writing tips

Why You Should Take Notes When You Laugh

People ask where ideas for books (or scenes within books) come from. I think one of the most important things to do is very simple: Pay attention when you laugh. If you are sharing an anecdote or a family story with a friend, and you’re laughing about it, that means there’s some gold to mine in that story.

The Naked Mole-Rat Letters

For example, when talking with other parents about the trials of parenting teens, I would often retell the story of my brother-in-law literally taking the bedroom door of my teenage nephew off the hinges to force more transparency into the household. We’d laugh over it. Then when it came time for the father in my The Naked Mole-Rat Letters to do something radical to show his daughter than he wanted her to stop lying and hiding, he went for the power screwdriver. The scene had humor, truth, and heart…all because of that detail.

Mary Amato’s Tips for Teachers: How to Encourage Creative Writing

Children have a lot of writing assignments in school. Often, time for creative writing is squeezed out of the curriculum. If you are a teacher who wants to introduce/encourage more creative writing, here are some ideas. Please email me at info@maryamato.com if you have ideas you’d like to share.

Keep a Writer’s Notebook. See my Tips for Keeping a Writer’s Notebook for more info.

Create a Writer’s Corner. Stock it with pencils, paper, materials for making mini-books, a mirror for looking at facial expressions (in order to be able to describe them), a phone book or baby naming book for character name ideas, and more. Encourage kids to write a poem or story during free time. Encourage kids who are upset about something to write about it.

Try a “collaborative” journal with your class. In my book, Please Write in This Book, the teacher leaves a blank book in her room asking students to please write in it.

Be open to “silly” writing. Students may be inspired to write a story that you think is ridiculous or silly. Remember, creative writing is not about creating something perfect or something necessarily profound. Be open and encourage creativity, and the child will want to keep writing.

Encourage all kinds of writing. Stories, poems, songs, plays, cartoons, comics, etc.

Allow reluctant writers to dictate to you or a volunteer/assistant. Be a scribe, not an editor. Use the child’s exact words.

Embrace and encourage mistakes. The goal is to increase creative fluency and make writing fun. Save the grammar and spelling lessons for later. The truth is that my rough drafts are riddled with mistakes. I’m pushing myself to get something down without trying to edit as I go…children should be allowed to have the same writing process.

Ask questions if the student gets stuck. What is the story or poem about? If it’s a story, who is your main character and what does your main character want?

Talk it through one sentence at a time. If the student has trouble organizing or keeping track of thoughts, ask him/her to tell the story aloud one sentence at a time. Write down one sentence at a time.

Write yourself. Model enthusiasm by writing and sharing your own creative stories and poems– especially your “mistakes” or the ones that didn’t turn out as well as you’d like or the ones that you’re having trouble finishing.

Encourage the child to use his/her own voice. Rather than trying to “be poetic,” or to cram lots of big words into a story, it’s important for a child to learn to capture his/her own voice.

Create venues for sharing writing.

Have a “literary reading” and invite friends and family
Create podcasts of work
Publish work on a website
Encourage students to submit to writing contests.
Establish a young author’s club
Hold a Young Authors celebration, publishing and sharing books

Try “dialogue journals” between students. Link students who enjoy writing by encouraging them to write to each other by passing a designated notebook back and forth.

Give the gift of the written word. Model meaningful writing. Write real, meaningful messages to your class in your own voice on special days or for special events. No hallmark cards. Say what is really in your heart. This will make a big impression.

Create special “Everybody Writes” Sessions. Help kids to get in the mood by playing an unusual piece of music, lighting a candle (if your school allows this), dimming the lights, asking everybody to sit in a different seat, etc.

Shake things Up. Ask your students to get their creative juices moving by first dancing to an awesome piece of music and getting their bodies moving. Then sit down to write…

For encouraging story writing, use my WOW story technique to get started.

What is a WOW story?

WOW is an acronym that I created to help kids remember a simple story structure.

The story has a main character who Wants something. This is the beginning of the story.
There is an Obstacle that gets in the way of the main character. This is the middle of the story.
The main character either Wins or loses. This is the end of the story.

How to make up WOW stories

Choose a main character. This can be a person, an animal, or even an object: for example, a boy, a grandmother, a soccer star, a sock, or a paintbrush!
Decide what the main character wants. What might a paintbrush want? Some paint to play with? To belong to a famous artist? Try unexpected ideas. A grandmother might want to ride a motorcycle!
Decide what will get in the way of the main character’s desire. Brainstorm lots of obstacles and decide which one is the most fun or engaging. Obstacles can be simple. A rabbit wants to eat grass on a hillside, but a tiger lives on that hillside. The tiger is the obstacle. A boy wants a new bike, but his father says no. His father is the obstacle. Obstacles can also be emotions. What if a girl wants to ice skate, but she is afraid that she’ll fall down? Fear is her obstacle.
Decide how/if the main character will “win or lose.” Does your main character get what he or she wants in the end? How?

Write or perform WOW stories

Write or dictate your story: Write your stories on paper. Or make a book by folding pages and stapling them together. If your child hasn’t learned how to write yet, ask him or her to tell you the story and write it down word for word.

Act your story out: For reluctant writers, try acting out the story first. After you have brainstormed the basics for a specific WOW story using the steps above, act out the story. Choose a narrator who will tell the story and provide cues for the actors. This can be the job of the parent or a child. The narrator should be very clear and say “The End” so that everyone knows when the story is over. After acting out stories, the child may be more interested in writing them down.

Getting Out of the Way

“I don’t know [expletive] about words. The reason the language comes out that way is, it’s me just trying to get out of the way.” This provocative quote from Irish playwright Enda Kenny (from a recent Washington Post article by Peter Marks) speaks to an important concept that I am continually stressing to students. Writing is about ideas; words serve the story. Too much writing instruction and critique-group feedback focus on the superficial level of the sentences. A fiction writer who is too conscious about constructing beautiful or clever sentences puts his/her mind into the inkwell of pen, instead of into the heart/mind/soul of the character, which is where it needs to reside in order to write a story.

What is the Weirdest Thing?

When Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief and editor-in-chief of One Story Magazine, gets bored writing, she doesn’t ask, “What happens next?” She asks herself this question: “What’s the weirdest thing that can happen right now?” At this year’s AWP conference, Tinti said that you don’t want weirdness for the sake of weirdness, but pushing yourself to think outside your own box can help move your story forward.

Procrastination

Do you procrastinate? Here’s a clever solution. According to James Surowiecki in his New Yorker article on procrastination, Victor Hugo would write in the nude and tell his valet not to give him any clothes until he finished for the day. Of course, in order for such a plan to work, one would need a valet. What are your tricks for avoiding procrastination?

The Writer’s Notebook: Don’t Leave Home Without It!

“Inside Sedaris’s left shirt pocket, he keeps an omnipresent notebook, a little spiral-bound one, in which he writes down everything that happens that might later be of use. If he walks out of the house and realizes he’s forgotten it, he turns around and goes home. “I might see a worm attacking a centipede. I might see a bumper sticker,” he says. “I don’t know how to turn off that part of myself that exploits everyone and everything that I come into contact with.”

I love this juicy bit from Monica Hesse’s article about writer David Sedaris in The Washington Post (October 4, 2010). When I’m doing school visits, I tell kids that if they see me on the street, they should stop me and ask me if I have my writer’s notebook-that’s because I always have it with me. Wouldn’t go to the grocery store without it, which is why I like pocket-sized notebooks. Writers are essentially spies.

The Need for Obstacles

One of the recurring problems I see when I’m critiquing a story is the lack of an obstacle or nemesis. William Gibson calls it “the barrier” in his excellent book about writing titled Shakespeare’s Game. Something must get in the way of the main character’s yearning or else there is no tension and ultimately no climax. Writes Gibson: “…if Hamlet at once marches off to stab the King, what have we lost? –the play.”

It seems obvious and yet many writers create stories without an obstacle or nemesis. I do it myself. I get caught up with the main character and allow him or her free reign when I should be causing problem after problem for the poor thing. Only after a hundred pages or so, when I’m wondering why the story isn’t working, does it hit me. I’m being too nice.

We spend our lives trying to avoid creating obstacles for other people, so why should it come easy when we write? It’s scary to close the door on our main character’s desire; but if we do, if we dream up a fantastic barrier, then our hero will have to work hard to get what he or she wants, and therein will be the story.

Matilda on the Need for Humor

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.”