Check out Poet Laura Shovan’s interview with me about Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook.
In Matilda, Roald Dahl’s characters discuss the need for humor in children’s books; Matilda begins:
“I think Mr. C.S. Lewis is a very good writer. But he has one failing. There are no funny bits in his books.”
“You are right there,” Miss Honey said.
“There aren’t many funny bits in Mr. Tolkien either,” Matilda said.
“Do you think that all children’s books ought to have funny bits in them?” Miss Honey asked.
“I do,” Matilda said. “Children are not so serious as grown ups and they love to laugh.”
If you want to learn something, one of the best ways to do it is to be conscious of what you are learning. That may sound ridiculously obvious, but life has a way of flooding the mind with too much information and sweeping the newly-learned or almost-learned stuff out to sea.
The best way for me to be conscious of what I’m learning is to literally write what I’m learning down. After every class that I teach (or take) I force myself to sit and write down at least one thing that I learned. Sometimes it’s easy; sometimes not. Usually, the act of writing helps realizations to occur.
I put myself through a course in humor writing by watching funny movies with an agenda: each time I watched, I had to write down at least one thing I learned about why it was funny.
If you’re taking a class, create a ritual for yourself (a mini notebook? a set of 3×5 cards? a dedicated blog?) to write down what you are learning.
One of the students in my Fiction for Young Readers class asked what she should focus on when she’s reading the novels I assigned.
First of all, I read for enjoyment, of course; but I do analyze books as I read, and I do it on two basic levels. Think of a house. You’ve got the individual planks of wood (those are sentences); and then you have the entire structure (the story). When I’m reading on the sentence level, I’m looking at the quality of the writing: fresh metaphors, rhythm, sentence construction. When I’m reading on the structure level, I’m thinking about whether or not the story works and how it was constructed.
On the story level, I analyze by asking myself questions: What is the heart of the story? If you boil it down to its most basic form, what is the story about? Try to define this in just one or two sentences. Usually, the heart of the story comes from looking at what your main character is yearning for and what gets in the way of him/her. This is basic Aristotle.
Then I look closely at the climax. Stories that work have climaxes that spring forth in an organic and inevitable way from the story’s heart. Identifying and analyzing how a writer moves from heart to climax is a simple and excellent way to get STORY into your bloodstream.
Some great books that emphasize the importance of understanding basic story structure:
William Gibson’s Shakespeare’s Game (yes, plays work the same way)
Darcy Pattison’s Novel Metamorphosis
illus by Ethan Long for Amato's Riot Brother series
I’m riding on the metro, writing up my syllabus for a graduate course that I’ll be teaching (Fiction for Young Readers) at Johns Hopkins University; and I’m working on my lesson called “Audience: Age and Gender” when two boys hop on. Their moms quickly take a seat and chat. Although plenty of seats are free, the boys (ages 8 or 9) stand on either side of a pole and engage in an epic, slow-motion battle.
“My finger weighs 45 pounds,” one boy says as he sets his finger on top of the other boy’s head.
Obligingly, the victim acts as if his head is being crushed, but he is not going down without a fight. “My finger is as sharp as the sharpest sword,” he exclaims and menacingly moves toward his opponent’s face.
“But my face is the thickest thing in the world!” the first boy replies.
A series of slow-motion jabs, punches, and wrestling moves come next.
“Sit down and be quiet,” one of the mother’s says.
While all types of behaviors can be seen across gender lines, I have no problem identifying typical boy behavior when I see it.
So, when I write, do I consciously write for boys or for girls? I think the answer is tied to character. The character drives the story and will ultimately speak to the audience. My Riot Brother series is about two inventive and fun-loving boys, and those books are filled with non-stop action and humor. They definitely appeal to your typical boy, but girls are in the Riot Bros fan club, too. And my new book is about a poetry-loving boy named Edgar Allan who is radically different from Orville and Wilbur Riot.
The important thing is to be a constant and conscious witness to the wide range of behaviors that kids exhibit. Bring your observations to your writing and you’ll achieve authenticity.
Teachers, if you can’t access youtube, try teachertube.
The characters in Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook write lots of funny poems. Download this pdf to discover how to write your own humorous poetry:
How to Write a Funny Poem by Mary Amato
“You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it’s going to be too difficult for grown-ups, you write it for children.”
Madeleine L’Engle
This great quote came to my attention from Melissa Henderson, Head of Children’s Services, The Glencoe Public Library, Glencoe, Illinois.