NEWSLETTER #4 - October 1999

Hi, Kids:

I feel like a student myself these days because I've just spent three days in a course learning about how to write better stories. No matter how long I've been writing or how many books I've published, I can always learn more about how to create interesting characters or how to make the story grab you readers. For the writers among you, here are a few of the tips I picked up in my course.

You should always know what your character wants. If your story is simply wandering along, not really going anywhere, then ask yourself these questions: Who is my main character? What does he or she want? Does he/she get it too easily?

Simply put, stories are about conflict. By that I don't simply mean people fighting with each other. Conflict is what you and I encounter in little ways (or big ones) every day. We need to be at school on time, but we miss the bus. We want to hand in that really good story we scribbled on the back of a comic book yesterday, but Dad put it in the washing machine by mistake.We want to be the star in the fifth grade play, but somebody else gets picked.

So if you write a story about a dog who wants to learn how to fly on the first page and by the second page, he's flying, then it's not really a story because nothing happened. Get your character in trouble and then show us what kind of person or animal or robot he is by telling us what he does when he is in trouble. That's how we get to know and care about the characters in stories--by finding out the choices they make under pressure.

I'm off for a month of writing in a special place called an artist's colony. I have lots of ideas so I'm excited about turning them into books, but it's a little like going away to summer camp. Remember that jittery feeling in your stomach. What if I don't like it? What if the other kids don't like me? Will I miss home too much? Think of me as going away to writer's camp. Drop in on my website and leave me a message while I'm gone. I won't be checking e-mail until I return in the middle of November, but it will be fun to find a pile of mail when I get back.

Happy fall!