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Wild About Wired for Story

06 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by Miss Pat in Writing

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Lisa Cron, teaching writing, Wired for Story, writing tips

wired for story cover2

I have a whole shelf full of books about writing,from the Chicago Manual of Style to Stephen King’s On Writing. All of them are helpful, to one extent or another, and I often pull one out when I need some inspiration, or just a reminder that I’m not the only person who wrestled with the perennial issues of character, plot, story arc, pacing, etcetera, etcetera and so forth. Some of them have good advice, some of them are a bit off-the-wall and many of them tend to contradict each other. Like dieting, writing is a subject to which certain objective rules can be applied but the outcome of which is always subjective.

Most writers of writing books either expound on well-established truisms such as “show, don’t tell” or talk about what works for them, be it outlining or word-webbing or writing with a No.2 pencil on a Big Chief tablet. I prefer the second kind of book about writing because I love to know what makes people tick (which explains why I like to write), but neither type of advice is all that helpful for figuring out what the heck went awry between the story in my head and the one that ended up on paper.

Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron, is a horse of a different color. Drawing on her many years as an editor and writing instructor, she goes over familiar territory—the hook, plotting, character development, foreshadowing, etc.—in a refreshingly useful way. As she advocates that writers do in their stories, she not only gives good advice for how to improve a story, but also explains why to do so in terms of the way our brains work.

Did you know that humans are “hard-wired” for reading/listening to stories?  And a good story activates the same region of the brain that process input from our senses. In fact, to the brain, there’s not much difference between what we really experience and what we read.  Provided, that is, that the story not only grabs our attention but keeps us engaged by avoiding all kinds of pitfalls we writers are prone to—such as assuming the reader knows as much about our story as we do or wandering off on lovely, but surplus to requirements, tangents. A bad story is bad precisely because the necessary brain activation either doesn’t happen or isn’t sustained.

And, this is the real kicker for me, Cron gives useful advice for how to use this knowledge of brain science to deal with writing pitfalls both while planning a story and during revision. I am gearing up to tackle a major rewrite on my YA novel but have been dragging my feet because I have a pretty good sense of what its problems are but didn’t have a clear-cut idea of how to fix them. Now, thanks to Cron’s book, I have a much better idea of where to go from here.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. In the meantime, please check out her book and website at wiredforstory.com.

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River Writing–Going With the Writing Flow

12 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by Miss Pat in teaching creative writing, writing for children

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creative writing, plotting, teaching writing, writing for children, writing tips

river rafting1

I’m in the midst of rewriting a YA novel and was explaining how I was doing this to a friend of mine.

“I’m adding a new character to the first chapter, moving the last scene to the fourth chapter, ratcheting up my main character’s angst another notch or two and shifting the focus more solidly onto her throughout the story.”

My friend said she’d never realized what a fluid medium fiction writing is, which is very true.  Plotting a story is all about keeping the right flow going.  Just like taking a trip on a river raft, what readers want when they sit down to read a story is a memorable ride.

Here are four “River Writing” rules I use to improve my writing:

  • Start at the right place. A story starts when the raft slides into the water, not when the characters are home packing their wet sacks.  All good stories have a point-of-no-return, if not at the very beginning, then very near to it.  Start there.
  • Vary the scenes. A river ride is boring if it’s all placid water and exhausting  if it’s all rapids.  Both rafters and readers need a chance to catch their breath every so often and go “Wow, that was really something!” before the next stretch of white water hits them.
  • Avoid whirlpools. Learn to recognize and avoid those points in a story where the plot is going around and around and getting nowhere fast.  The way to handle a whirlpool is to get rid of the scene or chapter, hard as that may be to do.  If trashing it feels too harsh, save it in a folder.
  • End at the right place. This is as soon as the ride is over after many close calls.  A few pats on the back are fine, but don’t drag out the goodbyes.  If there are plans for a sequel, stop when a temporary dock has been reached but make sure there are ominous rumblings of more whitewater–or perhaps even a waterfall–ahead.

Happy river writing!

Teaching Writing–Taming the Fidgets

14 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by Miss Pat in Uncategorized

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balanced and barefoot, exercise, movement and brain development., taming fidgets, teaching writing

Image 

Okay. That was kind of a misleading title.  Why? Because taming the fidgets, at least the way most people do it–by telling the fidgeter to sit still, for god’s sake!–is a really bad idea.  Fidgeting is the body’s way of trying to establish better equilibrium.  This post at http://www.balancedandbarefoot.com/blog/the-real-reason-why-children-fidget explains why better than I can.  Read it now or read it later, but do, please, read it.  It’s important.

As the balanced and barefoot post infers, fidgeting is actually a good thing–if you pay attention.  It is the signal to stop trying to teach kids whose bodies need to move and DO SOMETHING PHYSICAL.  Get outside if you can.  If you can’t, at least have everyone stand up and march around the room.  Push all the desks to the walls and see who can do the best cartwheel.  Put on jazzy music and have a dance contest.  Do this FIRST, for at least fifteen or twenty minutes and THEN teach a lesson, give a writing prompt, etc.  I can pretty much guarantee students will have better concentration, more creativity and sharper writing skills if you do this one simple thing.  Why?  Because our brains aren’t in jars on a table, they’re in BODIES.  As the old Latin saying goes, Mens sana in corpore sano (A sound mind in a sound body). Therefore, reading, writing or anything else we do with our brains is a FULL BODY experience.  If the body is not “sana” from lack of exercise, the brain simply can’t function–can’t, not won’t.  Which is why ordering a student to stop fidgeting is worse than useless.   

And, that goes for us so-called grown-ups, too.  I’ve taken to setting a  timer to  remind myself to get up and move around at least five minutes every hour.  And, I make a point of going for a walk or bike ride (or, if the weather’s really crappy, putting on some fast music and shaking my booty) for at least a half hour a day.  Not always at the same time, and not always the same thing.  I’m not good at that kind of consistency.  I may take my grandson in his stroller to the park or I may ride my bike to the store, or I may go for a ramble with a friend.  But, I do something physical.  If I don’t, my writing is, frankly, crap.  If I’ve really been hitting the keyboard hard, I’ll take a whole day off and go for a hike in the mountains to balance the scales. The point is, it’s important to do something nice for your body on a regular basis, and what bodies like best is to MOVE. 

I just noticed that my foot is tapping as I type.  Time to go for a walk.  How about you?

What are some of your favorite ways to tame your own and/or your students’ fidgets?

 

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