson says she studied Patricia Reilly Giff’s books thoroughly, even typing two of them out to help her get a feel for the rhythm, pacing and length of a chapter book. In one interview, Barbara O’Connor credits her whole career to Cynthia Rylant. “When I read MISSING MAY,” she says, “I had one of those light bulb moments. I finally GOT voice. And I GOT the importance of place.” Similarly, Barbara O’Connor was fascinated by the shifting viewpoints in JULY 7th by Jill McCorkle, and “filed that away, hoping someday I would be up for the challenge.” Her book GREETINGS FROM NOWHERE is written with four viewpoints.

Many writers go in search of words – out and about in the world, and in the books of writers we esteem – sparkly words, singing words, words that slide or stop. In her sturdy book THE WRITER’S PORTABLE MENTOR, Priscilla Long encourages writers to keep a notebook of interesting words, a personal lexicon. And we can use books we admire not just to study language and technique, but to cultivate our own talent for and love of storytelling. Sandra Scofield, again in THE SCENE BOOK, encourages us to develop that facet of talent by “immersing yourself in more reading, and in reading more diverse stories, such as those by ethnic and immigrant writers, foreign writers, and other tellers of stories far from your experience.”

Remember that we are beginners only for a time, but we are, all of us, forever students.

Keep reading! Keep paddling!