Happy Independence Day to our Teachers Write campers in the United States!

Before you start asking questions today, I want to say a HUGE thanks to everyone who ordered signed copies of CAPTURE THE FLAG and my other books from my signing at The Bookstore Plus on Monday. It was SO much fun to sign so many books to familiar names – almost as great as having you all there.

A couple more book-notes before we get rolling today…

 Joanne Levy’s debut novel SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE came out this week! I loved this book (and I love Joanne, who despite having never met me, jumped in and offered to help with Teachers Write organization. “I am an organizational goddess,” she told me on Twitter. “How can I help?”  See? How do you not love someone like that? She ended up pulling together our TeachersWrite Twitter list.)   Anyway, organizational skills aside, she is also a warm, funny, wonderful writer, and you should check out her new book here.

Second, my picture book OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW is a finalist for the Cardozo Award for Children’s Literature, along with four other great books. I’d love it if you’d visit the award website and vote for your favorite, whether it’s my book or one of the others. Here’s the link for that…  On to the Q and A now…

Feel free to sit this one out if you’re busy eating hamburgers and twirling around with sparklers today, but if you have questions, we’re still keeping Q and A Wednesday open, and guest authors Jody Feldman, Hélène Boudreau, Jean Reidy, David Lubar, Laura Wynkoop, and Danette Haworth have volunteered to come by to answer questions. Please visit their websites and check out their books. And be patient with them today, okay? It may be later on when they get to answer questions. I’m sure they have picnics to attend, too!

Teachers & librarians – Feel free to ask your questions in the comments.  Published author guests have volunteered to drop in and respond when they can. And I’ll be around today, too – I hear it’s going to be a rainy Fourth in our part of the world.

Got your pencil sharpened or laptop charged?  Today’s Tuesday Quick-Write is courtesy of teacher, poet, and picture book author Kristy Dempsey, whose titles include ME WITH YOU, SURFER CHICK, and MINI-RACER. Kristy lives in Brazil with her family and is here today to get us thinking & writing about prized possessions and what they say about character.

At the end of this school year the first graders were studying the elements of story through fairy tales. We talked about imagination, we talked about the cultural aspects of fairy tales from around the world, we talked about what gave these characters believable qualities even though the stories themselves might have magical elements. Toward the end of our unit we watched the film, “A Little Princess”. I was rather amazed as the first graders identified that Sara’s locket and the importance it held for her made the story feel believable to them. One student even said, “It’s like her locket held everything her daddy had ever given her and when Miss Minchin took it away from her, Sara knew she still had all that in her heart.”  These first graders understood the importance of emotional truth!

Think of the physical item that is most important to your main character. What does it represent? Now, imagine it being lost or taken away from your main character. How would he/she respond? Sara Crewe’s response, of course, was fairly noble. But what if your character pitched a fit? Or what if he/she embarked on a series of misadventures to try to recoup what was lost? (In fact, one of the funniest scenes in the movie is when Sara’s friends enter Miss Minchin’s office to try to get the locket back.) Write a scene that shows the emotional importance of this physical item to your main character and then show us how he/she responds when it is lost or taken.

I can’t wait to read the serious or funny or fantastical emotionally true scenes you come up with!

Note from Kate: If you don’t have a character from a work-in-progress just yet, you can write this piece about yourself or someone you know.

Good morning! It’s time for a Monday  mini-lesson, but first, let’s announce the winner of Friday’s giveaway.  Congratulations, Margaret Simon!  You’ve won an audiobook of Rosanne Parry’s SECOND FIDDLE.  Please email me your mailing address (kmessner at kate messner dot com) so that Rosanne can send along your book.

Today’s featured author guest is Jo Whitmore, the author of funny middle grade books like D IS FOR DRAMA, ODD GIRL IN, and FRONT PAGE FACE-OFF. Visit Jo at her website: http://www.jowhittemore.com/

Good morning, ladies and gents!

This week we’re pushing back our sleeves and getting up to our elbows in humor.

Let’s start with this statement: HUMOR IS ABOUT THE UNEXPECTED

This is true 80% of the time. The remaining 20% is humor that you know is coming but is still ridiculous enough to make you laugh (A toddler carrying a whiffle ball bat with Dad walking behind him? You just KNOW what’s going to happen)

But for the most part, we laugh at something because we didn’t expect it. It’s an interesting twist on an ordinary situation. You’re taking something familiar to the reader and letting them see it in a new light. That’s humor.

Keep that in mind throughout this lesson.

The four important things to remember about writing humor are:

1. Setup & Execution
2. Timing
3. Word choice
4. Audience

1. Setup & Execution

The setup is the lead-in to a joke. The execution is the punchline.

THE SETUP WILL NEVER BE FUNNIER THAN THE EXECUTION.

In riddle form, setup is usually a question. “What flowers are the best kissers?”

With the execution being the answer. “Tulips.”

In novel-writing, we see setup as narration (in the form of an observation) or dialogue (in the form of banter). Oftentimes, the setup will give no sign that there’s humor ahead (remember: humor is in the unexpected) and may simply be a statement of fact.

Setup: It’s really hot outside.

Execution: I saw a chicken lay a hard-boiled egg.

Was that setup funny? No. Just a simple observation. It’s up to the execution to bring the fun. Setups…so lazy!

When it comes to dialogue, the rule is usually the same, the first character offering an observation that the second one turns into a joke. If the first character poses a question, it’s usually rhetorical OR the answer provided by the second character is a humorous but indirect response.

“Do you think people treat me like a baby?” I ask.

She eyes my plate. “You’re eating pre-cut steak with a spork.”

2. Timing

Timing encompasses both the pause between setup and execution AND the rhythmic beats WITHIN the setup and execution.

If you’re setting up a joke, the execution should follow in the next one or two sentences. Otherwise, the tie breaks down between the two.

Example of bad timing, using an earlier joke:

It’s really hot outside. I know because I went for a walk, seriously craving ice cream…Rocky Road, which is my favorite. But they were out so I got Bubble Gum instead and then on the way home I saw a chicken lay a hard-boiled egg.

We lose the joke.

Just set it up and knock it down.

Your sentence structure should also have a rhythm to it, like poetry. If a setup/execution is too short, it falls flat. If a setup/execution is too long, it falls flat. Read both parts aloud and pay attention to the number of beats you use and how it flows.

And don’t forget the importance of the pause at the END of a joke. It gives the reader a chance to process it and realize you are hilarious.

How do you pause in writing? By letting the characters react. That’s a sign to the reader that they should react too.

3. Word Choice

It’s not just how you say something, it’s WHAT you say. If you’ve heard the “Why did the chicken cross the road?” joke, you know there are dozens of answers, some funnier than others. Why? Because of the words chosen for the response.

You want your punchline to be unexpected but not far-fetched. You want ridiculous but not impossible. Readers will suspend disbelief for humor, but only so much.

Okay: My mom cooks the weirdest things. At least no one can say they make a better squirrel pie.

Too far: My mom cooks the weirdest things. At least no one can say they make a better unicorn pie.

Why is that too far? Because if this is a contemporary novel, unicorns don’t exist (sorry, kids). You’re making a joke about something that couldn’t possibly happen.

Also, to bring timing back up…did you notice the rhythm seemed better with the squirrel punchline? It was only one beat off from unicorn, but it flowed better.

Back to word choice.

NEVER SETTLE ON THE FIRST JOKE

You can, and usually will, make a joke better by switching out words in the punchline or going for a completely different punchline. Sometimes, you may have the perfect punchline but the setup just needs to be tweaked to meet it. That joke I wrote about the steak and the spork? I knew that’s what I wanted the punchline to be. I just had to reword the setup to lead into it.

4. Audience

All jokes will not work for all audiences. You have to take into account the age of your reader/gender/intelligence/pop culture awareness/etc when writing any joke. For example, if I’m writing for tween girls, I’m not going to throw in humor about the stock market because most aren’t old enough to know/care what that is. Your setup can usually work for any reader. It’s the execution that will vary. And be careful with sarcasm, especially for younger audiences that haven’t yet grasped the concept. If you MUST use sarcasm with them, make sure to include a gesture that shows the speaker isn’t serious, such as an eye roll.

And there you have the bare bones of humor.

Now go out there and make ‘em laugh!

Assignment choices for this week:

Take the setup for a joke from your current WIP and write three different punchlines for it. If you’re writing a serious piece, take the observation below and write three different punchlines for it:

I don’t get the appeal of clowns.

OR

This adorable picture is your setup.

Caption it with something funny (your punchline)

Want more to write about today?  Check out Jo’s Monday morning warm-up, too. Happy writing!

Happy Friday, everybody!  First a reminder… I have a book signing on Tuesday, and the always-great Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid has made arrangements for far-away friends to order personalized, signed copies of my new mystery, CAPTURE THE FLAG, or any of my other books for kids. Just give the bookstore a call at 518-523-2950.  Shipping is free on orders of $50 or more and reasonable on smaller orders, too.  Be sure to let them know you’re part of the Teachers Write community so I can write a special inscription. 🙂  If a book is for your classroom or library, or for a gift, I’m happy to personalize those, too.

Now…pour yourself a lemonade or iced tea, and let’s get celebrating our writing for the week! We have a great giveaway today…Rosanne Parry is giving away an audiobook of her novel SECOND FIDDLE.

Just leave a comment by Saturday 11pm EST to be entered in the drawing, and winners will be announced on Monday.

Friday Writing Happy Hour is a chance to relax and share comments about our progress, goals, accomplishments, and whatever else is on your mind.  If you’d like feedback on a snippet of writing, head on over to Gae Polisner’s blog for Friday Feedback, where you can share a few paragraphs of your work and offer feedback to others, too.

 Enjoy your weekend, and remember to check in at Jen’s Teach Mentor Texts blog on Sunday.  I’ll see you back here Monday morning!

 

Happy Thursday! Ready for today’s Quick-Write options?  We’ve got two…one for folks who are in the middle of a work-in-progress and one that works for anyone. (Try one, or both, or bookmark to come back later!)

Quick-Write Option #1 is courtesy of guest author Barb Rosenstock. Barb loves true stories best and often pretends to live in the past though she’s thankful every day for indoor plumbing, instant cocoa and the Internet. Her picture books include: The Camping Trip that Changed America (illus. by Caldecott Medalist Mordicai Gerstein), The Littlest Mountain (illus. by Melanie Hall), and Fearless (illus. by Scott Dawson) Upcoming: Thomas Jefferson Builds a Library (illus. by John O’Brien), Vasya’s Noisy Paintbox (illus. by Mary GranPré) and The Streak. You can find her at www.barbrosenstock.com or on Twitter @barbrosenstock.

“What in the world am I writing about?”

I was in the middle of a picture book draft and had just pasted in and deleted essentially the same two sentence six times. I thought I’d created pretty interesting characters, a cool setting and the basic plot outline, but where was my THEME? (I can still hear my 4^th grade teacher Mr. Fornek.)  Was this a story about friendship? Or courage? Or plain cleanliness? Here’s a way that might help you figure out what you’re writing about when you’re stuck…

Go to http://www.wordle.net. It’s free, you don’t have to fill in personal information or sign up. If you haven’t used WORDLE™ before, it’s a tool that generates a graphic word cloud from text you insert. The WORDLE™ is based on frequency of use in your text. Click “create” and paste in a good chunk of text from your work in progress (at least two pages.) Hit the “Go” button. SURPRISE! You’ll see a pretty WORDLE™ graphic generated from your very own writing. Now look at which words are bigger and which smaller or missing all together. Are you writing about what you think you’re writing about? You may find that the word “friend” shows up the largest, that nothing describing your setting shows up at all or that a minor character’s name comes out larger than a major one—all useful stuff for finding a theme and revising.

If you’re feeling super motivated today, write a letter to or from your main character using the seven largest words in your WORDLE.

My theme is invention, what’s yours?

Note from Kate: You can do this with any writing…your journal, your work-in-progress…even one or two of your quick-writes combined.

Quick-Write option #2 today is from me (though I am away this week with super-limited Internet, so I may not be able to reply to comments on this post) and it’s about exploring points of view.

For those working on a piece of fiction, or nonfiction that involves people…

Choose a scene in your story that’s important to the main character or primary figure. Write that scene from a completely different point of view — the antagonist, or the character’s childhood friend who shows up, or the clerk at the grocery store. How does the scene change?

For those still brainstorming ideas or working on something without a main character…

Choose a scene from one of your favorite books that you’ve read, and rewrite it from a totally different character’s point of view. You might try this from a few perspectives. For example, a character who is friends with the main character is one option, but what if you wrote from the antagonist’s point of view?  What if you wrote from the point of view of a child? Or someone much older? Or the family dog?

Sometimes, this writing prompt will lead you to discover something you never realized before. Other times, it may help you to see your character through someone else’s eyes.

If you discover anything interesting or fun or important, stop by later on and let us know with a comment!

Wednesday is Q and A Day at Teachers Write! Virtual Summer Writing Camp. Got questions about writing? Ask away!

Today’s author volunteers are Rosanne Parry, Kristina Springer, Erin Dealey, Erica S. Perl, and David Lubar. They’ve promised to be around to respond to your questions today, so please visit their websites & check out their books!

Teachers & librarians – Feel free to ask your questions in the comments.  Published author guests have volunteered to drop in and respond when they can.

Guest authors – Thanks for joining us today!  To answer questions, just reply to the comments below.

And just a reminder…if anyone would like to order personalized, signed copies of any of my books for kids, check out this post with info – or just call The Bookstore Plus at 518-523-2950 before my signing there on July 2nd.

Welcome to Tuesday Quick-Write!  Got your keyboard or pencil ready?  Today, Julie True Kingsley joins us with a writing prompt on character development…

Finding The Character Within

Today we are going to work on finding the character within.   Let’s get started.  First, close your eyes.  Try to envision a well-rounded, complex, flushed out character.  Give yourself a few minutes.

How’d you do?  I bet your character is kind of flat, not really that well rounded yet.  Perfectly normal!  Okay, bail on this idea of trying to pull a character out of thin air.  I have a better idea.  Today, we will do a multi-mixed media guided writing.

Okay, let me take a step back.  I am a former fourth, fifth, and seventh grade (writing) teacher. For the last couple of years, I’ve been teaching communications at a college in Maine.   Here, I learned something amazing– simply incorporate mixed media into a writing lesson and you end up with the most creative stories, seemingly effortlessly.

Did I mention that I’m writer too?  The kind of writer that’s still in the trenches, flushing around trying to get my manuscript perfect, and currently on submission playing the waiting game.  How does this approach help my writing life?  Before I start a writing piece, I find the true characters within with a keen eye to mixed-media tools (Think of the Imperial March when Darth Vader appears in Star Wars, notice how they use music to heighten character.  It’s genius!).  Once you start doing this your own story will unfold like a movie simply because our brain is trained to link music to a specific emotion.  Isn’t that what reading is about, having an emotional connection to character? So, why not embrace this idea.  Let’s start right now.

Step One:

Pull out your magazines and look for faces that you find interesting (You could also do a Google Images search or use Pinterest).   What faces call you?  Pick one.

(Teaching Note: I make students pull a picture from a paper bag)

Take in the photo.  What do you notice about this person?   Give the person some traits.  Start with physical traits (So easy!), now look deeper.  What do you think this person is feeling?  What makes the person’s heart tick?  Secrets? Yes, they are there.  Find them.  Dig deeper.  Learn more.  Push yourself here.

Step Two:

Find songs that match your character’s inner and outer character.  Play around with this.  You Tube is your friend.  Go find that song that represents your character.

(Teacher note: Depending on the age group you teach you might need to frontload different styles of music and have them choose between a few specific choices.   You know your kids, do what they do they can deal with.)

Example:

Name: Trudy Beaverton

From:  Erie, Pennsylvania

Physical Characteristics:  Short brown hair, brown eyes, bushy eyebrows.

(External song:  Rock with You by Michael Jackson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbxP9leMw88&feature=related)

 Internal Characteristics: 

(Internal Song:  Back & Black by ACDC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwIvBNsSywQ)

 Yes, Trudy is a closet head banger who loves heavy metal! Deep down, she’s rocker.  If only everyone knew the real her!

 Imagine if I chose this song: Summer Girls by LFO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1dfEf1qOt4  She’s a completely different now, isn’t she?  Maybe a tad less interesting.  Maybe a whole lot more mainstream.  Maybe she wants to move to California, bleach her hair blond, and learn to skateboard.  Does she love Justin Beiber? Yeah!

 (See how these song changes this character and really sets up who a story of where Trudy could go.)

 Step three:

Start this character’s story.  Go on, try a half a page.  Keep the music on.  Put the beat into your story. See what happens.  If you are motivated try numerous songs.  Notice, how does your sentence structure changes with the beat of the music? Does the beat find its way into your words?

Okay, I can’t stop listening.  This is an irresistible lesson (Must turn off LFO).

Remember this is prewriting, but dig in.  Notice how it affects writer’s voice.   I encourage you to break my rules.  Maybe your character has dual personalities.  Maybe different times of the day bring on a changing mood.  Play with this.   And remember, writing should be fun.  I can’t wait to see what you all come up with!  Enjoy!

Note from Kate: If you have a work-in-progress and a character you’ve already met, try this for your character-in-progress instead of clipping from a magazine. Music can tell you a lot about who your character really is!

Good morning, campers! Can you believe we’re diving into Week Four? The winner of Friday’s book giveaway from Katy Duffield is Kimberley Moran!  Please email me (kmessner@katemessner dot com) with your address so Katy can send your books!

Before we kick off the new week, just a couple quick notes… I’m away this week with limited Internet access (curse and blessing that it is) so even though all our posts are scheduled to go, I’ll be around less than usual in the comments. I’ll still be cheering you on from afar, though!  

If Teachers Write has made you hungry for more online professional development, Stenhouse is kicking off its free Summer Blogstitute this week with some great guest posts from its authors. Check it out here.

And if you’re interested in ordering personalized, signed copies of any of my kids’ books…I have this book signing coming up in Lake Placid July 2nd. They’ll send books to far-away friends, too, so you can call The Bookstore Plus at 518-523-2950 if you’d like to order anything.

Today’s Monday Mini-lesson is courtesy of Ruth McNally Barshaw, author of the hilarious and illustrated Ellie McDoodle series.  She’s inviting us to explore the connections between art and writing!

Art Literacy is the concept, now borne out by studies (see some background and research links at http://www.picturingwriting.org/), that the act of creating art improves subsequent writing.  When you draw – even doodle – it changes your thinking so that richer writing results.

The best part is you don’t have to be a trained illustrator to do it. This works for everyone. Surprisingly, stick figures work just as well as the most beautiful, intricate painting.

When you sit down to write, first draw or create art – any kind of art. It can be abstract or figurative. It can be paper or fabric collage, sketches, painted, doodled.

You can make paper, marble it, collage it.

Or you can get a head start on your manuscript by drawing a character and using callouts and labels to list traits.

Here’s a spread from the first Ellie McDoodle book where Ellie uses this method for characterization:

Here’s a page from my sketchjournal, drawn when I was 16, where I do the same:

(And that’s where I got the idea for Ellie to do it)

 This also works for scene building and novel plotting.

I used it while working on a novel last year. I hit writer’s block, didn’t know what should happen next, and found that revisiting previous scenes helped unlock the door to the next scene. Drawing was the key:

While this trick works for quick sketching, it also works for more detailed art. Here’s a drawing I created while exploring characters for last year’s novel.  The act of drawing told me information I hadn’t previously thought of, for each of the characters:

 If you want to get to know your character better, draw him or her. Add description as callouts.

If you want to figure out what should happen next in your story, draw what just happened. Then start a sketch of what could happen next.

And if you want to write better, draw first.

I’m on deadline right now for the fifth Ellie book, Ellie McDoodle: The Show Must Go On; these techniques are helping me get the writing done on time.

To use this idea with students:

-Have them draw storyboards of their work. Or their fellow students’ work. Or stories they have read.

Storyboarding is used in advertising for developing commercials, and in filmmaking. Limiting them to 6 or 8 small boxes for the entire story prevents minutia or perfectionism from creeping in. It solidifies pacing and focuses cause and effect. (Illustrators storyboard their picturebooks, one box per page. I do this, but I also storyboard my novels.)

-Tell them to close their eyes. Visualize the character they want to write about. Then draw what they see in their mind’s eye, their imagination.

-To add depth to the drawn character, add callouts to describe various personality and physical traits. Brainstorm negative as well as positive traits, for a more rounded character. Next they write a story using what they have drawn.

Thanks, Ruth! Such a fun workshop today… now is everybody ready to get working? Ready… Set…write! Draw!