By Brenda A. Ferber
First Person, Past Tense…Perfect
The Wednesday Wars
By Gary D. Schmidt
(Clarion Books, 2007)
There is so much to love about The Wednesday Wars, by Gary Schmidt. The complex and interesting characters. The fully realized historical (1967) setting. The seamless weaving of Shakespeare into the storyline. The humor. The heart. I could go on and on. But for this column, I’ll focus on just one thing. Voice. And since voice is a pretty big topic itself, I’ll focus on something even smaller…how to handle past tense in a first-person voice. Let’s learn from a master, shall we? Continue reading Books That Make You Go, “Oh!”
By Brenda Ferber
Rhythm and Rhyme
The Pout-Pout Fish
By Deborah Diesen, illustrated by Dan Hanna
(Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008)
I’m sure you’ve all heard the advice not to write a picture book in verse. Yet you can probably name at least a dozen rhyming picture books that you or your kids or grandkids adore. So what’s the deal? Why do editors tell novice writers to stay away from verse? Continue reading Books That Make You Go, “Oh!”
By Brenda Ferber
Anecdotes and Reflections: The Building Blocks of Fiction
The Nature of Jade
By Deb Caletti
(Simon and Schuster, 2007)
Recently I came across a video by This American Life’s Ira Glass, from National Public Radio, about the building blocks of fiction. In a nutshell, Glass says there are two main building blocks for storytelling: anecdotes and reflections. An anecdote is a sequence of thoughts and actions—one thing followed by another. A reflection is a break from the action where you show what the point of the story is—the reason you are asking your readers to come along for this ride. A good story flips back and forth between these two elements and has both interesting anecdotes and meaningful moments of reflection. Continue reading Books That Make You Go, “Oh!”
By Brenda Ferber
The Secret to Creating Tension
Sweethearts
By Sara Zarr
(Little, Brown and Co., 2008)
We all aim to write manuscripts that readers simply cannot put down. But how? Is it an interesting character? Yes, that’s a good start. Is it a compelling plot? Absolutely. But how do you tell a story that grips the reader’s attention and doesn’t let go until the end? Continue reading Books That Make You Go, “Oh!”
By Brenda Ferber
Picture Book Structure 101
Fancy Nancy
Written by Jane O’Connor; illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser
(HarperCollins, 2006) Continue reading Books That Make You Go, “Oh!”
A Crooked Kind of Perfect
By Linda Urban
(Harcourt, 2007)
By Brenda Ferber
Oh, I love this book. Oh, it’s so simple and powerful. Oh, I wish I had written that. Oh, how did Linda Urban manage to grab at my emotions so well? Continue reading Books That Make You Go, “Oh!”: Children’s lit that illuminates the craft of writing
