Skowhegan Writers (and an imaginary boy from Kentucky)

Downtown Skowhegan

Yesterday, I had a great day in Skowhegan, Maine.  Angie, the children's librarian at the Skowhegan Free Public Library, was offering a week-long writing workshop for kids in her area. And I agreed to come and do a workshop and answer questions as a local author.

My daughter works at our own public library and she is applying to graduate schools for an MLS right now.  So Julia came with me. We drove up early so we could spend a little time in Skowhegan and have lunch there. 

  Skowhegan is a river town with a long history in the paper and logging industry.  I love when weathervanes celebrate a town's heritage.

It was really cold and windy!  I ended up buying Julia a hat while we were there, because it was just so cold!  We had lunch at The Bankery, a wonderful bakery that is in an old bank.  They still had the safe and the safety deposit boxes, etc. on display  We had delicious hot cream of asparagus soup and bread.  Then it was off to the library.


Brrr!  Look at the wind! 

Inside it was sunny and warm, though. Here's the room where I spoke:

  
I told the kids the first thing I noticed when I stepped into the room was the names above the fireplace. I collect names and I always pay lots of attention to names in the area where I've set my books.

I had a nice group of adults and 10-17 year old writers. My workshop was on story development. I find kids are often good at creating characters and setting up a story, but then they struggle with how to keep a story going and how to pay it off.  So that's what I always focus on in writing workshops.  We create a story together--taking it from initial decisions to a climax. I let each of the kids make some of the decisions, and they get really into it.  

I start with a list of names from my local phone book and ask them to imagine a character with that name.  I have about 30 names for them to choose from, but here are a few:

Olga De LaRosa
Jessica Yingling
Kris Quigley
Angelina Waltz
Jenny Anderson
Will Van Twisk
Molly Orf
Andrew Jewell

I model one name for them ("When I see Olga De LaRose, here's who I picture in my mind. . .") and then I say, "Pick a name and tell me who you see." Sometimes I ask a few questions to flesh the character out a little. "Is she a kid or a teenager or an adult?  Is she popular? Not popular?"

After they've had some fun telling me who these people are, I ask them to imagine the opposite.  "Now imagine the opposite for that character.  What if Angelina Waltz wasn't graceful and beautiful.  What if Angelina Waltz were clumsy and unpopular?  How does that change things? What if Olga De LaRosa were two years old?" 

Often times our first impression have a bit of stereotype to them, and the opposite is more interesting, because it comes with some conflict attached to it.  

"Okay, who wants to choose our character?" I asked, and one of the girls picked Andrew Jewell. We went around the room and they each got to decide some things: age, hair and eye color, where he lives, who is in his family, who are his friends, pets, rich/poor/between, tall/short/thin/fat, etc.  Then we moved onto what he wanted, the obstacles in his way, and what he did, trying to get what he wanted. 

Here was our basic story setup:       
Andrew Jewell is 14 years old and a freshman in high school. He has red hair and green eyes. He lives in Kentucky with his older grumpy cheerleader sister and his nutty parents, a pet turtle, and a horse. Andrew is lonely in his extroverted family and has a secret crush on Jenny Anderson, one of his sister's cheerleader teammates. He daydreams about taking her to the school dance. 

"Okay," I said. "What does he do, trying to make that happen? And remember, the ideas can't work--in fact, his ideas have to make things more complicated for him." They came up with some great ideas. "We've given him a horse," I suggested as we brainstormed. "There should be a reason for that. How can we use the horse?" 

Andrew knows that Jenny loves horses, so one day when she's over visiting his sister, Andrew asks Jenny if she'd like to ride with him. She gets on the horse behind him and he starts daydreaming about them riding on a beach with the wind in her hair. Since he's not paying attention, she accidentally falls off the horse and breaks her leg--which knocks her off the squad--and dashes his hopes of her going to the dance with him, because now she's mad at him.

"At some point in the middle of the story we have to decide, does Andrew get what he wants?" I said. It was silent and then they all shook their heads. They knew they'd made Andrew want someone who wasn't truly right for him.

"Okay," I said. "He's not going to get what he wanted, but we still want to leave the reader feeling satisfied. What can we give him instead?"

BUT there is another girl named Angelina Waltz who is on the JV cheerleading squad and who does 4-H with Andrew and who really likes him. Andrew has only had eyes for Jenny and he confides in Angelina. When Jenny says no to going to the dance with Andrew, Angelina suggests they go together.  And he realizes she's the one for him.

We laughed a lot while we put this together, but in the end, it does have the bones of a real story.


Skowhegan Library Director Dale Jandreau, Children's Librarian Angie Herrick, and me!

Thank you to everyone who came, and a special thank you to Julia for all your help and to Dale and Angie at the Skowhegan Free Public Library for such a fun day!