Staying on the Rails: Structuring Fictional Stories
How do you broaden creativity while fostering story structure?
Category Archive: fiction
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Where to Begin: Developing Fiction Writers
My students have been getting sparked by a character to develop believable stories in their realistic fiction unit.
Building a House of Fiction on a Foundation of Nonfiction
Meet Lester Laminack at the corner of story and information. You’ll chat a while. He’ll introduce you to a couple of characters and walk with you through the South Carolina Lowcountry. And hopefully you’ll leave filled with new information.
Keeping It Real: Writing Realistic Fiction for Teens
Author Renee Watson writes books that mirror what is happening in our world. It is her way of saying to a reader, “Yes, I see it too. I see you.”
The Freedom That Comes With Constriction: Flash Fiction
Writing flash fiction can be liberating, exhilarating, and great writing process practice.
Ending Where We Began: Writing Realistic Fiction
Looking for a way to end the writing year with transference, engagement, and noticeable growth? Choosing a familiar writing unit may be just the way.
Words that are Speaking to Me
Fiction is not a dream, nor is it guesswork. It is imagining based on facts, and the facts must be accurate or the work of imagining will not stand up. —Margaret Culkin Banning
Bits of This & That
Remember this letter that Allie sent to Eve Bunting last fall along with The Ghostly Scary Mystery she wrote dedicated to Eve Bunting? Allie got a response! Yes, there was a form letter,… Continue reading
Plotting Short Fiction
Last month at MRA, I listened to Jacqueline Woodson speak about her writing process. It wasn’t the first time I heard her speak and I hope it won’t be my last. She is… Continue reading
Fiction + Research
Some of you know I’ve been dabbling with writing fiction for the past six months. I’ve also had the pleasure of leading a fiction writing unit of study in two different classrooms this… Continue reading
Highlights from the Week
I have been in a lot of different writing workshops lately. Just this week I’ve been in 13 writing workshops and have met with 13 different teachers in either reflective practice meetings or… Continue reading
Show Don’t Tell
In narrative writing, it is difficult to shift from telling the story to showing the story. I’ve helped launch a fiction study in a couple of fifth grade classrooms this week, and we’ve… Continue reading
Words that are Speaking to Me
Giving characters free will, instead of outlining them in detail before writing begins, allows the story to flow naturally and allows the characters to become more real and more interesting than they could be if… Continue reading
WIP?
The past few months I’ve been reading several authors’ blogs and I keep coming across the abbreviation W.I.P. Finally I figured out it means Work In Progress. WIP is part of the language… Continue reading
Reflecting on Reading Like a Writer
So I took some time to create a video about the system I created in order to track and reflect on my summer reading. Because I pushed myself to reflect in a new… Continue reading
Ruth’s Slice(s) of Life: A New Minilesson Idea
Slice 1: All morning I waited for Laurie Halse Anderson’s post about the writing challenge for today. Although a little apprehensive about whether this would be worthwhile, I found myself writing interview questions… Continue reading
Logical Situations in Fiction
Did you know that the Curious George Stories, written by Margaret and H.A. Rey, were inspired by many real-life circumstances the writers went through as they escaped from France in 1940? Remember how… Continue reading
Developing Realistic Fictional Characters
I was assessing my students in Reading in a colleague’s office today. As a student was finishing up a passage silently, I began looking at her walls. I found a great chart on… Continue reading
What’s Next?
I received a question earlier this evening about what’s next in my Writing Workshop: What do you usually do next in writing workshop? I just finished persuasive writing, and this is the first… Continue reading