Challenge: Write a Chapter Book in One Month

If you’re following along with my calendar this month to write an early reader chapter book using THE RED FLYER ROLLER COASTER as your mentor text, today we’re working on Chapter 3.

As you’re writing new content for this chapter as well as editing Chapter 2 which you wrote yesterday, there are a couple of tips I’d like to share.

For starters, both of these chapters are all about different ways your main character is trying to solve the main story problem. In our mentor text, Sophie Bean informs Grandma that she is simply too big to ride the merry-go-round any more but she’s still not tall enough to ride the roller coaster.

In Chapter 3, Sophie Bean brings along a pair of Mommy’s high heels to wear to make her tall enough to go.

What is your main character trying to do in your Chapters 2 and 3 to solve her main story problem? Show this happening in your Chapters 2 and 3.

Also, let’s talk a little bit about transitions.

Chapter 2 is one complete scene.

It starts with a TRANSITION: “When they got home…”

This transitions from the previous scene in the last chapter to the next scene in Chapter 2.

You’ll find transitions such as these in between scenes in our mentor text and you can use similar ones in yours. When you’re writing a short chapter book such as this with a limited word count, you don’t want to waste an entire paragraph moving from scene to scene.

On page 12, the transition in between scenes is “The next week…”

On page 17, the transition in between scenes is “The next week…”

On page 18, the transition in between scenes is “At the beach…”

On page 20, the transition in between scenes is “A few weeks later…”

You can go from scene to scene with very short transitions just like these to move quickly through the passage of time to concentrate on scenes, the building blocks of your story!

Filed under: Beginning Readers, Chapter Books