THE CHILDREN'S BOOK ACADEMY
  • Home
  • WRITING
    • Mastering Great Graphic Novels >
      • 2023 Mastering Graphic Novels Registration
    • Craft & Business of Writing Childrens Picture Books
    • The Chapter Book Alchemist
    • New!! Middle Grade Mastery Instant Access
    • 2022 Kidlit Palooza >
      • 2022 Palooza Program
      • 2022 Palooza Faculty
  • ILLUSTRATION
    • NEW!! Craft & Business of Illustrating Children's Books Instant Access
    • Never a Dull Moment Workshop
  • TECH
  • About Us
    • Why Us?
    • Meet the Faculty, Lives & GT Judges
    • Testimonials
    • Books by Students
    • Our Bookshop
    • As Seen In
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
  • Blogfish
  • MN Course Access
  • Community
    • Our Bookshop
    • Come Play With Us!
    • Resources
    • Course Scholarships >
      • Yuyi Morales Picture Book Scholarship
      • Andrea Davis Pinkney MG CB Mastery Scholarship
      • Rafael Lopez Illustrating Childrens Books Scholarships
      • Larissa Marantz Merit & Need Scholarship

Wrangling Tenses and Other Writer’s Tips from Mira Reisberg

4/2/2018

2 Comments

 
Hullo fabulous creative, if you are like most writers and have to deal with your present, past and future tenses running away and getting mixed up, read on. In today's blogpost, that is largely lifted from a newsletter that I recently sent out, I'm going to give you a super easy tip for dealing with wrangling tenses along with a few other super helpful writer's tips. :)

Tip #1

Wrangling Tenses
Print out your manuscript and get 3 contrasting highlighters, eg, pink, yellow, and blue.

Now go through your manuscript and highlight all your past tenses together with one color. Then do the same with each of your remaining tenses so that it’s clear where you are switching tenses. Finally, especially with younger age stories, pick a tense and do your best to stick with it. Of course there may be parts where you need to change tenses, but this will help you be very mindful of where you are doing it and whether it's needed.
Here’s a fun joke: The Past and the Future walked into a bar. Things were pretty tense.

Tip #2

Need some sparkle in your story?

If your story is a little lackluster - make or use some metaphors or similes. A metaphor or simile can add poetry or it can add humor. Metaphors are when you put two dissimilar things together to evoke an emotion or provide a poetic description. “Melanie looked out at a sea of smiles.”
A simile is a type of metaphor, but where you use the word “like” or “as” as in my soon to come example.
I’m currently in the final stages of putting together what’s shaping up to be another truly groundbreaking course. This one is an inspirational craft course on writing funny books for kids or infusing humor into existing stories. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve laughed out loud, but in the section on metaphors and similes, that also incorporates the element of surprise, I added this little simile example, “Melanie’s face was like the sun. [page turn]. It was big and round and hot and yellow. Oh no! What was wrong with Melanie?”

If you are interested in exploring metaphors and similes, here are some cool resources.
https://literarydevices.net/a-huge-list-of-short-metaphor-examples/
http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/a-list-of-metaphors

And some great similes
http://www.writers-free-reference.com/100bestsimile.htm
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/simile-examples-for-kids.html
Tip #3

If you'd like to play with sections from your own work and learn from others, learn llots and maybe win a prize, register now for our fab FREE INTERACTIVE ONLINE WORKSHOP/TRAINING on character, emotion, and action in picture books, which all writers will learn from. This Thursday April 5th in the comfort of your own home, library, or cafe! Just click the link below to register.  http://www.childrensbookacademy.com/the-writers-trifecta.html
Picture

Tip #4 (the very best tip)

Join the most helpful picture book writing course that you’ll ever take with MANY submission opportunities, a fab $40 discount and more extraordinary news to come! http://bit.ly/cbwpb
Picture
I hope some of this has been helpful. Do join us in our upcoming free workshop. And if any of this has been helpful, please leave a comment below. :)

Brief Bio: Dr. Mira Reisberg is the founding director of the Childre's Book Academy, an Editor and Art Director and an A type overachieving creative with a ridiculously long resume! Mira is passionately committed to helping people make wonderful children's books to get them published and into children's hands.
2 Comments
russhessay.org link
4/9/2018 03:29:13 pm

I always feel surprised whenever I hear some comments regarding writing; that it's a field for people who want to relax because the workload isn't much of a challenge. You guys are totally wrong and have beeb seeing it the wrong way. These advices from Mira Reisberg will make you feel how hard its is to be a writer. From the actual structure of your piece up to the smallest detail that has to be right, that's where you are going to realize that writing is not a joke. Actually, these are jus the basics! There's definitely more to this!

Reply
Charlotte Dixon
4/11/2018 04:13:49 pm

Thank you for the reminder about the endings to our stories. Great examples!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    We are so excited to be mixing things up at CBA, beginning with some delicious additions to the Blogfish. Meet our  awesome bloggers!!

    Here's our lineup:
    1st Mondays begin with awesome multi-published former student Shirin Shamsi who will be focusing on Muslim and cultural kidlit.

    2nd Mondays will feature super smart Melissa Stoller whose career is taking off with several new books.
     

    3rd Mondays will feature
    Bryan Patrick Avery, published writer, man of mystery, and professional magician among other things.

    4th Mondays will feature STEM, STEAM & SEL obsessed author Kourtney LaFavre sharing delightfully dorky, quirky, and fun info.

    And 5th Mondays we'll be taking a break

    Enter your email address to follow this blog:

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012

Picture
Discover
Why Us?
Courses
Blogfish
Book Shoppe
About Us
Meet the Academy Faculty
Community
Contact Us

Privacy Policy
Join Us
Social Media
Join our Community and receive a fabulous free gift, yummy newsletters, scholarship info, contests, and more!

Like us on Facebook 
Join our interactive FB Group  
Find us on Twitter 
Follow us on ​Instagram  
Look for us on Pinterest
​
Watch us on YouTube
© 2012-2021  All content on this website is copyrighted. Sorry, all courses are non-refundable.
  • Home
  • WRITING
    • Mastering Great Graphic Novels >
      • 2023 Mastering Graphic Novels Registration
    • Craft & Business of Writing Childrens Picture Books
    • The Chapter Book Alchemist
    • New!! Middle Grade Mastery Instant Access
    • 2022 Kidlit Palooza >
      • 2022 Palooza Program
      • 2022 Palooza Faculty
  • ILLUSTRATION
    • NEW!! Craft & Business of Illustrating Children's Books Instant Access
    • Never a Dull Moment Workshop
  • TECH
  • About Us
    • Why Us?
    • Meet the Faculty, Lives & GT Judges
    • Testimonials
    • Books by Students
    • Our Bookshop
    • As Seen In
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
  • Blogfish
  • MN Course Access
  • Community
    • Our Bookshop
    • Come Play With Us!
    • Resources
    • Course Scholarships >
      • Yuyi Morales Picture Book Scholarship
      • Andrea Davis Pinkney MG CB Mastery Scholarship
      • Rafael Lopez Illustrating Childrens Books Scholarships
      • Larissa Marantz Merit & Need Scholarship