A year ago on the CBA Blog: Maria Oka shared a writing exercise she learned from Kathi Appelt that helped snap her out of a writing funk she had found herself in.

I'm not sure what it is about August but this post really echoes the encouragement in last week's entry from Marsha Diane Arnold: The Deep, Dark Den of Doubt. Perhaps we all feel a little out of sorts around this time of year and just need a little help gathering our thoughts and focusing our efforts to pull us out August's grip. 

If you've recently found yourself lingering in the clutches of uncertainty and you're looking for a way to climb out of that deep, dark den of doubt or maybe you're looking for a way to shake off that little funk you're caught in, Maria's post (as well as Marsha's) offers some great resources to help set you back on track. 

​Enjoy!

I recently did this writing exercise under the tutelage of Kathi Appelt at WIFYR's summer conference. It inspired a piece of writing that surprised and delighted me, and that may not have come to me in any other way. It certainly pulled me out of my little writer's funk and forced me to write in a new way.

Here's what you do:

Step One: Sketch. Think of a place you know well. Now sketch it. It doesn't matter what your sketching looks like (trees for trees, x's for trees, no one's judging), but try to include as much detail about the location as possible. For instance, if you choose your childhood backyard, make sure to draw every corner, every tree, and every spot that is memorable at all.

Step Two: List. Write each corner and crevice that you have drawn in your picture at the top of the paper so that the places form columns. Under each heading, list specific memories that happened in that location. List anything that comes to mind, whether it be the time you fell out of the tallest tree, or the way the tomatoes in the garden used to smell, or the place where you had "zucchini stands" as a child (and made about $2 because you lived on a back road that no one ever drove down). 

Step Three: Circle. Circle one to three of the words, snippets, or memories. The ones that jump out and grab you. Don't think too hard about it.

Step Four: Write. The fun part. Because there are really no rules here. Just write something based on what you circled. It may be fact. It may be fiction. It may be a little of both. But it will definitely be coming from a very real place inside of YOU, as all good writing should. Write for at least five minutes, but if you can manage it, write for longer, for as long as your fingers keep keep scribbling. And if you want, go back and edit. And maybe, just maybe, as you do this exercise, and do it again (and again) some story seeds will fall out. And it's possible that they may be your best seeds yet.

So what are you waiting for?! Grab a paper and pencil and....GO!

Salina Yoon is a "superstar" writer and a writing friend. I got to know Salina when she championed my book Lost. Found.  Salina is always championing other writers’ books as well as writing her own best sellers. Many know her through her popular Penguin books (Penguin and Pinecone, Penguin’s Big Adventure) or Be a Friend. She always creates adorable characters that you can’t help but love.
 
Salina was in the middle of writing Book #3 in her Duck, Duck, Porcupine series when I contacted her, but she still had a strong statement about doubts.“Battling doubts and distractions are a way of life for this author!” Yes, even "superstars" have doubts.

Marsha Diane Arnold is an award-winning author with over a million books sold. She has doubts every day, but when she is slipping toward that deep, dark den of doubt, she pulls out this photo with her "rock star" editor of Lost. Found., Neal Porter, and says "I did it!" Then quietly and determinedly, says "I can do it again." Rise up with me Doubters, so we can shout together, "We did it!" 

by Bryan Patrick Avery

Not long ago, I watched a magician perform a card trick for a small audience. The trick had a great premise and started off strong. In the middle, he combined humor and a bit of suspense to keep his audience’s attention. Then, he got to the end. The trick ended awkwardly. In fact, none of us realized he had reached the end of the trick until he spread his arms out wide, said “and that’s the trick”, and strolled off the stage. He left us bewildered and a bit disappointed.

As writers, we often run into the same problem with our stories. A magic trick is, after all, just a story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning and middle keep the spectator (or reader) interested but it’s the ending that ultimately provides the satisfaction (or not). Magicians and writers must carry the story all the way through to the end in order to create the best experience possible.
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But how? I struggled with this years ago when I wrote my first play for my high school drama class. It was a one act piece called “The Box”. It was then that I learned about the very Hitchcockian “water cooler” principle. The idea is to create a story that will have people gathering around the water cooler to discuss it once they read or see it. In my case, the last thirty seconds of the play took place in total darkness.  At the end, you could hear just three things: a scream, two gunshots, and something fall to the floor. The audience was left to determine what happened. 

A great example of this approach at work in children’s fiction can be found in Bruce Hale’s Chet Gecko Mystery, “A Malted Falcon”. Hale’s hero, private eye Chet Gecko, is hired to find the winning ticket in the Malted Falcon contest. The Malted Falcon is described as the “biggest, most chocolatiest, most gut-busting dessert ever imagined” and the ticket entitles the winner to a year’s supply. I won’t give away the ending but Hale’s Malted Falcon raises two questions: (1) Will Chet find the ticket? and (2) If he does, will he return it to its rightful owner or will he keep it for himself? The ending lets the reader reach her own conclusions.

​Another type of ending that works well is when the story comes full circle. Laura Numeroff’s “If You Give…” series, illustrated by Felicia Bond, uses this approach with great success. In “If You Take a Mouse to the Movies” the story begins with our helpful narrator taking a mouse to the movies. The mouse’s requests start off simple (some popcorn) but quickly escalate (buying a Christmas tree and building a snowman). Once the day is done, the mouse remembers his popcorn. When he gets the popcorn, it’s back to the movies all over again! When she was younger, my daughter loved this series. We would read them again and again, following the mouse through his escalating requests until we had come full circle and would start all over again.

One of the most satisfying endings comes when something significant changes for the main character at the end of the story. In “The Ghostwriter Secret”, book two in Mac Barnett’s Brixton Brothers series, Steve Brixton is a young detective who has been greatly influenced by the Bailey Brothers Mysteries. When he takes a most perilous case, Steve discovers that his hero, the author of the Bailey Brothers Mysteries is a criminal mastermind. As a result, he quits the private detective business.
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As you're working on your stories, give some thought to how your ending will impact the reader. As with my magic tricks, I try to end my stories with something that will stay with the reader after they’ve finished the story. Whether that’s a mystery to puzzle over, the desire to read it once more, or the hope that they’ll meet up with the characters again, the ending can be, in itself, a new beginning.

​Happy writing!