WWYWWQ #12

Today's questions come from Ms. Jurkowski's third class. These are the last two left as next week is a guest author posting and then school will be out shortly. I hope to gather some questions over the summer to start back in September after Labor Day for the WWYWWQ blogs again.

D.G. asks: How do you come up with so many books?

Answer: (I think I've addressed this before) The ideas are all around us. For me, it was winning second place on my first ever contest submitted piece of writing. That one story spurned on the idea of a state series, which obviously will be a 50-book series. All my short stories have come about from contests and have placed first, second, third, runner up or have been selected for an anthology. Finally Home came about from a vision and then after writing the original story, I did a complete rewrite. I'm in the process of writing a novel that was inspired by several pictures from an interactive creative writing prompt site; the trick will be tying all the pictures that spoke to me originally together in one story. The story won't be illustrated but I think I can describe the pictures well enough when they appear in the story. It's an illusion basically.

The object is to write something everyday and before you know it you too will have several or many books. Thanks for the question, D.G. and keep on writing.

The second question comes from D.J. D.J. asks: How do you plan your writing?

Answer: This goes to outlining or not outlining in my case. Writers are either planners or pantsers. By this, you can take an idea and storyboard or outline until you think you can write it or you can take the idea and just write what comes to mind. Having written several stories by the seat of my pants, the problem you tend to come up against is not developing the story or knowing your characters well enough to really write their story. On the other side of the coin, there are definite times you have to be a pantser such as when writing short stories for contests or anthologies. Most of these type of stories aren't afforded time to get to know your characters or the plot of the story. Since all of my short stories were written for contests, except the one that was selected to appear in an anthology, I basically was on the contest's deadlines and themes.

The story I'm working on now, Imogene: Innocence Lost, I've done a tentative outline from the pictures to help guide me from the pictures through the story. I also sent the sequence of events (which is what your outline basically is) to my editor so she knows how the story is supposed to progress.

For my state stories, I don't really outline but I don't really write them by the seat of my pants per se. The process for these stories is a little different. The whole idea behind the stories is to present facts in the form of clues for my readers and the characters to guess the state. So, the process goes like this: 1) Research - this is completed for all the state stories; 2) Clue picking - since I have my research completed, I have to go through all the factoids or trivia information and decide which 25 will be the most fun to read about and to write around; 3) Once clues are placed, I send to my editor and illustrator for a title to the story. Since the title is also a clue to the state, I tend to write the story around the clues and the title. This also gives my illustrator a heads up of what I want on the cover and helps her start working on the interior illustrations; 4) Place clues in an order that allows a bit of a challenge to the readers but aren't too difficult for those who are familiar with the state. Since the characters playing the game in the stories hardly go back to previous clues and all their "interactions" are based on the current given clue from the game, I don't want the clues to come across as too difficult or too easy right up front. I do try to progress from more difficult clues down to easy clues, so that the readers have a chance of guessing the state early on, somewhere in the middle or even as late as the last clue. The 25th clue will be something the state is known for, usually something everyone would think of that state immediately. The 26th clue is the state flower and geographic center of the state. The 27th clue is the state bird and state capital. 5) Write story - this can be the tricky part sometimes but for the most part, I just start off with some dialogue, which places my characters either at school, the park, the library, at home, or somewhere in their town, which is basically an Anywhere, USA. This is my jumping off point and once I've decided who is playing the game, sometimes I'll have them make small wagers to see who can guess the state first and sometimes they will just play the game. They discuss each clue as it is presented and move on. 6) Edit/revise - once the story is written, I go through it the first time to make sure it makes sense and then I send to my editor for her feedback so I can then revise and send back to her for all the final edits. 7) Publish story - once I've finished all my edits, I send the completed story to my illustrator who then places all the illustrations in the proper place and then she formats the book so that it is in the correct format for the printing process. Once I have those files back, I upload them on createspace.com and do my interior review and then wait to see if the book meets their specifications and then order a proof copy. Sometimes, if there are noticeable problems on the interior review, I let my illustrator know so she can fix them before I get to order the proof copy. Once I have the proof copy in hand and I've gone through it to make sure everything is as it is supposed to be, I then release the book so that it is available everywhere.

So, D.J., as you can see there are several ways to "plan" your writing, and the only advice I can give you is that you need to use the method that works for the story at hand as each story will be different for you. Some will require that you outline or write the key plot elements out, timelines, character maps, et cetera while others will be written to someone else's specifications and may not allow you the time to outline so you would basically have to write by the seat of your pants. Others still will mean you have to research first before taking a direction for the story to go. Keep writing and try different methods for different types of stories.

I would like to thank Mr. Hughes' sixth grade class and Ms. Jurkowski's third grade class for participating in my Wednesdays Weekly Young Writers Writing Questions. You all have provided some interesting questions along the way. Good luck in all your writing projects. Mrs. E :)

WWYWWQ #2

Today's question comes from M.J. in Mr. Hughes' class.

How do you determine when to make chapters?

The answer is: This is a very subjective thing. Each writer decides where to make one chapter end and another begin.

WritersDigest.com suggests three tips for determining where to place chapters.

1. Focus on your writing first. Don't worry about chapter breaks immediately but if while writing your story you feel you need a break, place a # (this is obviously for typed mss) to make note of a possible break. After you have finished writing the story, do a search for all the # and decide if that really is a chapter break or just a break within the chapter. If it is a chapter break, page break it there and move on to the next one. If it is a short break, put three or four #'s centered on the page so that you know it's still part of the chapter.

In my short story, "Butterfly Halves", I use #'s instead of chapters but I'm also showing you that there are two persons in parallel lives that need to be incorporated. Every time I put one of the #'s, I knew I was switching which girl's life I was talking about.

2. Break when your story requires a shift. When you change place, time, and points of view (we were discussing POV in class when this question came up), it's a good rule of thumb to make a new chapter.

In my story Finally Home, my first chapter is only 2 pages long; it starts in the car with Kelly and her parents traveling to their new place. The second chapter begins with them at the new place and unpacking the car. Since I did a scene change, I started a new chapter.

3. Break chapters in the heart of the action. These are the cliffhangers, make you keep turning the page chapter endings. You can't stop reading because you have to find out what happens.

I'm not sure I have any cliffhanger chapters in any of my stories, but I have a feeling when I get further on Imogene's story, that there will be some chapters like this because I've already had a few thoughts about something happening and leaving it there and moving to the next scene, place or whatever. I've read quite a few stories that use this technique and it's really effective. I've had to read straight through to find out what happens.


Good question, M.J., and thanks for giving me something to blog about. Check back every Wednesday except the fourth Wednesday of the month for another student's question for the WWYWWQ. See you all in the postings - Mrs. E :)

WEDNESDAY WEEKLY YOUNG WRITERS WRITING QUESTION (WWYWWQ)

From a student in Mr. Hughes' sixth grade class - How do you write onomatopoeia?

While working with Mr. Hughes' sixth grade class during writing time today, one of the students asked how she would write onomatopoeia - like the sound of a doorbell or things like that. Being the resident author for the class, Mr. Hughes threw the question my way. I've seen it written several ways, ALL CAPS or italicized usually with an exclamation mark following. I answered the young lady by saying that italics were frowned upon or using them extensively, so told her to put them in all caps. While they were working on their writing projects, I decided to do a little research. This is what I found, specifically the section about italics, number 5.

I did share this with Mr. Hughes and while I was reading it, I tried to think of an example of when I had used onomatopoeia in my writing. It came to me - in my short story "The Proposal". I start out with frogs ribbitting. Italicized and an exclamation point following. Ribbit! Ribbit!

Now you know the answer to the question. If it is at the beginning of the sentence, it would be capitalized or if it stands alone like I did and italicized. If it is within a sentence structure, you would italicize the "sound". An example they gave was like machine gun firing - you would write it as rat-a-tat-tat.

So how do you write onomatopoeia in your stories? Mrs. E :)

If you teach a writing class or have a writing club and would like your students' questions answered, please forward them to me at eeldering (at) gmail (dot) com. It's okay to send several questions at a time as I will be doing a "Wednesday Weekly Young Writers Writing Question" posting every week. I will not use students' names, but if you give me their initials, I can do that as well as the teacher's name (example E.E. in Mr. Hughes' class ask: ...) that is how my postings will go.

Keep checking my blog weekly for a new question and response. E :)

Wiffiti

Q: Wiffiti?
A: Wi-Fi/graffiti

Okay, it's a funny sounding name and probably hasn't made the rounds yet but according to SLJ's article "Cell phones in the classroom? Wiffiti says yes," this new method of using cells phones in the classroom (for educational purposes, not just to have them in the class) is the new and upocming thing. For more, check out the article by clicking the linked SLJ's above.

I checked out Wiffiti's site a little and I can see this being used for brainstorming, especially in a writing class or even, as one teacher used it for, as help tool for foreign language classes.

There are probably as many uses for cell phones in the classroom as there are schools and teachers. Check it out and see what you think. I'd love to hear some of your opinions on this. Leave a comment - E :)