Rewriting is my hobby...

It is a truth universally acknowledged (by writers, writing groups, writing tutors, anyone who has ever tried to put their thoughts onto the page (or screen)) that Writing is Rewriting.

The first draft

Sitting on the beach in St Ives eating chips an image of a girl came into my mind. The girl was seeking shelter under an upturned boat on a cold and starry night. I began writing to find out who she was. Her name was Louie Albright and her story became a novel called The Master Juggler.

            Louie scratched the bite on her forearm with a dirty fingernail, leaving tracks of thin yellow against the angry red swelling. She knew she shouldn’t scratch, but on evenings like this when the cold seemed to be a dog gnawing at her bones, the pain was a good distraction.

Thin and scraggly, she felt like a ripped thread clinging from the corner of a tapestry. Her hair, slick with grease, tangled and knotted, was a dull uneasy colour. She could remember a time when it had been the colour of wild strawberries in the sun. She’d tried combing it with her fingers and tying it back with string, but after three weeks living on the coast, sea salt and sand felt ingrained in her scalp; the string had long since been snatched away by the wind. Her face was pale and freckled, but the air turned it pink, her eyes were as grey as the waves churning under the heavy sky.

 The bite began to bleed and she quickly pulled the sleeve of her jumper back down, patting it over the wound. She pushed her hair out of her face but kept a few strands to suck. It tasted of smoke and fish and sea salt. She had been hanging around the fishermen all day in the hope of a few scraps. They had given her some stale bread and sips of rum. The rum had kept her warm until now, but as lamps burned in the windows of the homes around the harbour, the wind crept in through the holes in her skirt and jumper.

            She’d chosen an upturned boat on the beach for shelter tonight. Beneath her, the sand was cold but not damp so she hoped the sea would not come up this far. The boat was propped up with a lump of rotten driftwood and she sat hunched up to watch the day drift off into night. The moon was high and clear, this was the beginning of the Lunar Year; days would be long, nights bright. The stars emerged slowly, filling the velvety dark with studs of light. Finally Louie stretched out her legs and shuffled down onto her back. She savagely kicked the wood away and the boat clunked onto the sand covering her in a muffled darkness. The wind whined but was no longer able to feed on her. Shivers raced through her body and she hugged her arms around her chest and closed her eyes. Sleep would come reluctantly in fits and starts. She just had to wait…

 

The first draft of Master Juggler was completed in 2008. It was about a young girl who meets a juggler and storyteller and they run aware together to be free of persecution. I submitted the opening chapters to agents and publishers; the agents and publishers began requesting to read the whole novel, and it aroused some interest in the Chicken House/Times Competition in 2010. But it was never quite good enough. Feedback was always the same: good writing but lack of pace, lack of tension, no motivation, no momentum to keep reading.

I rewrote the first chapters again and again, adding description, cutting out scenes, introducing different viewpoints  and completely ignored the fact that the problem did not lie in the first chapters, the problem was in the heart of the book itself, or perhaps, the lack of heart - it needed a stronger story.

Since completing my Creative Studies degree in 2004, my friend and I had continued to critique each other’s writing in the same way we had done at University - by workshopping sections of writing. This was the same method used on my Masters in Writing for Children at Winchester University and one that most creative writing groups and classes use. Workshopping tends to encourage in-depth analysis of pieces of writing – a lone scene, or stand-alone chapter perhaps – which, although important for refining and honing writing skills, can lead to a disconnect between writing to write, and writing to tell a story. To structure and sustain narrative it’s important to step back and consider what the piece is trying to do, and whether it’s doing it. 

A friend recommended that I read First Draft to Finished Novel: a writer’s guide to cohesive story building by Karen S. Weisner. Although wary at first, I discovered that the worksheets suggested by Karen Weisner enabled me to step away from the intricacies of writing and look at the story arc. My subplots, back story and characters were complicating the story in order to justify their existence. I chose to start rewriting on a blank page with fresh words rather than working on what was already there and that freed me from the weight of all that had come before.

Louie

Characters need to be shaped by the experiences that they go through, to do less is to render them flat – events bounce off them without scratching the surface of their skin.When I first pictured Louie she was young, only about nine years old. She was feisty and fiery, spitting out curses and fiercely independent. However, my writing didn’t reflect this. She was often passive and too much of an observer.

 In the next drafts she grew up. She was thirteen, that age suiting the story better, offering more tension between the cusp of childhood and entering into young adulthood. She was stubborn but had seen more of the world to subdue her and make her sad, and this made her distant, unconnected from the reader. Despite the third person limited view point, she was hard to know. In an attempt to create tension and intrigue, I deliberately withheld information about her by making her evasive and her inner thoughts cryptic. Those whom I shared the story with now felt that she was hollow. 

 During a tutorial with one of my students we discussed creating tension.  She had kept key bits of information hidden from the reader and in doing so her characters never asked questions they should have, or answered questions put to them. It made important moments of the story annoying and frustrating. The student told she me that she had done it so that the reader would need to keep reading. I advised her that withholding information does not necessarily generate tension and suspense; empathy and fear for a character does. As I spoke I realised that I had been doing exactly the same thing. It’s so easy to preach without practising.

The second draft

The title Master Juggler actually referred to a minor character. I started the next full rewrite with a new one: WordWeaver which referred to a more important character. This draft fleshed out the characters and the world, but there were still many questions unanswered and now Louie’s character was even more passive, a blurry image on the edges of a story that was no longer really hers.  To decide if it really was her story I wanted to tell, I spent some time getting to know her again. I answered questions about her, tried to draw her, made her feel real to me.

The dissertation draft

Time for another rewrite and another title. Story Seeker encapsulated Louie’s desire for stories, real and imagined and it referred to her, not another character.

            I worked on Story Seeker for my dissertation; I feel it's stronger but still not quite right. Louie is more connected, has strong personality traits, but she is too ready to follow the path she is on.

And so, it's back to the keyboard...

            Rewriting can feel dispiriting at times, but I believe that every rewrite has been beneficial. I am learning about writing, about myself as a writer, and am I getting closer every time to the story that I want to tell.

Working with Very Able and Talented Children

Encouraging very able and talented children with creative writing in and out of the classroom.

 This post ties in with my current feature for SCBWI online magazine Words and Pictures.

Very Able and Talented children (previously termed as Gifted and Talented - G&T) are the top 10% of pupils in each age cohort, as identified by the school, and are then placed on a gifted and talented register. Not all very able and gifted children are good at all subjects. Don't assume that because a child is gifted at maths that s/he can read or write well, or that if a child is talented at writing they are equally good at science. Generally they relate well to learning and enjoy engaging in learning activities for many subjects, but that doesn't mean they won't have challenging behaviours at times or try to get out of working (particularly if they find the subject matter boring, or too easy) .As with any child, don't make assumptions about them just because of the label!

Very Able and Talented children can often be regarded by their peers as the odd ones out in school and can become isolated or find socialising difficult. Very able and talented children deserve an opportunity to interact and accept guidance from a teacher as much as any other child, but because there are so many differing abilities in one class and the priority is to support weaker learners, gifted children are often left to do the work on their own. They may be able to handle this, but it's not always interesting or challenging enough for them. Sessions outside of schools, such as residential weekends at centres such as Kilve Court Education Residential Centre and Leeson House Field Studies Centre, offer opportunities for children to interact with others similar to themselves, and also, importantly, find themselves in a more equal, stimulating and challenging environment.

 

This post will mainly discuss my experience of running Very Able and Talented courses in the education centres mentioned above. However, I will also touch on bringing some of these principles into the classroom as well.  I believe that teachers have a responsibility to not only promote and encourage children to attend Very Able and Talented courses and workshops, but also to bring the ideas and ethos into the school where every pupil can benefit for them. This is where artists, writers, scientists, musicians etc.can really add depth and interest and bring a new way of thinking to a class.

For the rest of this post I will refer to Very Able and Talented workshops/courses/ideas as Enrichment . I feel this term sums up what the prime ethos is - to enrich the learning lives of our children in the most interesting ways that we can. My thoughts and comments reflect only my beliefs and experiences and not those of any organisation or body that I refer to.  My Enrichment courses mostly run with twelve to fifteen pupils in school years four to six. Groups can sometimes be as small as four pupils or as large as twenty-five to thirty. For Enrichment weekends twelve seems a good number.

Enrichment

Core aspects of Enrichment courses that can be bought into the classroom.

•  Guidance - children are inspired by seeing something first hand. Involve yourself in the tasks and discussions. Treat the children like equals, listen to their points and questions and ask them to expand on them. Children who are top of the class without too much effort can really thrive on pushing at their own limitations and being expected to raise their thinking even higher. It's not about teaching, but about guiding them into a new way of approaching the subject.

• Empowerment – children take responsibility for their learning, decision making and problem solving. They feel empowered by their progress and earn real ownership over their work.
• Independence – no story starts or first lines. No whole ideas given to them, just glimpses.
• Responsibility for learning – they choose how much work they put into the story, they are given blank pieces of paper to fill. Scary but satisfying. This doesn't mean they only work for as long as they want, it comes back to your guidance. Read their work, ask them about it, point out where it's not working, praise everything that works and then ask them how they will develop/improve it.
• Problem solving – e.g. craft making, map making, paper engineering – letting them work it out for themselves. If they are struggling give them options. You could do this... or this... or this... what do you think?
• Experimentation and exploring – with writing and also in craft. Let them try out their ideas. If it didn’t work – why didn’t it?
• Making mistakes – encourage them to write in pen so they can see the changes they make to a piece of work and to be confident about writing. Pen also lasts longer and photocopies better.
• Sharing and discussing work - encourage children to read their work aloud to the group, getting feedback, discussing what is working and what is not working. Encourage them to learn that you can’t argue people into understanding what you have in your head, you have to lead them to it with your words.
  
  
  
• Social experience and interaction – talking with like-minded children, getting excited over the same things, encouraging each other, helping each other.
• Time – to learn, make mistakes, work on one project in a concentrated period of time (e.g.a weekend). 

Weekend Enrichment courses are not just an extension of school. This is children’s own time, they must be building on and learning more than what they do in the classroom. It should be engaging and enjoyable to really get the best out of them.

I tutor creative writing, I do not teach English.     

Teachers provide the grammar, I provide guidance to help them create something with the building blocks they have learnt (structure, atmosphere, characters, plotting, showing not telling, embedded description, language, using techniques such as similes/metaphors/adjectives sparingly but effectively).

My courses use craft, art, outings, dressing up etc to bring alive the physicality of writing. It lifts writing off the page and out of the notebook, but it's important that the activity is not just ‘tagged’ on. It needs to be embedded into the writing so that the two exist together.

 

An Enrichment session would run like:
 

The IDEA

Make it seem big, impossible e.g. a book with a secret compartment, make a world, discover a creature, make a book from scratch. 

But the idea has to have a simple essence

The rockets/worlds/creatures/ can be created with knowledge the child already has, they just have to refine it, e.g. rockets designed by knowing the right information, worlds created by descriptions, creatures discovered using what they know about nature etc. Nothing should be out of reach, but it must seem as though it might be.

Free reign and a blank page

Allow the child freedom to explore, experiment, make mistakes, be silly

and try again.

We deliberately have no worksheets on outings. Children take notebooks and we stop to encourage them to look around, suggest things to them, ask them to feed back to the group. We set them tasks such as listen to the sounds think up an onomatopoeic word to describe them, write it down, look at the light, think up similes/metaphors, write a paragraph describing how you feel simply through describing the surroundings. 

Create a story map when you get back to the classroom

Guidance

Using group workshopping, one-to-one tutorials we work on the stories. Emphasis is on reworking, not completing. There is no 'right' or 'wrong'/'good' or 'bad' writing, only writing that is working and writing that is not working. Ensure children have the right terminology and understand it before letting them workshop together. Join in to guide the first attempts at workshopping,

Methods for encouraging discussion:

•  Group work– peer assessment/social interaction.
• Encourage discussion and debate.
• No story starts, no corrections only suggestions e.g. how could you show character here, this is a dramatic moment, but I don’t understand what’s happening.
• Class and group discussions on what is working and why.
• Questions encouraged/challenging what we say.
• Writing exercises.
• Lots of one-to-one tutorial time.
• Read-arounds - stories are shared without any critical feedback, everyone just applauds and thanks the reader for sharing.

Enrichment key words
Guidance 

Blank page

Free Reign

Self-learning

Responsibility

Empowerment

How can this be brought into the classroom? How can we plan something that includes every child not just Able and Talented, but that is challenging the Able and Talented children too?

Possible Ideas

• Newsletter/magazine written by and made by children for the school
• Play that the children write, direct and stage themselves for the teachers
• A project that can be worked on over a number of weeks
• Blog/website that needs to be updated (be aware of safeguarding issues)
• Children led competitions/book panels, book clubs
• Storytelling - first to the children and then to each other. (Roald Dahl’s revolting rhymes is an excellent way to story tell - I will post about how to use them later this week).

 Examples of writing exercises/activities/filler activities:

• Group poem exercise –using poems, stories, articles, their own writing.
• Post card/objects exercise – can be done factually or as fiction (not ‘what is it?’ but ‘what could it be?’)
• Consequences exercise – story structure can be as silly or as serious as you want. Ask them to include similes/adjectives etc.
• Group story map - can be done after trips out, walks, inside – collective memory and shared experience.
•  Book making
• Bookmark making
• Feather book
• Collage 

Future posts will look at these exercises in more depth and give more information/resources on when and how to use them.

In the meantime more information on gifted children can be found here, and you can read more about my courses on the SCBWI Magazine, or on my old Creative Creatures website.

 
Bye for now!
rb-h
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Words and Pictures

I am very excited to be a part of the SCBWI Online Magazine Words and Pictures. My first feature can be viewed here.

SCBWI is a fantastic place for writers and illustrators of children's books to get together and share ideas and experiences whether they be new writers, published writers or just
dabbling their toes in the pool of creativity.

My feature for Words and Pictures is about my writing workshops that I have been running for over ten years. Over the next few days I will be posting more information and resources to link in with that feature, so stay tuned if you're interested!

The next post this afternoon will focus on running workshops for very able and talented children.

See you then!

rb-h

Writing workshops for children are full on, but fun and inspiring.

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