Seekerville: The Journey Continues

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was summoned out of retirement to fill in for the rest of the year after a teacher abruptly quit. The good news is I am loving the experience. The bad news is it leaves little time for writing.

However, sometimes my worlds align. This happened recently when we had an author visit to the classroom. The author, Sarah Scheerger, wrote a book called  Operation Frog Effect. It's a middle grade book about a fifth grade class told as journal entries their teacher assigned. My students loved the story and were so enthusiastic about the opportunity to ask the author questions.

I loved seeing their enjoyment, but I particularly appreciated Sarah's discussion of author's craft, so I thought I'd talk a little about that today.

Operation Frog Effect is told from NINE points of view. Eight of them are students and one is the teacher. Sarah did a really effective job of differentiating the characters, and she explained to the students how she did it.

One character is a girl named Emily. Sarah admitted that this character was most like her and the character's conflict was based on something she experienced in middle school. She used punctuation to develop Emily's character, using a lot of question marks to show her uncertain feelings and a lot of exclamation points to develop her girlish middle school character. As a middle school teacher, I definitely felt she nailed this character's personality and you felt her pain at her friendship troubles.

Kayley is the mean girl, but she's not a stereotypical mean girl. She is "doing it for Emily's own good" because she thinks Emily needs to make new friends (since her besties are going to a new school in September). She is also arrogant and condescending, thinking she knows better than her teacher. The author created this persona within one diary entry just with her word choice (which makes it really good for helping students to understand how word choice affects tone).

Sharon writes all her entries in verse.

Blake is an artist, so his entries are told in illustrated cartoon blocks.

Henry plans to be a movie writer/director, so his entries are all told in script form complete with stage directions

Cecelia has decided to write her journal entries as letters to her abuelita, so they are a mix of English and Spanish with glossary entries as she pretends to teach her abuelita English words. 

Kai has the fewest entries, but his are written as messages to the class frog (who jumps out of Blake's pocket in the opening scene and is adopted as a class pet). His are mostly updates on what is happening in the class.

Sarah was also really honest with the students about the difficulties of being an author and the uncertainties of a publishing life. She explained that for all her books that are published, she has at least again as many that were rejected, but she keeps writing because she loves it! She spoke about writing what she believes and how that sometimes comes into conflict with what publishers want.

As a writer, I am in awe of the creativity and work that was required to produce such a stunning array of characters. Just like I spoke about in my post last month, I am reminded that children's books can be a great source to study for writing tips.

I remember years ago someone imparting the advice that if you need to do research on something, start with books written for children. They'll give you the basics which might be as much as you need to know, but if not they will at least make the subject understandable so you can pursue it more easily.

I was reminded of that advice a few weeks ago when I picked up a book I am supposed to use with my Jr. High ELA classes. It's called How to Read Literature Like a Professor: For Kids.

Full confession - my husband bought a copy of the original How to Read Literature Like a Professor years ago. It sat on a shelf that I passed many times a day. I often thought I should read it. I never did. Now I wish I had.

As I was reading the children's version to prepare to teach lessons from it, I realized that many of the points made for children are a good craft reminder for writers.

The Amazon blurb says:

In How to Read Literature Like a Professor: For Kids, New York Times bestselling author and professor Thomas C. Foster gives tweens the tools they need to become thoughtful readers.

With funny insights and a conversational style, he explains the way writers use symbol, metaphor, characterization, setting, plot, and other key techniques to make a story come to life.

 As I read that, I was amused to think that some writers (like this one) may benefit from a reminder of what we are doing. 

I'll digress for a moment to talk education. As a teacher, I usually deplore the kinds of questions on standardized tests that ask about the author's purpose or author's craft. It seems futile to ask a 12 year-old to try to step inside the mind of an author to figure out what they were trying to accomplish. I could go on at length with some ridiculous examples, but that doesn't help us become better writers. The reason I bring it up is that this book, in helping students understand what a writer is attempting, can also help writers better understand what is behind many of the things we do intuitively. 

I really do believe that writers who are avid readers naturally absorb many of the tenets of storytelling.  But I also believe that it's good to sometimes stop and reflect on what we are doing and how we can do it better. This book actually helped me to be more aware of what I'm doing when I write. And if I'm aware, I can be more intentional.

Do you ever turn to children's books for research? 

Do you consciously use literary devices such as allusions, symbolism, metaphors, motifs, imagery, etc. when you write (or does it seep in there unconsciously)?

FYI - If you prefer an adult take on this, Here's a link to 45 Literary Devices and Terms That Everyone Should Know. 

 Last March I posted about Lisa Cron's Wired for Story and Story Genius. You can check that out here.

I mention that post again because last week I had the opportunity to attend a virtual workshop that Lisa Cron did for the FHL Writer's group.

If you weren't fortunate enough to catch that workshop, there are several versions online.

Joanna Penn with Lisa Cron

This presentation for the School of Visual Arts covers essentially the same things as the FHL workshop.

Lisa focuses on how to write better based on brain science. 

The key is her focus on STORY.

Lisa talks about how we use story to make sense of things. She posits that "story was more crucial to our evolution than our much touted and genuinely beloved opposable thumbs, because all  opposable thumbs do is let us hang on. Story tells us what to hang on to!"

Lisa goes on to talk about the importance of story in helping us to prepare for the unknown. More on that in a minute.

Don't you love how sometimes life just throws you things that are meant to go together? That happened to me with the Story workshop and a book I was reading called Once Upon a Wardrobe.

Perhaps you are familiar with Patti Callahan's Christy-winning novel Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbably Love Story of  Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis.

This week I was reading her luminous new novel called Once Upon a Wardrobe.

Once Upon a Wardrobe tells the tale of a young invalid named George who is fascinated/obsessed with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. George was born with a heart condition, and at 8 he has already exceeded predictions on how long he will live. His sister attends Oxford, and George wants her to find out where Narnia came from. Megs will do anything for her beloved brother, so she approaches C.S. Lewis to ask that crucial question. Rather than give a simple answer to her question, Mr. Lewis shares a series of stories from his life.

One of the things I loved about this book is that Megs is a mathematics student at Oxford. She is not a reader and has no clue about how stories can grip you. She thinks they are useless, unlike math and physics which provide all the answers. Her growing understanding and awe of story help us to also deepen our understanding of their power.

I don't want to give away too much of the story, but I want to point out how Patti, in pulling out C.S. Lewis's thoughts, gives us so much to think about with regard to our stories and what we are trying to accomplish. In her own way, the message she shares is very similar to what Lisa Cron is saying - stories matter. They help make us who we are. They help us make sense of things. 

There is a line in Once Upon a Wardrobe - 

I can't really understand my life without stories. They offer me...they offer all of us the truth in their myths, mysteries and archetypes" (144).

There is so much discussion in the book of the power and worth of story, and there is magic in the way Megs comes to understand. As I learned about story through her eyes (and her brother's), I couldn't help but reflect on the awesome power we hold when we create our stories. And of course the responsibility that goes hand-in-hand. 

And that ties in so well with Lisa Cron's work, because her study of brain science teaches us how to tell those stories in a way that captivates readers.

I love when something really makes me think, makes me evaluate what I know and what I'm doing. The workshop and novel left me so inspired to go out and create great stories.

What about you?

I should also ask about you as a reader. Have you read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Somehow I never read it as a child, but I read it with a class last year and I was every bit as enchanted with the story as my students were. That experience of reading it with them was magical, so I completely understood George being so captivated.  I have to admit to being slightly envious of Megs getting to sit and sip tea and chat with C. S. Lewis about his story. 

So let's talk about story.

 I had intended to bring you the next in my favorite craft books series today, but I'm in the middle of an interstate move and all my books are packed away in boxes awaiting the moving men.

Instead of doing a repost, I decided I wanted to focus on craft books in a different way.

The best and most frequently given advice is if you want to be a writer, you must read. Read the kinds of books you want to write, read research books, read the kinds of books you don't want to write because they will help stretch your mind.

One way to use books you love as "craft books" is to deconstruct them. I recently heard someone give advice about this as if it was some big secret. Really? I've been doing it for ages as have many other authors I know. If you're not familiar with the idea, it's basically figuring out why you love the books you love so that you can learn to replicate the result in your own work. 

(NOTE: I'm not talking about copying work. I'm talking about studying it.)

I really do believe that reading is the best training for writing, because avid readers absorb style details without even being aware they're doing so. They develop a sense for how the story should unfold, for what makes a good story.

You can set about this "research"  in many ways. Maybe you just want to reflect on what it is about a certain book that makes you love it. Maybe it's the characterization. Maybe it's the clever plot twists the author is known for. Maybe it's the language. You're just getting a general sense. That's an informal use.

But you can also take a more formal approach to breaking a book down to study the structure. This is particularly helpful if you're trying to break into a line. Take Love Inspired or Love Inspired Suspense, for example. When I was first trying to sell to LIS, I took books by some of their best-selling authors and took notes scene by scene to see what I needed to do. How is the pacing handled? How do the hero and heroine's points of view alternate? When do they meet, have conflict, kiss? When (with regards to chapters) does the black moment occur? How many chapters? How many scenes per chapter? How long is each chapter? And so on....

On the flip side, there is also value in deconstructing books you disliked. Why did you dislike it? Were the characters unlikable? Was the setting or plot off? Was it the pacing or the dialogue? All of these questions can give you valuable insight into your own work.

So let's talk. Have you ever deconstructed a book to see how it works? Did it help you?

I'd also love to hear any good moving stories! Friends keep telling me there's a book in this experience!

 It's the end of July, and I've spent the last three weeks in Maine, so it seems only appropriate that I choose a book written by an author from my new home state as this month's favorite craft book. 

Ask writers to list their top ten craft favorite books on writing and inevitably their lists will include Stephen King's On Writing. 

As I prepared to write this post, I borrowed a copy from the library because my old copy was unavailable due to being in the middle of a move. I have to admit, although I remembered liking it a lot, I had no idea what it was about (other than the obvious - writing), so when I began to look through it for a refresher, I immediately got caught up in reading it. The book begins with an irreverent look back at King's childhood which left me somewhat aghast but also hanging on every word. As I was rereading it  I was struck by similarities to Roald Dahl's Boy: Tales of Childhood. Both books really make you see just how the experiences of their early lives fueled their imaginations and provided fodder for their stories. 

Because I'm A) in the midst of a move, and B) helping my daughter who just got out of the hospital, I didn't have time to finish rereading the book, so August's post will go more into the actual writing advice part. 

In the meantime, I'll leave you with some photos of Maine, the state that inspired much of King's writing.  It's rained almost every day of the three plus weeks I've been here, and when it wasn't raining, the fog settled it. But I love this kind of weather, so I'm happy. 

We have had some bursts of sun, and Fenway seems happy with his new home.

My daughter and I recently "hiked" up the mountain (in our car). This was the view from the top.

The harbor is gorgeous on a sunny day...

There has been so much rain, that toadstool villages have emerged! 

The webs spun by grass spiders have totally intrigued me. If I was a children's book author, I'd just have to spin a tale of tiny creatures living under the toadstools and leaving sparkling webs on the dew-laden grass.

Good thing I love the foggy days because there have been a lot of them this summer.

Somewhere at the end of the breakwater is the lighthouse. We could hear the foghorn, but the lighthouse wasn't visible, and if we turned and looked back toward shore, this was the view.

So back to writing, have you read On Writing? Does it top your list of favorites? We'll talk more about it in August, but please share your thoughts or tell me about how your summer has been going.

 Hey everyone, Cate here.

This is Debby's usual spot, but she's on deadline right now, so we swapped weeks. Given the topic of today's post, that's actually rather appropriate.

This month's craft book is an oldie but a goodie - Dennis Palumbo's Writing from the Inside Out. The subtitle is Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within.

As I was choosing a book to focus on this month, I spied this one on my shelf and was immediately transported back to that day in 2000 when I first bought and began to read it. Yup, over 20 years ago. I can testify to how long it's been sitting on my shelf based on my sneezes when I opened it to refresh my memory.

Opening this book was like sitting down to visit with an old friend. You immediately remember why you are drawn in. In this case, as soon as I read about the author alone in a rustic cabin in Carmel, CA with "only eleven or twelve bad pages, strewn about the room, two wastebaskets filled with crumpled paper" pacing and "rereading the same dozen pages," I knew I had found a kindred spirit.

As I was rereading the book, it dawned on me that my craft books are really divided into two main categories: Craft and Writer's Life.

As a pre-published author, I devoured both. I wanted to glean any bit of wisdom I could from those who had gone before me and made sense (and word magic) out of this writing process. I was a sponge absorbing all the advice.

But the books I preferred fell into the other category. Those, like Bird by Bird and this one (Writing from the Inside Out) spoke to my writer's soul. They let me feel like I was part of the secret club. They got me. They understood, really understood, that writing is not always (or even often) the blissful existence our more innocent selves might have imagined.

Writing is work. It can be fun, but it's hard work. It's hours spent staring at a blank screen or page on a day when the ideas won't flow. It's those crumpled balls of paper spilling from the trash can or the endless versions of a computer file. It's beautiful and uplifting (when it's working), and it's demoralizing and terrifying (when it's not working). It's messy first drafts, editor revisions, line edits and last minute changes. It's joyous and frustrating. It imparts a euphoria or has you pulling your hair out.

There are a lot of books that document the writing experience because authors love to talk shop and that often means sharing their own misery along with the successes.

I've always found it helpful to know I'm not alone in what I'm experiencing. There's comfort in knowing that no matter how big a hole you've dug for yourself, another author has been there before and, if you're lucky, can offer a figurative rope to pull you out.

Writing from the Inside Out is one of those kinds of books.

Dennis Palumbo is a highly successful novelist. Interestingly enough, he is also a licensed psychotherapist. But before he was either of those things, he was a Hollywood Screenwriter. The opening chapter that I mentioned above? It was his experience trying to write the screenplay for the Peter O'Toole movie My Favorite Year.

And despite all the horrid writing times in that cabin, he went on to be nominated for a Writer's Guild Award for Best Screenplay for that script. That serves as a good reminder that, no matter how arduous the task, the result can be glorious - if we keep at it!

Be warned: 

This is not a how-to book. It offers nary a rule, formula, nor recipe that will allow you to turn out a best-selling novel or a fabulous, million-dollar screenplay.

He adds:

It is not that handy-dandy kind of book and that is just as well. Never before have so many of the smugly expert advised so many of the seemingly inexpert on how to write successfully... The pages that lie ahead provide far more valuable insights and practical tools for the working and/or would-be writer. Instead of a how-to, what Dennis Palumbo has written is a how-come book.

 I love this Amazon blurb from Gary Shandling:

"Dennis Palumbo has great insight into a writer's psyche.... Every writer should have a shrink or this book. The book is cheaper."

So, a craft book from someone who is a writer and a therapist. Win-Win.

What do you think? What kind of craft books do you prefer?

 Anyone who has ever talked to me about writing knows that plot as a verb is my idea of a 4 letter word. 

For a very long time when I first began writing, I didn't plot ahead. I just let the story unravel as my fingers typed away (or filled pages of notebooks). I still need to do that to some extent because it's how my brain works. I can't figure out a story unless I'm actually telling it.

However, the reality of the publishing world is a bit harsh. My fervent wishes to the contrary, my editor is not going to offer me a contract on an opening chapter followed by the words and then a bunch of things happen and they fall in love and live happily ever after.

So I've had to learn to do some plotting. Let me tell you, it's been a struggle! 

But over the years I've learned that whether I choose to acknowledge it or not, stories need structure.

I think of the image of this bridge.

I wouldn't want to drive across that bridge if the engineers who designed it hadn't properly planned the structure. But what does that have to do with story structure?

There are dozens if not hundreds of books out there offering to teach you how to plot your novel. I've read some and skimmed more. I've done workshops (I highly recommend Michael Hauge's The Hero's Two Journeys). Read dozens of articles. 

But one book stood out in the way it helped me understand how to structure my stories - James Scott Bell's Super Structure: The Key to Unleashing the Power of  Story. This craft book uses 14 signpost scenes to help you plan your story. They have wonderful names like The Care Package, A Kick in the Shins, Pet the Dog - and my favorite - The Mirror Moment. Look at the bridge above. See how it is perfectly symmetrical. In your story, the Mirror Moment is that scene exactly in the middle of the book where the protagonist has to confront himself (as in the mirror) and make a decision. The rest of the book hinges on it. 

The book is set up so that each of the 14 signposts has it's own chapter that thoroughly explains its purpose and how to use it.

But there's a deeper reason I love this book.

The blurb on Amazon says:

Super Structure represents over two decades of research on what makes a novel or screenplay entertaining, commercial, original, and irresistible. Contrary to what some may think, structure is not a nasty inhibitor of creativity. Quite the opposite. Properly understood and utilized, structure is what translates story into a form readers are wired to receive it.

I bolded those lines because I think that's what appealed to me. 

Bonus:  Missy Tippens did an article on another of James Scott Bell's books, one I like to think of as a companion book to SuperStructure. Really this one came first and it focuses completely on the Mirror Moment. You can find Missy's article in the Archives of the original Seekerville. A Look Inside a Writer's Mind - Working from the Middle of a Story.

So what do you think?

Today I'm offering a copy of the ebook version of Super Structure. Be sure to let me know in the comments if you're interested.

Image from Pixabay

 Hello everyone. It's that time of the month again. I'm back with another craft book post and giveaway.

This week I'm sharing a post I did many years ago on the original Seekerville.

Wired for Story:  The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. By Lisa Cron

How can a title like that not snag your interest?

The back cover blurb says:

Imagine knowing what the brain craves from every tale it encounters, what fuels the success of any great story, and what keeps readers transfixed. Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets - and it's a game changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper.

That was enough to convince me to purchase a copy!  (Clearly bookstores have reason to love me!)

I'm really, really glad I did. I've learned so much about storytelling from this book. My copy is full of Post its and underlining and notes written in the margins. I read and thought about my stories, realized where I was going wrong, and got excited about new ways to do it right.  And I've learned to look at story in a whole new light.

The book is chock full of so many interesting points that I'd need a month of posts to do it justice. Rather than doing a poor job summarizing, I'm hoping to whet your appetite with some of the more intriguing thoughts, and prompt some discussion on your thoughts about neuroscience and writing.

I also want to use this study of brain science and story as a lens to look at our roles as writers of inspirational fiction.

Calgon Take me Away


Any of you who are a certain age may recall the Calgon ads - usually a harried housewife pleading, "Calgon, take me away."





Stories have always been my Calgon. The one reliable escape from madness.

But according to Lisa Cron, I've had it all wrong. Stories aren't about escape, but rather about survival.

 "Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience reveal that our brain is hardwired to respond to story; the pleasure we derive from a tale well old is nature's way of seducing us into paying attention to it." (p. 1)

And why do we have to pay attention? 

To survive.

Lisa Cron discussed her book on Writer Unboxed saying,

 "By letting us vicariously experience difficult situations and problems we haven’t actually lived through, story bestows upon us, risk free, a treasure trove of useful intel, just in case. And so back in the Stone Age, even though those shiny red berries looked delicious, we remembered the story of the Neanderthal next door who gobbled ‘em down and promptly keeled over, and made do with a couple of stale old beetles instead."

So story is essential to our survival.

What does that have to do with us as writers?

Because of the way our brains are wired, we respond in certain ways. According to Cron, this explains why some stories captivate us while others leave us cold.

She claims writers often mistakenly believe that beautiful prose and fascinating plots make good stories.

Wrong!

Have you ever read a beautifully crafted writing sample that left you feeling nothing? Or one that was so perfectly structured you were conscious of the craft? By contrast, books that are universally acknowledged as horribly written often become mega best sellers.

Why?

Because they appeal to our cravings for story.

What makes a story work is that inescapable need for the brain to know what is going to happen next. That's what keeps us awake at night reading. Curiosity is roused. Your survival instincts kick in. It's a drug - literally. A dopamine* rush. 

Sounds easy, right?

Apparently that's another way we go wrong.

Because stories engage our attention effortlessly, they seem easy to write. And that's where our job can become difficult.

"Not only do we crave story, but we have very specific hardwired expectations for every story we read." (p. 10)

For the remainder of the book, Cron goes through these expectations step by step, explaining how we can create our stories in a manner that gives readers that dopamine high.  Each section begins with a Cognitive Secret and a related Story Secret.


There's so much more information about mirror neurons, plot expectations, the protagonist as her own worst enemy, meeting reader expectations, etc.  So much  good stuff that not only do I seriously recommend this book for your own reading, but I'm going to give away a copy to one lucky commenter. More about that in a bit.

Now I'd like to shift the focus slightly. Seeing that this is Seekerville and most of us write inspirational fiction, I couldn't help but think of discussing this book with our particular writing in mind.

We're following in the footsteps of the greatest storyteller ever known. Jesus taught with stories to make lessons accessible and meaningful to his people.

As I read Wired for Story, I couldn't help but wonder, can we use the discoveries of neuroscience to help build the Kingdom of God?

Early in the book, Cron writes;

"Writers can change the way people think simply by giving them a glimpse of life through their characters' eyes. They can transport readers to places they've never been, catapult them into situations they've never dreamed of, and reveal subtle universal truths that just might alter their entire perception of reality." (p. 2)

That can be a powerful burden or an awesome opportunity.

There's so much wonderful information in this book about how to carefully craft your story to meet reader expectations. I think we could easily learn to adapt those techniques to subtly craft a message that inspires.

So what do you think?

Are you interested in learning more about how neuroscience can help you craft engaging stories?

Do you think we should use this knowledge and these skills to evangelize?

Did I thoroughly confuse you?

I can't really begin to do neuroscience credit in one blog post, so I'm offering a copy of Lisa Cron's book, Wired for Story (ebook or paper), as a prize. Please let us know in the comments if you want to be in the drawing. Winner announced in the Weekend Edition.

If you're interested in more information, Lisa Cron has a website here. 



*According to Psychology Today, Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses.