Welcome to Countdown to CHIRP, a wonderfully nerdy blog series about the writing process behind my February 2020 MG novel, CHIRP. Here’s a little about the book from Bloomsbury, so you’ll understand what I’m talking about when I share all the nitty-gritty writing and revision details…
When Mia moves to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, she’s recovering from the broken arm she got falling off a balance beam. And packed away in the moving boxes under her clothes and gymnastics trophies is a secret she’d rather forget.
Mia’s change in scenery brings day camp, new friends, and time with her beloved grandmother. But Gram is convinced someone is trying to destroy her cricket farm. Is it sabotage or is Gram’s thinking impaired from the stroke she suffered months ago? Mia and her friends set out to investigate, but can they uncover the truth in time to save Gram’s farm? And will that discovery empower Mia to confront the secret she’s been hiding–and find the courage she never knew she had?
In a compelling story rich with friendship, science, and summer fun, a girl finds her voice while navigating the joys and challenges of growing up.
So… I’m not actually going to talk about writing CHIRP in this post. I’m going to talk about planning. And time management for writers.
When I started working on this novel, I was also juggling a handful of other upcoming writing projects. I keep a bullet journal (which I blogged about a while back), and that helps me to manage both daily tasks, monthly goals, and longer term projects. It’s especially helpful when I’m working on multiple project at once and trying to keep track of various deadlines. Here’s a look at some of my monthly tasks from April 2018…
That month, one of my goals was to organize all of my cricket notes and other brainstorming for CHIRP so that I could get started on a plan for my rough draft. I also needed to wrap up final revisions (a few more line edits!) on my picture book, THE NEXT PRESIDENT, which comes out with Chronicle in March 2020. Also? I’d been researching invasive Burmese pythons in Southwest Florida – following curiosity again! – and had pitched an article about that to Scholastic Storyworks magazine, so I needed to finish that up.
Travel mixes in with my writing deadlines, too, which is why you see “Programs for Sharjah” on this list. Before I left on a trip to the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival in the United Arab Emirates later that month, I needed to prepare the presentations that I’d give at the festival and at schools in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi.
By August 2018, I was using my bullet journal to set very specific goals for completing that very first (and very rough!) draft of CHIRP.
When I’m fast-drafting, I’ll often aim for a chapter each day, so this added up to fifteen really intense writing days in August. The other writing days that month were devoted to starting my research for Ranger in Time #11: Escape from the Twin Towers, which meant a lot of library time as well as a trip to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City later in the month.
I put daily to-do lists in my bullet journal, too. Everything in my life mixes together in those – the daily writing jobs, my fitness and water-drinking habits (writing it down helps!), family events like my daughter’s track meet, volunteer work I do in the writing community, like maintaining my author Skype list, and connecting with a writer friend.
Mixed in with all those to-do lists are pages of brainstorming and notes, like this one where I was imagining my main character, Mia, unpacking boxes in the new house and trying to decide what to keep and what to shove in the closet.
Is this a weirdly specific brainstorming tool? Definitely! But it was the exact tool I needed to make some decisions about Mia’s character and where she was in that summer she moved.
I also keep big project charts in my bullet journal – a trick that my brilliant author friend Tracey Baptiste taught me – where I keep track of all the progress and milestones on each project. Here’s what my master project chart looked like when I’d finished up CHIRP.
I use these charts to keep track of progress for each project. So it includes the project title (or working title), when it sold to a publisher, and when I completed my research, outline/planning, draft, Revision I (which includes the 3-4 revisions I usually do before I send to my editor), the date I sent the revised manuscript, and finally, the completion of the rest of the revisions that happen after I get my editorial letter and notes. (There are other steps in the process that aren’t on here – copy edits and reviewing page proofs, etc. – but your chart can only be so big, and those tend to be smaller jobs, so I don’t include them here.)
By now, you might be wondering what all these time management tools are doing in a blog series that’s supposed to be about the writing process. Fair enough… The truth is, they’re not really writing, but they’re an essential part of my process because without them, I couldn’t clear the brain space to get my actual writing done. For me, getting everything in a plan on a page frees me to let go of those logistical things so I can be creative and really immerse myself in a character’s world. And that’s what happens once I start drafting – the subject of next week’s post!
Thanks so much for taking the time to read about CHIRP. I’m so hopeful that this book will find the readers who need it, and I’m grateful for the early praise it’s garnered from readers and reviewers alike…
“Kate Messner strikes the perfect balance of joy, pain, and strength in this deftly layered mystery about family, friendship, and the struggle to speak up.” – Laurie Halse Anderson, bestselling author of SPEAK and SHOUT
“Chirp is so many things: a mystery, a family story, and a story of the power of friendship. It’s about learning to speak out when it seems the whole world would rather you shut up. Sure to be passed from kid to kid to kid” – Laura Ruby, National Book Award Finalist and author of the York Trilogy
“Once again, Kate Messner has written a book that will be a dear and important friend to her readers. A loving and compelling ode to the joy of friendship, the many kinds of strength, and the everyday bravery of girls.” – Anne Ursu, author of THE LOST GIRL
“Messner deftly weaves together myriad complex plot threads to form a captivating whole. . . . Rich, timely, and beautifully written.” – Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews
“Messner addresses #MeToo themes authentically and with care as her story moves toward empowerment: Mia displays fear and confusion alongside a hope to reclaim the strength she once felt as a gymnast. Layering mystery elements, strong and myriad female characters, and a poignant analogy involving chirp-less female crickets, Messner gently guides Mia on a journey of resilience that both comforts and inspires.”
– Starred Review, Publishers Weekly
“Messner honors middle graders by exploring important, relevant issues at their level of understanding. This book will prompt discussions of gender inequality, consent, and sexual abuse. A must purchase.” – Starred Review, School Library Connection
Welcome to Countdown to CHIRP, a wonderfully nerdy blog series about the writing process behind my February 2020 MG novel, CHIRP. Here’s a little about the book from Bloomsbury, so you’ll understand what I’m talking about when I share all the nitty-gritty writing and revision details…
When Mia moves to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, she’s recovering from the broken arm she got falling off a balance beam. And packed away in the moving boxes under her clothes and gymnastics trophies is a secret she’d rather forget.
Mia’s change in scenery brings day camp, new friends, and time with her beloved grandmother. But Gram is convinced someone is trying to destroy her cricket farm. Is it sabotage or is Gram’s thinking impaired from the stroke she suffered months ago? Mia and her friends set out to investigate, but can they uncover the truth in time to save Gram’s farm? And will that discovery empower Mia to confront the secret she’s been hiding–and find the courage she never knew she had?
In a compelling story rich with friendship, science, and summer fun, a girl finds her voice while navigating the joys and challenges of growing up.
CHIRP is a lot of things. It’s a mystery set on a cricket farm. It’s also about warrior camp, young entrepreneurs and robot builders, summertime joy, friendship, entomophagy, family, and finding the courage to speak up. Where does a story like this come from? For this one, the spark was the cricket farm.
My husband is a part of a volunteer group that helps people launch small businesses in Vermont. Early in 2018, he came home one day, dropped a folder on the kitchen table, and said, “You’re going to want to see this one…”
The report is all about eating insects. It’s 150+ pages long (if you’re interested, you can read it here), but it boils down to two things.
Insects are good for you. They’re a super-healthy protein. Also?
They’re way more sustainable to raise than other things we eat for protein, especially cows.
The couple launching this startup cricket farm had read that same report. I was fascinated and made plans to visit their fledging insect agriculture setup. Not because I thought, “Hey, I’ll write a mystery set on a cricket farm!” That idea was still weeks away. I really just visited because I was curious. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a writer it’s that following curiosity is always interesting – and sometimes, it leads to a story.
The cricket farm had started out in the couple’s basement and eventually moved to a cavernous warehouse in a Williston industrial park. It was filled with big wooden bins, which were filled with cardboard “cricket condos,” and, of course, crickets. Hundreds of thousands of crickets.
I loved the sound of this place (so much chirping!). I asked a pile of questions. The whole idea of entomophagy – eating insects as food – was so interesting! And I started wondering…what would it be like to be a kid in a family that was running a business like this? I’d been wanting to write another mystery, and this seemed like a fascinating setting.
So then I began doing research in earnest. I read a lot more about crickets and cricket farming. And I made plans to spend more time at Flourish Farm. I talked with cricket farmer Steve Swanson, who patiently answered questions, showed me all the different stages in the cricket life cycle, and walked me through the daily routines of the farm, from moving eggs into the incubation area, to dumping new baby crickets (called pinheads!) into the bins, to changing the water and giving them food.
As I learned all about cricket farming, a main character found her way into my imagination. Mia, I decided, was a girl who was feeling small, for reasons I couldn’t quite figure out yet. But I knew she’d been hurt. I knew she was moving back to Vermont after a few years living somewhere else, and I knew that her beloved grandma, who’d had a stroke that winter, was in Vermont and running the cricket farm. I knew that somehow, they would help one another heal.
So all through the winter and spring of 2018, I popped into the cricket farm, took notes, scribbled story ideas, and brainstormed character details. I thought and wrote a lot about Mia, sometimes journaling in her voice, sometimes writing personal narratives of my own in order to mine memories that were similar to those that were part of Mia’s story. Those writings don’t end up in the book, but for me, they’re an important part of laying an emotional foundation for the story that feels true.
By late spring, I was ready to start writing. In next week’s Countdown to CHIRP post, we’ll take a look at the process of taking all that research, brainstorming, and pre-writing and corralling it into some kind of plan for a rough draft.
Thanks for taking the time to read about CHIRP. I’m so hopeful that this book will find the readers who need it, and I’m grateful for the early praise it’s garnered from readers and reviewers alike…
“Kate Messner strikes the perfect balance of joy, pain, and strength in this deftly layered mystery about family, friendship, and the struggle to speak up.” – Laurie Halse Anderson, bestselling author of SPEAK and SHOUT
“Chirp is so many things: a mystery, a family story, and a story of the power of friendship. It’s about learning to speak out when it seems the whole world would rather you shut up. Sure to be passed from kid to kid to kid” – Laura Ruby, National Book Award Finalist and author of the York Trilogy
“Once again, Kate Messner has written a book that will be a dear and important friend to her readers. A loving and compelling ode to the joy of friendship, the many kinds of strength, and the everyday bravery of girls.” – Anne Ursu, author of THE LOST GIRL
“Messner deftly weaves together myriad complex plot threads to form a captivating whole. . . . Rich, timely, and beautifully written.” – Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews
“Messner addresses #MeToo themes authentically and with care as her story moves toward empowerment: Mia displays fear and confusion alongside a hope to reclaim the strength she once felt as a gymnast. Layering mystery elements, strong and myriad female characters, and a poignant analogy involving chirp-less female crickets, Messner gently guides Mia on a journey of resilience that both comforts and inspires.”
Hi there! And welcome to the World Read Aloud Day author Skype volunteer list for 2020!
If you’re new to this blog, I’m Kate Messner, author of more than thirty books for kids, former middle school teacher, and forever reader. Reading aloud is one of my favorite things in the world. When I was a kid, I was the one forever waving my hand to volunteer to read in class, and still, I’ll pretty much read aloud to anyone who will listen.
For the past few years, I’ve helped out with LitWorld’s World Read Aloud Day by pulling together a list of author volunteers who would like to spend part of the day Skyping with classrooms around the world to share the joy of reading aloud.
This WRAD, I won’t be available to Skype into classrooms myself, but it’s for a great reason – I’ll be on book tour for my new novel! CHIRP is a mystery set on a cricket farm and a coming-of-age story that’s earned three starred reviews. You can read more about it here.
And I have a favor to ask… If you’ve used my World Read Aloud Day Skype lists over the years and appreciate this resource, would you consider pre-ordering a signed copy? You can do that here, through my local indie, The Bookstore Plus. Just make a note in the comments about how you’d like it signed. You can also order an unsigned copy from any bookseller you like. To say thanks, Bloomsbury will send you a CHIRP poster and a class set of signed bookmarks! Details on that are here.
Also…if you’d like to pre-order a copy as a holiday gift, I’ll happily mail you a personalized, signed letter and bookmark that you can wrap or tuck in a stocking to let your reader know a new signed book will be on the way. Here’s how to request that.
Okay…on to this year’s list!
WORLD READ ALOUD DAY IS FEBRUARY 5, 2020
The authors listed below have volunteered their time to read aloud to classrooms and libraries all over the world. These aren’t long, fancy presentations; a typical one might go like this:
1-2 minutes: Author introduces himself or herself and talks a little about his or her books.
3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel
5-10 minutes: Author answers a few questions from students about reading/writing
1-2 minutes: Author book-talks a couple books he or she loves (but didn’t write!) as recommendations for the kids
If you’re a traditionally published author or illustrator who would like to be added to the list next time I update, please fill out this form.
If you’re a teacher or librarian and you’d like to have an author Skype with your classroom or library on World Read Aloud Day, here’s how to do it:
Check out the list of volunteering authors below and visit their websites to see which ones might be a good fit for your students.
Contact the author directly by using the email provided or clicking on the link to his or her website and finding the contact form. Please be sure to provide the following information in your request:
Your name and what grade(s) you work with
Your city and time zone (this is important for scheduling!)
Possible times to Skype on February 5th. Please note authors’ availability and time zones. Adjust accordingly if yours is different!
Your Skype username
A phone number where you can be reached on that day in case of technical issues
Please understand that authors are people, too, and have schedules and personal lives, just like you, so not all authors will be available at all times. It may take a few tries before you find someone whose books and schedule fit with yours. If I learn that someone’s schedule for the day is full, I’ll put a line through their name – that means the author’s schedule is full, and no more visits are available. (Authors, please send an email to me know when you’re all booked up! And please note that due to travel and other obligations, it may take up to a week for me to update.)
World Read Aloud Day – Skyping Author Volunteers for February 5, 2020
Authors are listed here, along with publishers, available times, and the age groups for which their visits are best suited. Please note that while they’re divided by age groups, some folks on the Elementary list might also be great for your Middle School Readers, so feel free to explore the whole list.
FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL READERS
Susan B. Katz
Scholastic, Random House, Barefoot, Bala, Callisto
PST – fyi I marked “elementary” (3/4/5) but could also do middle school! Was not able to mark both… thank you for this opportunity and for organizing! 🙂
Penguin Random House, Kar-Ben, Two Lions, Blue Apple, Albert Whitman, Carolrhoda
Elementary
I’m in California, but I’d like to skype with the east coast before work. It would be best for me to skype at 6am- 7am (Pacific Standard time) which would be 9-10am (EST)
I’ll be updating this list every few weeks until WRAD, so if you check back, you may find that the options will change. Schedules will fill, so some folks will no longer be available, but there will also be new people added.
Authors & Illustrators: If your schedule is full & you need to be crossed off the list, please leave a comment to let me know. Please note that this particular list is limited to traditionally published authors/illustrators (such as those listed here), only to limit its size and scope. I’m one person with limited time. However, if someone else would like to compile and share a list of self-published, specialty, magazine, and ebook author/illustrator volunteers, I think that would be absolutely great, and I’ll happily link to it here. Just let me know!
Happy reading, everyone!
~Kate
“World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.” ~from the LitWorld website
November always feels like an in-between month, doesn’t it? But this is a great season to cozy up with a cup of a tea and a notebook to try some writing prompts. Here’s one for you…
Recently, an author-illustrator friend shared a painting she’d created, along with an invitation: Write a story to go with this art!
I happened to see it in one of my online groups, and even though I was on deadline for a writing project, the playfulness of that post pulled me away from my other work for a while. It was so much fun, imagining a story that was so different from the history-based nonfiction I’d been working on that day. And it reminded me of a project I loved to do with my 7th graders when I was teaching. We’d each choose a piece from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online collection and use it as inspiration for a piece of writing. A story…a poem…whatever it sparked. Today, I visited the Met’s Twitter feed and found this photo.
It’s from the Met’s “The Last Knight” exhibit. What do these ghostly knight hands spark for you? Take fifteen minutes to write whatever comes to mind. (And feel free to share this prompt with your students, too!)
Art-inspired writing aside, I’ve been wrapping up a number of projects this fall and also celebrating some new & upcoming books.
INSECT SUPERPOWERS is about real-world insects with real-world superpowers. It’s graphic nonfiction, illustrated by Jillian Nickell in the style of a super-hero comic book. Out now from Chronicle books, it’s a perfect book for graphic novel fans as well as budding entomologists. You can read more about it and order a signed copy here.
Mia’s life turned upside down a year ago when she broke her arm during a gymnastics routine, so a family move back to Vermont, where Mia’s paternal grandmother lives, seems like the perfect fresh start. Gram farms crickets as an alternative food source, and Mia is eager to help out during the summer. Things start going wrong at the farm, however, and Gram is certain that sabotage is the cause. With the help of new friends made and new skills acquired at the day camps her parents force her to attend, Mia is determined to keep Gram’s beloved business from failing. But to grow past obstacles internal and external, she must first find the courage to speak out. This story defies categorization: It’s at once a friendship yarn, a summer idyll, a mystery, and a push for female empowerment. Messner deftly weaves together myriad complex plot threads to form a captivating whole. Characters are well drawn and multifaceted; all are imbued with a rich individuality, from earnest, increasingly confident Mia to the never seen farmhand James who attends all his husband’s baseball games. The women, tellingly, remain at the helm throughout. They are entrepreneurs, activists, engineers, mayors; they are mothers, daughters, friends, lovers. Each woman’s rise is its own story, giving Mia a supportive space in which she can come to terms with her own conflicts. Mia and her family are white; the supporting cast is vigorously diverse.
Rich, timely, and beautifully written. (Fiction. 10-14)
Bloomsbury is offering a fun pre-order offer for CHIRP – if you order your copy now and send them the receipt, they’ll mail you a poster and a class set of bookmarks! Details are here.
This week, we’ve been learning from Kekla Magoon’s award-winning novel, THE SEASON OF STYX MALONE, and to wrap up Teachers Write today, Kekla herself joins us for some Q&A.
What craft questions would you like to ask her? Are you wondering if she uses any special kind of outline or planning tool for her novels? Want to know how she revised this one? Now’s the time to ask!
Kekla will be stopping by the blog periodically today to respond, so feel free to post your questions in the comments.
This is our last Teachers Write post for now, but if you signed up to get the newsletters, you’ll still hear from me once in a while throughout the school year with some mentor texts, mini-lessons, and prompts to keep the writing going. Thanks so much for writing with us this summer!
It’s hard to believe that we’re already coming to the end of Teachers Write for this summer! Today, we’re looking at figurative language, and tomorrow, Kekla will join us for Q&A, but first, I want to share some fun news about what happens next. Thanks to our new newsletter format, if you signed up for Teachers Write this summer, you’ll also get occasional updates from me throughout the school year, with bonus mini-lessons, mentor text suggestions, writing prompts, book news, and giveaways. You’re welcome to use any of this material in your classrooms and with study groups at your school, and you’ll be automatically signed up for next summer’s program, too.
Looking ahead to the new school year, I hope you’ll keep an eye out for my upcoming books and pre-order any that might be a good fit for your readers! These are all available for pre-order today:
Now…on to our last mini-lesson for Teachers Write this summer!
You probably spend time teaching your students about figurative language – the similes and metaphors that can spice up descriptive writing to paint a picture in readers’ minds. But how do writers craft metaphors that are descriptive and vivid while staying true to a character’s personality and voice? Not surprisingly, THE SEASON OF STYX MALONE is a perfect book for finding examples of this element of craft.
The narrator, Caleb, is a kid who’s grown up in a small town in Indiana. He spends a lot of time outside in the woods with his older brother but hasn’t been out of that small town much at all. So the figurative language he uses needs to reflect that lived experience – what he’s seen firsthand or read in comic books or seen on the news his dad watches at night. Take a look at how Caleb describes the appearance of Styx on the very first page…
Maybe we summoned him, like a superhero responding to a beacon in the night.
He was summoned like a comic-book superhero – not like an Uber. This is a perfect and kid-friendly comparison. We see these character-perfect comparisons throughout the book:
Being the center of attention felt something like it might feel to be in a pinball machine – as the ball.
Mom’s eyes became like two chocolate-brown lasers, slicing through us from our bedroom doorway.
This is from the scene where Mom’s mad that they traded their baby sister for fireworks. And soon after, we have this great moment:
“GET in the car,” Mom said in a small, tight voice. A voice that meant massive trouble. Her voice had escalated right through shouting mode into a high, quiet dogs-only range.
Just to be perfectly clear: Bobby Gene and I were the dogs in this scenario. We scurried out to Mom’s station wagon with our tails between our legs.
In this passage, Kekla takes that image of Mom speaking in a high, dogs-only pitch and extends the metaphor with the kids as dogs, who “scurry” out to the car “with our tails between our legs.”
Caleb spends a lot of time outside, so it also makes sense that his comparisons make connections to the natural world.
(Styx) was scrawny, with long, knobby limbs like a praying mantis.
(The moped) looked like a giant grasshopper. Green head, thorax, abdomen. Crisp candy shell, handlebars feeling outward like antennae. Red, gold, and violet flames shot out from the sides of the engine, slicked back in paint along the thorax. A giant grasshopper with fire powers.
And in a scene where Styx says he just wants to stop and “feel the moment” after something’s gone right, Caleb says:
The moment felt like Saturday, like summer heat, like adventure. It felt as big as the sky above us and as firm as the ground beneath. It felt like the soft swish of corn tassels and being one step closer to an impossible dream.
If those corn-tassels aren’t a perfect comparison for a farmland kid in Indiana, I don’t know what is.
So you get the idea, right? We want to use similes and metaphors to enrich our descriptions, but they have to be the right ones. Writers like Kekla make sure their figurative language fits the character and the setting. And that’s what we’re going to play with in today’s assignment.
For this one, I’m going to ask you to go outside and find a place to sit where there’s something to see. It can be at a park, by a river, near the subway station…whatever works. First, I want you to pretend you’re a kid like Caleb, who’s grown up in a small farm town like Sutton, Indiana. (Or a small town in Vermont. Or the British countryside. Or India. Whatever works for you. Just not a city.) In that character’s point of view, write a description of what you see/hear/feel that makes use of figurative language that’s appropriate for your background. And then take on a different role. Imagine you’re a kid from South Boston or the Upper West Side of Manhattan or Cairo or Paris or Mumbai. Describe the same scene, but this time, use comparisons and metaphors that would work for your second character.
Maybe you’re thinking right now that there’s even more to think about than where your character is from. Making you’re considering how things like cultural background and socioeconomic status might affect the kinds of metaphors that might work, too. Good! So think about all of that as well. If you’d like to share a bit of your writing, feel free to visit the post on my blog (www.katemessner.com/blog). Just remember that you’ll need to click on the title of the post and scroll down to comment.
And don’t forget to join us tomorrow with your questions for Kekla! We’ll wrap up the week with a Q&A session so you can ask all of your craft questions that relate to THE SEASON OF STYX MALONE.
Writing believable dialogue can be one of the trickiest things about crafting a middle grade novel. A lot can go wrong with dialogue. Here are some of the common pitfalls.
So-authentic-it’s-boring dialogue:
“Hi, Jesse,” said Tom. “Hey,” said Jesse. “What’s up?” asked Tom. “Not much,” said Jesse. “How are you?” “Decent,” said Tom. “Kinda bored.” “Yeah,” said Jesse. “Me too.”
At this point, who isn’t bored? While we want dialogue to sound like real people talking, the key is to leave out all the boring bits that don’t move the plot forward. We want dialogue to sound like real people talking – but we want real-people talk at its most dramatic, its wittiest, its funniest, and its most interesting. Skip over the small talk.
Info dump dialogue:
“Hi, Tom,” said Jesse. “I’m on my way to meet Kayla for ice cream. She’s my friend from camp, which I attend every summer for six weeks. We used to be best friends with Mia, too, but Mia didn’t go last year, and the three of us grew apart. Kayla’s hair looks just like mine, so at camp, they called us the ponytail twins.”
At this point, Tom is thinking “Why are you telling me all this?” So are readers. Sometimes writers try to use dialogue to deliver information that the reader will need later. But that only works if it’s limited in scope and feels natural. Is there a reason for this character to be telling the other character all this stuff? If not – if it’s really just there for the reader – the dialogue falls flat.
Whose-voice-is-this-really? dialogue:
“When I woke up for the first day of second grade, the fog was hanging over the lake like a dream that hadn’t fully disappeared into my subconscious upon waking…”
When we’re writing in the voice of a kid character, that voice has to be believable. So unless your character happens to be a ridiculously precocious/pretentious seven-year-old, this doesn’t work. (That said, see Lisa Yee’s book MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS for an example of a book where mature language patterns & vocabulary work beautifully as part of the characterization.)
Talking-and-nothing-else dialogue:
Take another look at that so-authentic-it’s-boring example with Tom & Jesse above. The words being spoken aren’t the only problem. Nothing else is happening while that boring conversation takes place. Even with spicier dialogue, it can help a lot if characters are doing something while they’re talking – especially if the conversation goes on a while.
Complete-sentence-or-bust dialogue:
“Hey, can you come over later on?” asked Jesse. “I can’t come over because I have to clean my room,” said Tom. “Do you really have to clean it today?” Jesse asked. “My mom said I have to or I’m grounded for the weekend,” Tom said. “That is a real bummer,” said Jesse.
Real people don’t talk like this. We use incomplete sentences and language that’s more casual. Consider this rewrite:
“Hey, can you come over later?” asked Jesse. “Nope. Gotta clean my room,” said Tom. “Today?” Tom nodded. “Or I’m grounded for the weekend.” “Bummer.”
Can’t-tell-who’s-who dialogue:
“Dude! We need to go to the skate park today!” said Joe. “Dude! We totally do,” said Tom. Pete nodded. “Dude! That’s going to be awesome!” “Totally,” said Joe.
These guys all sound alike. If their undistinguishable voices and speech patterns keep up, readers won’t be able to tell them apart. Want to know if your characters’ voices are different enough? Copy and paste all of one character’s lines into a blank document. Copy and paste another character’s lines into another document. Then cut them apart and mix them up. Can you sort the lines by character just by the way they talk? Can a friend who doesn’t already know all the dialogue guess who said what?
Take a look at how Kekla handled the voices of different characters in THE SEASON OF STYX MALONE. These lines of dialogue are from Caleb:
“I said, I don’t want to be ordinary. I want to be…the other thing.” “I know that song. We played it in band. It’s ‘Tarantelle.’” “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Caleb Franklin and this is my brother, Bobby Gene.”
And these are from Styx, who’s older and more worldly
“Actually, I’d like to make you a more attractive offer.” “But I’m bringing all the expertise. Would you rather have two-thirds of nothing and a big problem on your hands, or would you rather have fifty percent of a whole lot, problem-free?” “No relation. Neighbor, friend, mediator. I’ve come to discuss the matter of the gunnysack.”
There’s no way a reader is going to confuse the two, even if there are no dialogue tags to show who’s talking. And speaking of dialogue tags… sometimes, less is more. Back in school, some of us heard the questionable advice “said is dead” from teachers who wanted us to use more vivid dialogue tags. However well-intended this was, it can lead to passages like this:
“He’s here!” Kim shouted. “I’ve been waiting all day,” Tim exclaimed. “Not as long as I’ve been waiting,” Dad chuckled. “I hope he likes the surprise party,” Tim worried. “He’ll love it,” Kim asserted.
When you’re using dialogue tags, said is often your best bet because it doesn’t call attention to itself, interrupting the flow of the dialogue. It’s common enough to be mostly invisible, so the focus is on the story – not your impressively varied dialogue tags. But sometime you don’t need dialogue tags at all. Take a look at how Kekla handled this conversation when Bobby and Caleb were at the pond with Styx and his foster sibling, Pixie. Pay special attention to the mix of dialogue, action, and Caleb’s internal thoughts…
“Are there even fish in here?” Pixie asked. Bobby Gene’s voice floated from above. “We’ve never seen any.” He splashed around in the shallows. “Why did you get the nickname Pixie?” I figured it was okay to ask since we’d been talking about names earlier. “I picked it out.” “Why?” “I have a brother now. I thought we should match.” It took me a while to work it out. Pixie and Styx. Pixie Styx? “You’re a freak,” I informed her. “I’m original.” She enunciated each syllable. “Freak.” She grinned, as if she knew that secretly I was thinking: No one would ever call Pixie “ordinary.” “What?” She grinned wider. “Shut up,” she said. “You know you like me.” “Shut up,” I said. Because I did.
This dialogue hums right along. You can hear the characters’ voices and imagine them interacting, which is a result of that balanced mix of dialogue and action. Studying dialogue in a mentor text like this is one of the best ways to get an ear for how it works.
So here’s your assignment for today. Choose a few dialogue-heavy pages of THE SEASON OF STYX MALONE to mark up. Photocopy those pages, just for this exercise, if you don’t want to mark up your book. Get five different colored highlighters or colored pencils, and use them to highlight the following elements in those dialogue sections:
Color 1 – Characters’ dialogue in quotes Color 2 – Dialogue tags like he said, she asked, etc. Color 3 – Action that’s happening while the characters talk. Color 4 – Internal thoughts from the narrator. Color 5 – Other description mixed in with the dialogue.
When you finish, take a look at the balance. Then, take a passage from your own writing, or imagine a new conversation between some characters you make up (Kids at a soccer game? Moms with toddler at an ice cream stand? Astronaut pals making plans for the day?) and try to create that same sort of balance in a written conversation. If you’d like to share what you wrote for today, feel free to visit this post on my blog (www.katemessner.com/blog). To leave a comment, you’ll have to click on the title of the blog post and then scroll down to the bottom. Happy writing!
Welcome to week 3 of Teachers Write! Hopefully, you’ve already had a chance to read our mentor text for this week, Kekla Magoon’s THE SEASON OF STYX MALONE. But even if you haven’t, don’t worry – our posts will be spoiler free as we take a look at some of the writing craft lessons found in these pages.
If you’re just finding us and aren’t familiar with this MG novel, here’s the jacket copy…
Caleb Franklin and his big brother, Bobby Gene, have the whole summer to explore the woods in Sutton, Indiana. Caleb longs to venture beyond their small town, but his dad likes the family to stay close to home.
Then Caleb and Bobby Gene meet new neighbor Styx Malone. Styx is sixteen, and he oozes cool. He’s been lots of different places. Styx promises the boys that together, they can pull off the Great Escalator Trade – a way to turn one small thing into more, and more, until they achieve their wildest dream. But as the trades get bigger, the brothers find themselves in over their heads. Styx has secrets – and Caleb fears their whole plan might fall apart.
In this madcap, heartwarming, one-thing-leads-to-another adventure, friendships are forged, loyalties are tested…and miracles just might be possible.
This novel is interesting right off the bat because it breaks one of the usual conventions by having someone who’s not the protagonist or narrator named in the title. Styx Malone isn’t the main character here – he’s the catalyst, the guy who makes the action happen for the narrator-protagonist, Caleb. Styx Malone isn’t the only character in kidlit who grabs a starring role in the title without being the protagonist. Maniac Magee, Yaqui Delgado, Ms. Bixby, Tyler Johnson, Zachary Beaver, and Fudge all made the titles of their books without being the main characters. In all of these novels, the title character is someone who has a profound effect on the protagonist’s life. In that way, the title of THE SEASON OF STYX MALONE sets up from the very beginning what’s to come.
The opening paragraphs reinforce that.
Styx Malone didn’t believe in miracles, but he was one. Until he came along, there was nothing very special about life in Sutton, Indiana.
Styx came to us like magic – the really, really powerful kind. There was no grand puff of smoke or anything, but he appeared as if from nowhere, right in our very own woods.
Maybe we summoned him, like a superhero responding to a beacon in the night.
Maybe we just plain wanted everything he offered. Adventure. Excitement. The biggest trouble we’ve ever gotten into in our lives, we got into with Styx Malone.
As leads go, this is one to hold up as an example. In just shy of a hundred words, Kekla a) establishes the voice of Caleb, our main character, b) sets up the idea that Styx will change his life, and c) makes a promise to readers about what this novel is all about – adventure, excitement, and trouble.
From the title and the very first page, we know that this Styx Malone character is going to transform Caleb’s life in some way. But if we’re going to fully appreciate that change, we need to know who Caleb is before Styx shows up. In answering that question, Kekla offers a master class in characterization. We learn that Caleb longs for a world beyond his small town. And we learn it in a dozen, subtle ways.
I woke up with the sunrise, like usual. Stretched my hands and feet from my top bunk to the ceiling, like usual. I touched each of the familiar pictures taped there: the Grand Canyon, the Milky Way, Victoria Falls, Table Mountain.
We learn so much from these 41 words. The repetition of “like usual” tells us that Caleb’s life has a predictable pattern to it. But wait! This is also a kid who’s taped pictures of faraway places to the ceiling above his bunk, so that they’re the first thing he sees every morning. He literally starts each day by reaching for them. This is a kid who is dreaming of places beyond Sutton. He dreams when he watches the news with his dad, too…
But every once in a while I would see something that made me want to reach through the screen and touch it, you know? Like to get closer to it, or to make it a little bit real. There was a story about dolphins one time. And a feature about a group of kids who sailed a boat around the world. Special things. Things you’d never find in Sutton.
Can’t you just hear the longing? Caleb’s voice is so strong here. You know? Special things. Things you’d never find in Sutton. And it lets readers feel that longing, too.
In this same, watching-the-news scene, we get an amazing sense for Caleb’s dad, too. They’re watching the same program, but they watch it so differently. Kekla used that contrast to create tension between the two that becomes a driving force in this novel.
The problem was, Dad was always talking about us being ordinary folks – about how ordinary folks like this and ordinary folks need that. He usually said all this to the TV, but our house isn’t that big and his voice is pretty loud so you can always hear him.
Ordinary folks just need to be able to fill the gas tank without it breaking them. Ordinary folks go to church on Sundays. Ordinary folks don’t care who you’ve been stepping out with; just pass the dang laws.
Don’t you just feel like you know Dad from the way he talks to the news?
These are brilliant opening pages, and Kekla returns to these themes and threads throughout the novel. That’s part of what makes it feel so real and cohesive.
Your assignment for today is to skim through your copy of THE SEASON OF STYX MALONE and look for the places that call back to those opening pages. How does the author use those images and ideas like the photos on the ceiling and the idea of being ordinary to build character, create tension, and move the story forward? Feel free to make notes on your own, or if you’d like, you can chat with other Teachers Write participants in the comments. To comment, you may need to click on the title of this blog post and scroll down to the bottom.
This week, we’ve been learning from two incredible rhyming picture books as mentor texts, and now we get to learn from the authors of those books!
What craft questions would you like to ask Hena Khan, author of GOLDEN DOMES AND SILVER LANTERNS and Martha Brockenbrough, author of CHEERFUL CHICK? Are you wondering how they revised their early drafts? Whether they use rhyming dictionaries? How they check to make sure the meter works in each line? Now’s the time to ask!
Hena and Martha will be stopping by my blog today to chat and answer questions, so feel free to post your questions in the comments!
Martha Brockenbrough’s CHEERFUL CHICK, illustrated by Brian Won, is a celebration of both cheerleading and determination. It’s a great mentor text for us to study as we take a look at the way the topic and theme of a book guide decisions about rhyme and meter.
Remember the cheers you heard at basketball and football games? There’s probably one catchy cheer that comes to mind right away. For me, it’s this one:
We got spirit, yes we do! We got spirit, how ‘bout you?
It has a peppy meter to go along with the rhyme.
DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH! DAH da DAH da. DAH da DAH?
Martha kept that element of cheerleading in mind when she chose her rhyme scheme and meter for CHEERFUL CHICK. It’s written in iambic tetrameter, so each line is made up of four iambs. In other words, it goes like this:
da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH….
Interestingly enough, Martha’s first draft of this book wasn’t written in rhyme. As an experienced writer, she knew about all the pitfalls of writing in rhyme and opted to try it in prose instead. But when she sent the manuscript to her editor, Arthur Levine, he suggested that this is a story that might actually work better with the added challenge of rhyme.
“Since I already had the character and story, though, the challenge was to come up with a rhythm and rhyme scheme that echoed the cheerleading protagonist’s nature,” Martha wrote in an April tweet thread.
She came up with a plan to give iambic tetrameter a try. When I look at how this book turned out, I can only imagine how much fine-tuning and revision went into making this work. But the end result is a book that captures the main character’s nature and rhymes without feeling forced or clunky. It reads like a cheer, which is perfect.
Cheerful chick worked day and night Until at last her moves felt right.
And then she hatched her lifelong dream To build a barnyard cheering team.
She got her muscles good and warm And did her moves with perfect form:
Side splits, wing stands, super punches – Chicken shook her feathers bunches!
That last line was fun, wasn’t it? When we were looking at Hena’s GOLDEN DOMES AND SILVER LANTERNS yesterday, we talked about the care she took to make sure the rhymes felt natural and didn’t call attention to themselves, because that’s a gentle, lyrical story about colors. CHEERFUL CHICK has a more playful, humorous tone, so it’s fine (and fun!) if some of the rhymes stand out a bit more:
Ms. Cow knows all the wildest moves. Just watch her stand on two front hooves!
Ms. Cow just stood and blinked and chewed. And said, “I’m so not in the moooood.”
Even when the rhymes are more playful, the rhythm stays consistent, and that’s important for a read-aloud. Martha’s keen ear for meter comes from her college study of ancient Greek poems and dramas.
“It helped me see much better what Shakespeare is doing. Which leads me to my second point. Rhythmic writing does not have to rhyme. It will be lyrical and delightful because of the rhythm. See Shakespeare’s plays for this,” Martha wrote. “And there are lots of ways you can play with rhythm. With a forthcoming picture book, THIS OLD DOG, also edited by Arthur & illustrated by Gabriel Alborozo, I decided that every word the dog narrator thinks has one syllable. For me, this captures the voice of a dog. A good dog who likes long walks in the grass. Are you stuck with a picture book? Think about the rhythm of the language, and choose one in harmony with your character.”
On that note…here’s your assignment. We’re going to play around with some different voices today. Choose a character — a young person, a big old tortoise, a rowdy squirrel…whatever you want — and try writing a few lines in that character’s voice. It can be about anything – what the character loves, their plans for the day, their dreams for the future. But give some real thought to how the rhythm and word choice will reflect the character. When you’ve written a few lines, switch gears and write about the same topic but in a different character’s voice. How does that change how you think about meter and rhyme?
When Mia moves to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, she’s recovering from the broken arm she got falling off a balance beam. And packed away in the moving boxes under her clothes and gymnastics trophies is a secret she’d rather forget.
When Mia moves to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, she’s recovering from the broken arm she got falling off a balance beam. And packed away in the moving boxes under her clothes and gymnastics trophies is a secret she’d rather forget.
