Readers ask me for writing tips all the time, so I made a bunch of short videos on my Youtube channel with all of my best writing tips for home and school. I hope to add to this collection over time, but for now you can learn all about:
Each of these writing tips videos is under ten minutes long and provides specific actionable writing tools with visual examples. Check them out and let me know what you think! If there are any writing topics that you’d love to have a short video on for the classroom, just let me know! I’m happy to keep a running list.
You can reach me any time at melanie@melanieconklin.com, or just comment here!
As winter turns the corner into spring, I’m well into my Skype visits for the year. Connecting with classrooms is one of my very favorite things, and I’m grateful to everyone who reaches out. You can check out my recently updated Skype map here. Hopefully I can fill in more of these states and countries in 2019!
It’s been a busy year for me (revising the new book, EVERY MISSING PIECE coming May 2020) and for THYME, which has had the good fortune of visiting Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas, and Missouri state lists. It’s been so much fun connecting with classrooms as they explore Thyme’s story. Thank you to all the educators who work so hard to share books with children.
If you’re looking for more great reads, THYME popped up on this Wiki page recently, which appears to be a pretty great resource for finding reads in different categories of interest. Click here to check it out!
It’s back-to-school season, which means both traditional-calendar educators and authors are getting back to work. It’s an exciting but draining time of year. New kids are awesome but exhausting, and educators are trying to get everything in place for a successful school year, including author visits.
Every time I speak with educators at conferences, the subject of author visits always comes up. How do you arrange one? How do you deal with the money part? What about selling books? Arranging an author visit can seem intimidating at a glance, so today I’m going to break down how to go about arranging an author visit and how to have a successful visit on the day-of. Like everything in school, success depends heavily on the work done in advance.
How to Find an Author for a Visit
One of the questions I hear regularly is: how do you find authors for an author visit? I think this really means how do I connect with authors or find authors who are local to me, but first I’ll address the larger question of how to find authors to invite for a school or library visit.
Mock Newbery Clubs are a great way to discover authors & spur passion for reading.
First, keep a list of the books you really love. If you’re anything like me, it can be hard to remember what you read yesterday, much less last year. Also, regularly solicit favorite books from students and keep a list of those authors and books handy, too, for when you’re trying to think of authors to invite to a school or library. I use Goodreads to track what I read, but you can also use Library Thing or Reader Tracker. Tracking your reading can also help you identify areas where you are under-read to broaden and diversify your reading life.
Another way to find authors who live in or visit your area is by contacting your local bookstores. A relationship with a local bookstore will not only identify opportune moments to invite a visiting author, but will also help you execute your author visit with ease when it comes to ordering books. Attend local book festivals, book signings, and readings to make connections with authors from your area, and ask for author recommendations through your local Library Associations. There are also booking agencies such as The Booking Biz, Provato Events, and Phil Bidner’s recently announced Author Village. If you are interested in arranging a virtual author visit, author Kate Messner maintains a list of authors who Skype for free (more on Skypes below).
You can also find authors by connecting on social media. Authors love connecting with readers. No really, they do! How do you connect? If you read an author’s book and love it, tag them in a tweet or Instagram or FB post. Many authors will respond, and even if they don’t, they are sure to be smiling. Then, when you reach out to inquire about an author visit, you can introduce yourself by mentioning that you recently tagged them about loving their book, which gives you a nice segue. I’m socially anxious about reaching out to people I don’t know, so I understand the feeling!
How do you reach out once you’ve found an author whom you would like to invite? It’s simple: email or use the contact form on their website. That’s what the websites are there for! Authors and their reps are happy to hear from you. It’s okay to write with questions or rate inquiries. Your questions are not a burden. Just remember to be respectful of the author’s time by replying to their communications. No one likes to be left hanging!
The Money Part
Now let’s talk about the biggest stumbling block for many schools: funding. Author visits are so valuable for students, but it can be challenging to communicate that value to administration and parents. If you find yourself needing to justify the expense of an author visit, here are some key points to support your argument:
Author visits inspire children’s writing. Seeing how hard an author works draws direct parallels with student life and fills students with confidence. Seeing how an author generated the story can spark student imagination, and getting to know the author makes writing more aspirational and attainable, from idea to revision to final draft.
Presentations can complement school curriculum. When you are seeking an author, look to see if their presentations fulfill specific learning objectives. If you need to cover a particular topic, ask the author if they can do a presentation on that topic. They probably already have! This way, your author visit does not take away from scheduled learning time.
Author visits promote reading. All students, and especially reluctant readers, benefit from hearing the inside scoop on how a story becomes a book. Hearing about the author’s struggles allows the students to connect directly with the narrative and understand why the author made the choices they did. This supports making predictions and inferences, and other good reading traits.
The creative process can seem magical and unreachable, but authors are ordinary people. When a student meets an author, they are better able to visualize themselves as creators. Students will learn that the strongest trait of a writer is persistence, and that their dreams are worth following. Author visits have the power to change lives.
Some schools hold specific fundraisers to support their annual author visits. PTAs are often eager to support such events, but it is best to get the ball rolling early so you aren’t short on time. Read-a-thons or write-a-thons are great fundraisers that tie in. Bookfairs are also a good opportunity to incorporate fundraising for an an author visit. Partnering with local community organizations such as Kiwanis, Friends of the Library, and Rotary can also be successful, and once you get on their list of causes to support, you’re more likely to receive funding in the future. If your school qualifies for Title I funds, you may be able to apply some of that funding to an author visit. There are also quite a few grant opportunities available for arts education, which you can read more about here.
There are also ways to partner with authors to reduce your expenses. Many authors are happy to connect with multiple schools in a district, and will offer a discount for booking multiple events. This is especially helpful if you need to pay travel expenses. Connect with other schools in your district and also with the local libraries, which may have funds to support an author visit. It might seem reasonable to ask an author to waive their fee in exchange for book sales, but most authors only make about $1 for each book sold (after they earn out their advance, which may never happen). Even if you sold 100 books, that’s less than $100 in the author’s pocket. Publishers do not pay authors to go to school visits, and most authors can’t afford to do visits for free, though some donate one or two visits per year. Negotiating rates is a reasonable thing to do if your offer is reasonable. It can be tough to talk money, but when in doubt, ask!
Skype visits are a great option if you have a limited budget. As mentioned above, some authors Skype for free. These visits are usually around 20 minutes long and limited to Q&A about the author’s work. Some authors charge a nominal fee for Skypes, and most charge for longer Skypes that include a presentation. If you have not Skyped before, it’s as easy as making a phone call or Face-timing! Google hangouts are another option. Make sure to do a test run with someone off site prior to your Skype date, to make sure your speakers and microphones are working.
The key to funding author visits is setting your goal well in advance, so that you have time to get the funds in place. An annual tradition such as a penny drive can support having author visits every year.
Selling Books at an Author Visit
Book sales might seem daunting to arrange, but kids need this opportunity to connect with the author and translate their excitement from the visit into reading and writing. Selling books is not the primary goal of an author’s visit, but they want kids to have this special moment. Here are some book sale tips to help make the process as stress-free as possible:
Ask if the publisher has a school visit program. Some publishers, like Penguin, will ship books to the school for free, sell them at a reduced rate, and accept all returns with free shipping as well. The only thing you must do to take advantage of such programs is start early. You need plenty of time, usually 6-8 weeks–to arrange for participation in these programs.
Ask your local independent bookseller to manage the sales. Often, indies can provide a reduced price for larger orders of books or books going to schools. Sometimes, there can even be a fundraising component to the book sales. Approach stores early for best results.
Send home fliers well in advance (2 weeks minimum), and then send them again on the day the author visits. Most authors can leave signed stickers (called book plates) for the books that are purchased after the author visit. No author wants to leave a child without a signed copy!
Plan for signing time during the author’s visit. Sometimes it is convenient to have the kids bring their books by the library during lunch, or to leave 5-10minutes at the end of each presentation for signing. Do not underestimate the power of meeting an author for just a minute and getting a book signed. Coordinating signings isn’t always easy but it is worth it!
Ask your PTA to get volunteers to handle book sales. Often checks can be made out to the PTA, which can pre-pay for the books or pay the balance after sales are complete. Collecting payment for books is no different than collecting payment for a field trip, and it means so much to the kids.
Yes, we posed for this photo! 😀
How to Have a Successful Visit
Once you’ve found an author and agreed on a rate, it’s time to prep for your visit. First of all, make sure there is a written agreement in place that protects both parties from unforeseen circumstances. Most authors will provide an agreement letter or contract. Read your contract carefully to plan for the equipment you may need for the visit: a projector, a remote control, a white board, a drawing pad, or other supplies. Also consider when and where you will distribute bookmarks if the author is providing them, and make sure you have all the necessary paperwork (such as background checks) in place.
The most important part of prepping for an author visit is getting the students engaged and excited. Make sure you have multiple copies of the author’s books available in the library, and book talk the books with each class. Many authors have electronic previews of their books to introduce the title to students, so be sure to ask. Reader’s guides can offer samples and activities to do in connection with the visit, and authors love to see student work based on their books, be that biographies, book reviews, or artwork. Students can even use their work to introduce the author at the event.
Have students prepare questions for the author ahead of time. This can be a fun activity where each class votes on their preferred questions as a group. Be sure to connect with the author on social media to build enthusiasm and post information about the upcoming visit where parents and staff will see the news and in e-blasts. Some schools even invite parents to come to the author’s presentation, which makes a nice full-circle moment for families.
Mock Newbery clubs are also a great way to get parents involved. Parents and students can each read the books selected by your club and join in discussions. Incorporating an author visit or Skype with a Mock Newbery author can be really inspiring for both kids and adults.
Logistically, it’s important to plan your itinerary for an author visit carefully, with time for classes to switch out, sign books, and maybe even eat lunch with their visiting author! Authors will also appreciate having a place to take a short break and guzzle some snacks in between presentations.
More than anything, authors want visits to schools and libraries to be inspirational and fulfilling for everyone involved. You can trust that they are preparing for the visit as much as you are. We share a common goal: literacy engagement. By the time the author visit arrives, the whole school will be buzzing in anticipation, and afterward the enthusiasm will last for weeks. That is the value of an author visit.
This weekend, we cut down a tree in our yard to make space for a new fence.
I knew this work was happening, yet when I pulled into the driveway and saw the tree trunk lying there on the lawn, limbs chopped away and leaves stripped, my heart dropped a little bit. This wasn’t an old tree, or even one we had planted. It was just a young tree that had taken root on its own, and sadly in the wrong spot.
Still, it hurt to cut the tree down, as it hurts to end any life, even that of an ant or a fly. I wasn’t the kind of child who killed insects arbitrarily. Usually, I sought to re-home them, returning them to where they belonged and myself to where I belonged so that we could each live on in harmony, our worlds separate and yet part of a greater whole.
What’s interesting about the idea of re-homing or relocating is that it can be applied to writing. When we write, we don’t usually put the words in the right order the first time. And yet, it can feel as bad as cutting down a tree to erase some of our hard-fought words. It’s very hard to throw your work away.
Childhood me would say it doesn’t have to be that way.
What if instead of erasing, instead of deleting or removing or throwing away, we just re-homed our words? Relocation is so much more palatable than extermination.
Removing a part of your work is still difficult no matter what you do with the words, but in the instance of relocation the pain seems to diminish. It’s not quite so gutting to take your words and place them aside, in a file or a pile or a folder where you know they will live on safely while you move forward in your own space, the space you have made within your work for improvement by setting the old words aside.
This spring, as we bring in the new, consider (rather than throwing away), setting aside the old for a later date or another time, even if that time may never come. Sometimes freedom is not in the outcome of our actions, but in the act of breaking away.
Sometimes, all we need is a bit of space in order to gain a fresh perspective.
Every author dreams of making a meaningful connection with their readers. We crave the phrases that make your hearts clench, that stir your deepest fears and unleash your wildest hopes. What is the point of reading if not to FEEL? As a reader, I feel deeply. As an author, I strive to make my readers feel deeply, too, but communicating a meaningful observation about the human experience is not just a matter of heart–it’s a question of writing craft.
While there are many aspects of writing craft that help the reader connect with a story–voice, clarity, and meter, to name a few–today I’d like to discuss truth, and how delivering a story that rings true entices the reader to fall in love. Our hearts seek truth. In life, that’s our common goal: truth in purpose, in love, and in legacy. Without truth our victories ring hollow and our accomplishments feel thin.
The same is true of stories.
Truth in fiction requires all the complexity and nuance of life. If we leave our stories less than fully rendered, they cannot deliver the same gut-rending impact of real life events. It is our goal to make our stories connect, but how? In order to generate the sensation of truth in a fictional work, we need many different ingredients of story craft working together to create a semblance of reality. For me, the key components of this reality are specificity (or detail), originality, and complexity.
Specificity
Think of what you ate for breakfast. Say you had an English muffin. It’s easy to dilute your action into a simple expression such as, “I had an English muffin for breakfast,” but that’s not particularly engaging to read, now is it? We know the facts, but only at the summary level. There is nothing specific about this action that compels us to care about what you had for breakfast. Our hearts are not inspired.
If instead, we heard about how chilly the kitchen tiles were beneath your bare feet, and how you sat opposite another place-setting, its plate empty but for a scant coating of dust, we begin to wonder. We’re comforted by the warmth of each buttery bite of English muffin, but we sense an underlying sadness from that empty place. What happened to you? What is your story?
As soon as you have the reader asking questions, you’ve got them. They ask because they care. When the heart is engaged, we can’t help worrying, wondering, and waiting. Our hearts demand answers. In order to give them to your readers, you must first get them to ask the questions by including meaningful detail in each moment of the story. If your moment has no meaningful detail, cut it. We only wish to read that which engages our hearts fully and leaves us turning the pages in search of answers. Meaningful details make a scene come to life. Without them, our story is no more real than a cardboard cutout.
These details about Finley’s father give him a specific and very real identity. He is a human being composed of a million odd parts, and here, Legrand gives us one to latch onto. Now we know him, and once known to us, we cannot help but care about him.
Originality
I’ve been reading Cheryl Klein’s amazing writing craft book, The Magic Words, and in it she talks about how important imagination is to a writer’s craft. Imagination is flexibility. It is surrendering oneself to creativity with the full knowledge that you will fail many, many times before you succeed. It is knowing that you will feel pain, frustration, sorrow, and fear from those many failures, and that when the answer comes, it may be with a greater measure of relief than true joy. The imagination is a fickle, dangerous thing. It takes a brave writer to use it, and use it well.
I’ve shared this video from John Cleese many times, but it always warrants sharing again! Have a laugh and a listen. My favorite quote: “Creativity is not a talent; it is a way of operating.”
The first time I listened to this video, I was gobsmacked by Cleese’s underlying message that creativity is a tolerance for failure–literally a tolerance for that twisting, anxious uncertainty that fills your gut when you’re searching for an answer.
The people who generate the most creative answers are very good at getting themselves into a particular mood in order to access their imagination, and then tolerating that awful sensation until they solve the problem at hand. This tolerance is the only thing that will get you to truly unique, original ideas. This matters because ideas that strike the reader as unique also ring with truth.
Ideas that we’ve seen many times before are cliche. They’re stereotypes. They’ve got a negative connotation that’s impossible to shake no matter how strong your voice or meter is. Fresh ideas, however, engage the reader’s imagination. They offer something new, something to understand and learn from–they offer new truths about the world that we have not yet discovered, and there is nothing more exciting for readers than discovery. After all, it is our life’s work to discover the truths of our existence.
Much the same way that detail makes a character or scene come alive, originality allows a premise to flourish in the reader’s mind. An original premise, an original expression of metaphor (see Lindsay Eager’s Hour of the Bees), an original turn of phrase, an original emotional insight, or an original connection to a commonly held belief–these fresh moments enthrall the reader and make it impossible for them to turn away.
Complexity
Let’s go back to that English muffin from this morning. Details allow us to connect with this breakfast in a particularly meaningful way, but we can get even more mileage from this scene if we understand the layers of decision-making that led to it. It’s easy to get caught up in plot and end up with a story that reads A to B to C and so on, but without much real excitement no matter how daring the plot points are. Telling a story is not about describing a sequence of events, but showing your character’s choices as they move through the events.
Did I choose to eat the English muffin even though it’s the last one in the fridge and my husband will likely lose his temper and possibly strangle me for it? That’s a much more important breakfast than before. Similarly, if eating the English muffin reminds me of someone I’ve lost but I do it anyway, my choice is a mix of joy and pain, which is both contradictory and true.
Choices ARE messy. They don’t happen in an instant–even in an instant, half a dozen thoughts can tear through a character’s mind. Their choices aren’t simple. They’re complex. The reader needs to SEE this complexity in order to feel the character’s truth, because no human makes quick, clean choices and no character should either.
Here’s another example from Some Kind of Happiness:
Here, we see Finley’s full range of reasoning as she decides whether or not to visit the Everwood, the imaginary forest that has become real at her grandparent’s home, and is 100% off-limits. Finley doesn’t hide her thoughts from us. She confesses. She shares her deepest secrets. We see her worries about getting caught for breaking the rules. We see her concern for her cousin. We see her burgeoning desire to be someone needed and loved purely for what makes her unique. These truths all feed into her decision, and by showing them to us, Legrand wins our hearts.
My favorite rule of thumb to generate complexity within a character’s choices is to follow this pattern of decision-making:
First, the character feels. Then they think of their options. They anticipate what might happen if they make the wrong choice (or the right one). And finally, they make their decision.
This doesn’t mean that we need to see each of these steps with each choice our character makes–that would result in a novel far too long and tedious to capture anyone’s heart! Instead, pick the KEY moments. Where does your character need to reveal a deep fear? A wild hope? A secret desire? Allow us to peek behind the curtain of your character’s choices and we will feel the warm blush of a friend sharing a secret.
When a character trusts us, we care for them. We root for them.
As 2016 draws to a close, I have a lot to be thankful for. At the beginning of the year, I started an accomplishment jar. This is where I’ve captured a lot of the special moments from this year, so I can revisit them in the future. I’m grateful for every single one.
Thank you to the amazing educators who shared THYME’s story. You are wonderful and necessary and your work matters SO much.
Thank you to the dozens of classrooms I have visited via Skype across the country.
Thank you to the schools who kindly hosted me and the kids who asked such great questions. There is nothing like speaking to a room full of eager book nerds.
Thank you to the festival and #nErDcamp organizers who work so tirelessly to bring books and authors to their communities.
Thank you to the readers. My heart swells three sizes with every note.
Thank you to the libraries. You are essential.
Thank you to the independent book stores. You are the heartbeat of our communities.
Thank you to my writing family. You were the friends I needed before I knew that I needed you.
Thank you to the brave authors who continue to stand for what is good and true in this world. I am proud to stand with you.
Thank you to everyone who supported me this year. Writing is a team sport, and I couldn’t have done it without you. I wish you all the best in 2017!
Whenever I get into a discussion with fellow fans of middle grade books, talk quickly turns into a love fest. We can barely breathe for scrambling to say all of the things we love about reading this special category of books.
It’s so genuine! There’s honesty and sadness and hope and humor! Middle grade hits the sweet spot in growing up! It’s so . . . SPECIAL.
I couldn’t agree more with that last one. Middle grade IS special. I think for us grownup readers, middle grade harkens back to a particularly resonant time in our childhoods. It is during the middle grade years (8-12 years old) that we get our first glimpse of the real world. Our first big heartbreaks. Our first brush with mortality. Our first considerations and worries about the future.
It’s not that younger readers or kids don’t share these same moments, but there’s something about that age–6th grade in particular–where the training wheels come off and you are facing the world less as a child of your parents and more as an individual. It takes many years for that transformation to be fully complete, but the rush of hormones and middle school ushers it in with a bang.
That’s why there will always be a special place in my heart for middle grade stories. They are some of my all time favorites: The Secret Garden, The BFG, Where the Red Fern Grows, Charlotte’s Web, When You Reach Me, One for the Murphys, and SO many more.
As part of a 2016 debut author group called the Sweet Sixteens, I’ve had the privilege of reading many 2016 middle grade titles ahead of time, and honestly, I’m impressed. The middle grade fiction coming in 2016 offers such a range of story content and such a high level of writing craft that I’m beyond proud to share the debut shelf with these authors. I am grateful.
If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming 2016 middle grade debuts, we have a series of flyers that will introduce you to the titles. Here’s the first one! Happy reading, everyone!
Many strange and wonderful things have happened in the past few weeks: I received ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) of Counting Thyme (!!!!), I took my kiddos out of the country for the first time, and at the end of that trip, I broke my foot.
That progression felt quite literally like the kind of rising action and climax from a novel. Now I’m left in bed, foot propped, medicine cutting off all functionality for stretches of time…but I’m also thinking a lot in between. I am a person who asks WHY.
Why do these words of mine look so different in book form? Why did we end up taking a two-day detour through Atlanta and Miami to get out of the country? Why did that bone in my foot snap?
I swear, all I did was take a step!
Well, that right there is the answer, I think. I took a step. That’s what we do every day in life. We move forward, and what happens next isn’t always what we expect. We write a book only to rewrite it twenty times. We forget that our children need passports too and end up spending the day at the World of Coca-Cola while those passports are printed. We break a bone and spend the hours waiting for it to heal as all the petty concerns fall away, leaving us somehow happier.
My busted foot
In life, as in writing, sometimes you have to break a thing before you can fix it.
When something breaks, we despair. We resist. We fight. And sometimes, we save ourselves–to a degree–but there’s often a moment of surrender. There is opportunity in that moment.
I like to think of this as the magical point when clouds part and the sun breaks through, bright and glowing and overwhelming–pure sensory overload. Surrender feels like that to me. Like I’m suddenly cut loose, awash in light, moorless but not lost. Instead, I’ve stepped into a more open space, a space where I can catch my breath and a glimpse of clear blue sky before the clouds close in again.
I’ve experienced this moment many times while writing. Often there are tears and yelling. I tend to yell when I’m at the house, working by myself. All of that fight and energy is me resisting letting go. When I finally do, instead of feeling like I’m drowning, I usually feel relief. Inevitably, the answers come soon after that. I think the letting go allows me to be more honest with myself about what matters in a story and what doesn’t–about what truths I am avoiding because I’m afraid I can’t fix them, and what changes I’m avoiding because they don’t ring true at all.
Me, breaking things
Truth is the goal we’re seeking in all of this.
We want our stories to resonate, to latch onto readers’ hearts and give them a squeeze. Sometimes, those truths become buried in all of the work we’ve done. That’s where the breaking comes in. We break what we’ve worked so hard to achieve, and when it heals, it comes back stronger. Better. Infinitely better than if it had never been broken in the first place.
One of the cool (read: terrifying) things about writing is that you’re always striking out into uncharted territory. You might be on the road to publication and enduring the sinking-swimming sensation of querying or the ulcer-inducing reality of being on submission. Or you might just be writing, which is in itself gut wrenching enough, with the constant push to improve your craft and find your heart.
That bit about finding your heart is perhaps the most challenging.
I’m a firm believer that anyone can learn the craft of writing with enough study and practice. Writing is a skillset. That skillset can be enhanced by what we call talent–a natural propensity for the skillset–but writing is still just a learned skill. We all start out tracing letters and filling in blanks. Where we go from there varies. Some of us discover a passion for story early on, while others take a while to get there. The idea, though, is that at some point, it’s not our minds but our hearts that demand we write.
You hear a lot of writers talk about the “story of their heart.” I think that phrase is a bit misleading, because there’s not just one story of your heart. Just as you can love multiple people, or pets, or flavors of ice cream, you can love different stories. The key, though, is figuring out how to tap into that love in the first place.
When you’re early in the journey of writing craft, many stories call to you. If the puzzle pieces fit together, you’re hooked. They key is understanding that you might just be hooked on the fact that the story works, and not the content itself. That’s okay. That’s how you learn. That’s also how you end up querying a book that doesn’t pan out, or going on sub and coming up short. Your early passion for writing is productive, but it can lack that zing of emotional heart.
How do we tap into our own hearts?
I attended a workshop with Meg Rosoff last fall that keeps bouncing around in my head whenever I think about this topic. She talked about the unconscious mind, and how it holds onto the things that matter to us, the things that resonate in our emotional cores. It follows that tapping into your heart requires tapping into your unconscious mind.
There are lots of different ways to tap into your unconscious mind, the center of you. Some of them are as easy as shutting your eyes and allowing your mind to wander. In yoga, we call this shavasana. You assume a comfortable position and sit still. You shut your eyes, and listen to your breath. In and out, in and out. When the grocery list pops into your mind, you acknowledge it and send it away. You try to only hear your breath, think of your breath, and let your muscles sink into the earth. Your mind will slow down. It will start to wander. And after a while (it’ll feel like ages but only be about 5-7 minutes) little blips of light will pop through. These blips, these random thoughts, are your subconscious talking to you. By actively releasing your conscious mind, the boss who runs all the things, you allow those inner thoughts to come forward. When you reach this state, ask yourself: what matters to me? You’ll likely be overwhelmed by the emotion that surfaces.
For some people, this emotional release occurs when running or walking. For others, when they recount their dreams or listen to music. Give yourself the time and space to tap in. Practice it regularly. You will gain better access to your emotional core, and all of the distractions will fall away. Once those distractions are gone, you’ll know what matters to you. Is it the video of a police beating that went unprosecuted? Is it the memory of your grandmother? Is it the struggle of your oldest child, who cannot sit still, who won’t tell you their secrets any more, and who you fear for in the worst of ways?
There are things that matter, and there are things that MATTER. Find the things that matter to you. Follow them into uncharted territory to find the heart of your stories.
I just had the incredible fortune to attend the Writer Unboxed UnConference, a unique gathering of writers in Salem, Massachusetts for a week long study of writing craft. I’ve attended several conferences in the past few years, but this one was like no other. Our entire focus, every single day, every session, was on craft alone. No pitching. No marketing. Nothing but WRITING.
Yeah, it was pretty much heaven.
Now that I’ve had a few days to decompress from taking in all of that information, I wanted to throw out a few notes on the theme that connected nearly all of the craft sessions: focusing on STORY.
It’s super easy to misconstrue plot for story, so that’s the first bit of info to note. According to the brilliant Lisa Cron (highly recommend her book WIRED FOR STORY):
Story is how what happens effects someone in pursuit of a difficult goal.
Plot is HOW that happens.
Story is change. It is the Inner Journey. It must be defined to choose a plot.
Plot is externalization. It is the Outer Journey. The specifics are flexible. In a way, it doesn’t MATTER what your plot is, only how it creates a sense of meaning and journey of change.
If you’re anything like me, it’s a relief to think this way. It’s a relief to LET GO OF PLOT. To know that what matters is nailing the emotional journey of your character, especially in the first draft. Now, of course I believe that certain external specifics are better choices than others, in terms of suiting your themes, maximizing your conflict, and maintaining the pace of your story.
How to put this connection into action?
There are two opportunities: before you write, and during revision. Before you write, it’s key to identify the core elements of your STORY.
What is your character’s emotional arc over the course of the story? How do they start out? How do they change by the end? Even if you have zero clue about the plot mechanisms that will get you to your conclusion, you need to have this transformative process in mind for your characters. Note, that’s ALL of your characters. Ask yourself the same questions about your secondary characters. Let them star in their own complicated stories. If you begin drafting with some of this character backSTORY in mind, you’ll tap into the heart of the story more effectively.
Notice how I capitalized part of backSTORY? That’s because I see so many worksheets asking ten million questions about character traits that honestly don’t teach you much about your characters. Instead of figuring out their favorite flavor of ice cream, ask the heavy questions: what happened in your character’s past that changed his or her life? How was this moment a turning point in your character’s life? How did this event leave your character with a false self image, a falsity that they will not shed until they complete the journey in your narrative? Dig in for the tough stuff, and you’ll have your backSTORY.
Once you hit revision, you have another chance to evaluate your PLOT choices.
Look at the progression of the overall character arc, and examine the effectiveness of each subplot and scene. Do all of your choices support your core story? Is there a way to increase the conflict by choosing a different inciting moment? By shifting to a new quest or subplot? By changing the setting and characters present in a scene?
Once you have a draft to work with, you can hone in on the right plot choices, the ones that increase tension and raise stakes. Remember, changing your plot choices is OKAY. Your plot is just a series of steps from point A to point B. You can change those steps out for a yellow brick road. You can cut through the woods instead of following the stream. You really can steer that path where you want it to go, because plot is a function of STORY–and YOU are the storyteller.
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Have students prepare questions for the author ahead of time. This can be a fun activity where each class votes on their preferred questions as a group. Be sure to connect with the author on social media to build enthusiasm and post information about the upcoming visit where parents and staff will see the news and in e-blasts. Some schools even invite parents to come to the author’s presentation, which makes a nice full-circle moment for families.
