Good for you for writing a manuscript that more or less makes sense! Now what do you do with it? The Studio’s Stephanie Lehmann can help. She is a critically acclaimed author, awesome teacher, manuscript diagnostician and agent-insider. Stephanie can meet with you (virtually) one-on-one to help you navigate your roadblocks. Confused about scenes? Stuck
NOTE: Live on Zoom. In-person for the MASKED + FULLY VACCINATED (vax card and mask required for entrance). Where do you want to go as a writer, and what are your goals for 2022? Instructor Victoria Sherrow believes that writers’ goals often fall into these categories: productivity, skills development, publication, marketing/sales and personal satisfaction. With
BY VICTORIA SHERROW
How do we make sure readers will worry about our characters and root for them to resolve problems and reach their goals? First, the problem or goal should be meaningful–something needs to be at stake. But even with a strong plot problem and appealing main character, a story can fall flat.
Conflict might be the missing ingredient. A conflict can involve person-vs-person, person-vs.-society, and/or person-vs.-nature.
By VICTORIA SHERROW
As children’s writers, we hope to pull our readers into a story and keep their interest from start to finish. One important tool for achieving that goal is called “show; don’t tell.” By showing what characters experience moment-to-moment, we help readers feel like they are THERE with the characters, sharing the experience. “Show; don’t tell” helps us write lively scenes rather than just giving readers a bland list of facts or background information about characters, settings, and events.
Here’s an example based on one of the writing exercises I use in my workshops. The first is a series of fact statements that lack “show; don’t tell”:
Inside the Traynor home, 11-year-old Jason was working on his school science project. The project was due the next day. Jason had not planned ahead and didn’t have the materials he needed to finish. He was worried.