MAKING GOOD WRITING BETTER

Today I presented a "pep talk" sort of lecture to a room filled with twelve year olds. Their teacher, a friend of mine, wants them to become better at writing essays, stories, even poetry. These are bascially good students but, like so many young people in America today, they lack storytelling skills. She thought I might be able to help.

I began with the same story I use at my book signings/lectures; how I began to write at the age of ten, hiding from chores up a mulberry tree, and thinking I could write stories as good as the ones I read in textbooks. I told these students how important my fifth grade teacher was who encouraged me to read (and write) beyond the classroom requirements, and my tenth grade teacher who urged me to enter contests and always told me I was a writer.

The questions flowed both ways: what were they interested in reading? If their teacher gave them an assignment, what would they like to write about? They asked me what I liked to write most, had I had books published (to kids if you haven't had a book published-I showed them my two-, or an article in some hip-hop magazine, you aren't a REAL writer), and what "rules" did I use? And, of course, where do I get ideas?

Hmm, let's see . . .

Your title and opening paragraph (if not opening line) should be a WOW thing. It should be the best thing you've written or read. You should write to entertain your readers, let them laugh, or cry, or teach them something they don't know. Your story is more important than (I didn't dare say grammar, did I?) how perfect your writing is.

Ideas are everywhere. Look around you. If I tell you to write about the color red, what do you see? A blouse, the border on a poster, the dictionary on the shelf, and much more. Did your grandmother share family stories with you? Write that story. Go outside, look and listen to nature; sit in a mall and watch/listen to people. There are stories or articles or personal essays all around you.

I didn't dwell on voice but I told them the way they write, the words they use, the characters they create, are all things that make up what adult writers call style.

And, I reminded them that they have to come up with a final WOW--the ending has to be great. No fair to just run up to the finish and stop, or jump off into nothing land, or throw in a fairy or magician who performs a miracle. The ending has to be believable and it has to be the right one for your story.

I wanted to encourage them to write so I was careful not to talk about the discoragement they would face when attempting to become a published writer. But I did thell them before they turned their papers in, or shared them with classmates, they should read them over for mistakes and then read them again, aloud; practice the words, add some emotion, and WOW their audience.

Most of the things I pointed out to them are to be heeded by all writers, no matter what our age or experience. And maybe we need a pep talk now and then, someone to tell us we can write for fun, share our words with friends, not be perfect--and still call ourselves writers.