When students are having trouble with the beginning of a piece, they’re sometimes advised to think about what their character is feeling. Often, this means emotions. But the actual sense of touch can be effective too. This series of posts—Finding Your Beginning—offers tips for students on how to jump-start a scene through the senses. By… Read more »
Writing Tips
Story Bite 23: Finding Your Beginning Through Smell
Students often struggle with the beginning of a piece of writing. (So do many published authors as well.) This is the second series of posts—Finding Your Beginning—that offers tips for students on how to jump-start a scene through the senses. Using sensory elements can put the reader—and the writer—directly into a piece of writing. For… Read more »
Story Bite 22: Finding Your Beginning Through Sound
One of the most common questions I’ve heard from students about writing is how to find ideas to start a piece. They’re often told to start with action in the middle of a scene. But sometimes they can’t think of an action or a scene, and the ideas just won’t come. A scene is a… Read more »
Story Bite 21: Writing Symbols
Happy New Year! I hope everyone has a great year of writing ahead. Late in December, I had a lovely chat with a young reader and writer about a story she was working on. She’d come up with a great scenario and there were many places her story could go. Ever since, I’ve been thinking… Read more »
Story Bite 10: On Finding Your Idea
At a school talk I gave last month, I asked students to tell me their thorniest writing problems. What made writing hard for them? Was there anything I could do to help? One student told me that she loved writing but always had trouble starting: She struggled to find what to write about. She had… Read more »
Story Bite 9: On Character-Driven Beginnings
Happy New Year! For this story bite at the start of the year, we’re going to talk about one of the most important—and the most challenging—aspects of writing creative fiction or nonfiction: the beginning. Here’s a pic to start us off: my cat Flora, who is beginning (LOL) to fall asleep. Beginnings need to hook… Read more »
Year-End Writing Tips
These tips (which I first posted on Twitter tonight) are meant for people writing middle grade fiction. They come from discussions that I’ve had with my son about the books we’ve read and the books I’ve written. He’s an avid reader of middle grade fiction, and the first reader of every one of my books,… Read more »
These lilacs have the most glorious scent, but are pretty modest in their way. The former colleague I lost over the weekend to cancer would have liked them for both those reasons.
#flowers #grief #lilacs
It’s been a tough week. A moment with a few flowers can make a difference.
#flowers #azalea #springflowers