Tell Me a Story

I know, I know...I'm a storyteller by trade. I get that and I even call myself that from time to time...but when I say "storyteller" I mean the kind that are printed on a page. Or in a book. I'm not exactly the most expressive person face-to-face if we're not BFFs. I clam up, truth be told.

But I'm going to tell you a story about how I became a live, in-person storyteller and how my sons built a connection with a great-grandfather they never got a chance to meet, and who my family lost on Easter Sunday this year.

My grandfather, Pop, is Norwegian. He never really talked about his family or what they did there, but I do know they come from Frederickstadt. (I love that name. I want to name a town here in Texas Frederickstadt because Fredericksburg just doesn't cut it for me. Germans. Pshaw!)

Pop passed this year on Easter morning. A few weeks later, I find a few articles about Norwegian folklore (I gobble up fairy tales, folklore, and mythology whenever I get the chance). One character in particular caught my attention.

His name is Boots. And he has really mean brothers.

There aren't many stories out there about Boots, but here's a Wikipedia entry about Boots. It's a start, right? Over the summer, I wrote a picture book about Boots and some mountain trolls I invented. Scandinavians were wild about trolls in the old days, it seems. I had a Kickstarter project all lined up and then I sort of lost steam with the project. I hated the project video because I'm not an artist and my line art just didn't do my story justice. I ignored it a good few weeks and then I had baby number four and my brain spontaneously combusted.

But last week, my boys were restless in their bedtime angst and wouldn't go to sleep no matter what. And they didn't want me to leave the edge of the bed no matter how much I needed to do the dishes. They wanted more time with me and they wanted something new to end their day with.

I hadn't told them about my Boots project yet, so I asked them if they wanted to hear a story about Norway. (My oldest is 8 and his absolute FAVORITE movie is "How to Train Your Dragon" and he knows that Vikings = Norway and Norway = Pop and Pop = direct lineage to Norway and Vikings and that must mean that Boy Wonder = Dragon Trainer in some obsolete, non-congruent way. Awesome, right?

I told them about Boots, the troll, and Boots' only friend in the world, a shapeshifting Nisse named Ebsen who daylights as a one-eyed barncat named Snowball.

They didn't move throughout the entire story and when it was done, they demanded another one. Trouble was, I didn't have another and promised that I'd tell them all about Snowball the next night.

Sidenote here: my children are a bit like goldfish. At least their memories are similar to goldfish memories...as in nonexistant. ("Oh, look! A plastic castle!!")

Fast forward one night. I'm tucking them in, kissing their sweet shampoo-smelling heads good night and my three year old, who can hardly pronounce "snowball" asks me when I'm going to tell them the story about Snowball.

I was so touched. And a bit panicked because I wasn't prepared. I honestly expected them to forget in their world of hand held games, television, and other blinking light attention stealers.

But no...they wanted another story about Boots and Snowball. And tonight I told them all about Esben/Snowball's beginnings (he wasn't always a cat in the daylight, you know...) and I thought to myself, "this is it...you are a storyteller."

Kind of a great feeling, really, and completely new.

Weekly Kids' Writing Prompts (Fairy Tale Edition)

We've been dealing a lot in fairy tales this winter. Even my own son has gotten in on it and is working on a sort of tale, complete with happily ever after, of his own.

My favorite activity with kids in the classroom involves skewing all they know about traditional fairy tales and making them come up with alternative tales. Fracturing the common elements in these stories really opens up their creative thinking and starts the ideas flowing.

Here are three I love to use.

1. Imagine Little Red Riding Hood figures a way to save herself before making it to Grandma's house. What does she do? How does she defeat the wolf without the help of the huntsman?

2. What if Jack were the villain of the story and the Giant were the main character? Write a short tale about Jack the Thief and the unsuspecting Giant.

3. Let's say that Cinderella's other shoe broke as well. Write an ending to her story that gets her a happily ever after without the footwear!

Happy writing!

Writing with Kids: 3 Reasons to Love Storyboards

I know the world is full of plotters and pansters and never shall the two agree. I get it.

But the more I work with young writers, the more I rely on the age-old art of storyboarding to help them keep their ideas and timeline straight.

Here are the top three reasons I find storyboards so valuable.

1. They're Fantastic Idea Catchers and Ward off Writer's Block

This holds true with adult writers like me as well, but nothing is more frustrating than writer's block. Double that frustration on a student sitting a classroom with no internet, television, or junk-drawer cleaning to distract them from their purpose. When your young writers lose that creative flow, most often, it's a miserable experience that keeps them chained to their desk gnawing the eraser off their pencils!

The storyboard you had them complete in the early stages is there as a helping hand--a reminder of the ideas they had when they were planning. It's hard to forget what the Zombie prince does once he leaves the Toad Castle if it's written out nice and permanently on your storyboard.

2. Storyboards Help Fill in the Unknown

Lots of my young writers know two things: they know how their story starts and they're pretty sure where their story ends. It's those niggling details and events in the middle that trip them up. Visually planning out your story helps you see a linear relationship between the events in your story--and sometimes that's all you need to spark a few ideas. How does the Zombie Prince get to Toad Castle and why?

Those are some great questions that can be answered as your writers fill in their spaces.

3. Storyboards Encourage Multi-Media Creativity 

Nothing gets my workshop kids more relaxed than the ability to write AND draw in their scenes on a storyboard. Many graphic stories/comics have sprung from writing exercises that began with storyboards
and there's absolutely nothing wrong (and EVERYTHING right!) with taking characters on even more adventures, especially in new mediums.

Storyboards can be as complex or simple as your age range requires. When I'm short on printing time, I'll simply have my young writers draw five or six large squares on a blank piece of paper (or in their journals) and go from there. There are several online sources that can provide free templates, including here, for you to use if you prefer.

My second-grader son swears by these now. We work on a story together about once a month and if it weren't for his storyboards, he'd lose work and forget his ideas each time he cracks open his notebook. He loves to doodle action scenes on the outside and those usually become an art project or a comic eventually.

Happy writing!

MIddle Grade Book of the Week: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

I feel like one of the few noobs in the world who missed the Kate DiCamillo train over the past few years. My son and I absolutely loved "The Tale of Despereux" in the movie theaters but I never traced it back to the book, or author, behind it.

I remember hearing about, but not seeing, "Because of Winn Dixie" and thinking the name odd because I lived in a town with a grocery store called Winn Dixie. But as I moved more and more into the middle grade arena, one can't help but be introduced to KDC and her body of work. There are so many folks out there on the Intertubes who praise "The Tiger Rising" and how their classrooms loved it, that its only a matter of time, perhaps minutes, before I join the fan club and read it. I'm excited, even.

But my personal journey with KDC starts with "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane." I admit I bought it on a whim because it was a special feature on BN.com and only $2.99 for my Nook. I'm cheap these days, I'll admit it. And when I couldn't stand another sentence in the numerous "get your baby to sleep through the night" books I'd been scouring, I opened up Mr. Tulane's story.

As I stated earlier, I'm not familiar with KDC's written style, but this was like nothing I'd read before. It was a bit dark. It had a main character that was not only a toy and unable to move or talk (but he could think) throughout most of the story, he was rather unlikeable. Cringe-worthy, dare I say?

"The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" isn't exactly a warm and fuzzy sort of book. It's full of sad people. Mean people. Sick people. Abused people. And one rather pompous china rabbit who goes on the journey of his lifetime to discover the meaning of love. Even it's happy ending has little barbs of regret and loss.

It's actually an amazing book with such a strong voice, I can't help but be excited for the next KDC books I nab.

Happy reading!

3 Tips for Writing With Kids

I sat here for a few minutes pondering what my first post on this new space should be. Do you find "first" posts as intimidating as I do? As long as I've been in the blogging business, you'd think it wouldn't be a big deal, but that big blank blog template with no other "previous" posts to bolster it always gets me a little anxious.

Should I write about writing for kids? What about writing with kids? Both are a big part of my daily life these days and if I do it correctly, both will be a big part of this site. So where to start?

Well, a few weeks about I got to be a part of a local Writers in the Schools (WITS) program here in Alaska and I spent an entire week in various classrooms teaching fiction writing to kids. It was an awesome, life-changing experience and I walked away learning more from it all than I had planned.

Funny how life works like that, isn't it?

The more I thought about that time working one-on-one-on-one with so many different kids with various levels of ability and interest, the more I realized I'd come away with a few techniques that I didn't have going into the classroom.

Here's what I came up with.

1. Manage Your Expectations (And Theirs)
I deal with this regularly now, the more I try to work with my own children on their writing. Are you expecting a 20 page masterpiece with multiple plots and character arcs? Or should you narrow your expectations to a more reasonable level? I keep pushing my own son to go deeper, but really, he just wants to write about an Orc's walk to the Zombie King.

That's it.

No more. No less. The more I see the intrinsic value in just that small effort he wants to put forth, the more he'll be willing to expand next time.
Let them start small and, to the best of your ability, do not dampen their spirits when their first efforts are less than Tolstoy-ian. They're on their way, and so are you.

2. Be Flexible with Who Comes to the Party
I worked all week with the kids on fairy tales and their elements. (I love Fairy Tales. So. Much.) When I explained the activity that we'd use to develop characters and get to know a little of their backstory, I set them free at their desks and waited in anticipation with who they'd come up with. Imagine my shock when at least three Spongebobs, Lilo and Stitch, and Perry the Platypus found their way to the pages. That was NOT what I'd had in mind and my first instinct was to correct them and send them back to the proverbial drawing board to come up with original characters. But these were third graders.

 And though they hadn't developed their own characters, they were excited with story ideas for the ones they did write down and I knew that poo-pooing the momentum at that point would work against me and would discourage my young writers. So, when it comes right down to it, be flexible with what your young writers come up with. It's a start and that's always the beginning of something beautiful.

3. Put Yourself Out There
Kids are discerning and its my guess that they can tell right away if you're holding back. When I teach adult workshops, I start with a toe in the proverbial waters. As they warm up to me, I warm up to them and I expose more and more of my personality and my own details about my writing career. When you're working with kids, you need to hit the stage warm and completely open. Be as silly and "present" as you can make yourself and understand that "stage fright" is not a forgivable personality tic. If you're soft spoken and shy, you won't make that crucial connection. Bottom line: they may take a minute or two to warm up to you, but you're not given the same luxury. You love them just as they are the moment you meet them. It's a good lesson for life, really, though I'm not always so great at that when it comes to meeting other adults!