Pixar To the Rescue!

We at Teaching Authors are looking at messy middles. I so enjoyed April's Messy, Perplexing Journey  There is no way I can follow the genius of that blog post (You should really read it!). So, instead, I offer one of my favorite checklists that I use when I am revising a story, especially shoring up the middle. You’ve no doubt seen these Pixar’s Rules of Storytelling. The article dates from 2013, and was originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist. There's twenty rules in all. And all of them are pretty handy at helping me get to the emotive core of the story, blending action and adventure with character-driven plots. Fiction is primarily an emotional exchange. The reader stays connected to the hero because she feels the story. The reader wants to see the character succeed, or at least wants to see what happens next. And, true enough, no one does that better than Pixar! I admit it, I cried when Nemo was found, when Wall-E fell in love, and when Coco hugged his grandfather. And I certainly believe toys come alive when no one is watching.

Here’s a sampling of Emma Coats' rules:

1. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

2. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

3. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

4. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

5. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

6. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

And here's a Pixar exercise for the road:

Take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How would you rearrange them into what you DO like?

Remember, "Adventure is out there!" (Russell, from UP)

Wishing you the spirit of adventure, too!

-- Bobbi Miller

3 More Writer Resources, Plus a Question

Hello, Everyone!
Today I'm wrapping up our series on Writer Resources. I also want to remind you that this is the last day to enter our giveaway of the 2017 edition of one of the best writer resources for those who write for children and teens: the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market (Writer's Digest Books). This edition features my co-blogger JoAnn Early Macken's article "Be Your Own Literary Agent." See JoAnn's post to enter.

If you're new to our blog and you missed the other posts in this series, here's a link that will allow you to scroll through all of them, as well as previous posts on the topic.

Here are three final resources for you, plus a question:

Grammarly 

Grammarly provides software that you can use to check spelling and grammar, not only within documents but anywhere you type. It's checking this blog post and flagging errors as I write it. I've been using the free version, which includes weekly reports on how accurate and productive I've been in comparison to other users. So far, I'm doing okay. 😊

Google Blogger Emojis/Special Characters

See the smiley face at the end of the last paragraph? It used to be difficult to include emojis and special characters, like the copyright symbol, in blogs hosted by Google Blogger. I just recently noticed that there's now a searchable drop-down box filled with them built into the posting toolbar. 👌

IFTTT (IF This Then This)

to Automate Repetitive Activities

Wikipedia defines IFTTT as "a free web-based service that people use to create chains of simple conditional statements, called applets. An applet is triggered by changes that occur within other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest." For example, I mentioned in January that I'd finally activated the Twitter account I set up long ago (@carmelamartino). Now I'm also on Instagram (@cmartinoauthor). I used IFTTT for the first time this week, to set up an applet that automatically posts my Instagram photos to Twitter. I'm hoping to find other ways IFTTT can help automate my social media activity. If you have suggestions, do let me know, either here or on one of my social media sites.

Now for the question:

What Writer Resource Do You Recommend?

In particular, I'd like to know if any of you have used TextExpander, or a similar product, to create shortcuts for text you type frequently. Or do you have any other resources that help you as a writer? Please tell us in the comments to this post or on our Facebook page.

Before I sign off, I'd like to share a link to a new website promoting young-adult fiction that features Catholic characters and themes: CatholicTeenBooks.com. I'm honored to have my novel,
 Rosa, Sola, included there.

And don't forget that today is Poetry Friday. See the roundup hosted by Michelle Barnes at Today's Little Ditty.

Remember to Write with JOY!
Carmela

2017 Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market Giveaway Reminder

Hello everyone,

Unfortunately, Mary Ann isn't able to post today. We'll continue our series on "Writer Resources" Monday. Meanwhile, I'm here to remind you that there's still time to enter for a chance to win the latest edition of one of the best writer resources for those who write for children and teens:
the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market (Writer's Digest Books). See JoAnn's post for details.


And don't forget to check out this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Heidi Mordhorst's My Juicy Little Universe.

Remember to Write with JOY!
Carmela

Resources, Resources, Poem, Book Giveaway!

I'm continuing our Teaching Authors series on helpful writing resources. April wrote about apps for writers.  Esther posted about the SCBWI Conference and the official conference blog. I'm adding a list--hope you find something useful in it!

One of my favorite resources is always Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market (CWIM). My article, "Be Your Own Literary Agent," appears in the 2017 edition. We're giving away a copy. Look below for giveaway details.

The ReFoReMo Challenge, or Reading for Research Month Challenge, was founded in 2015 to help picture book writers reform writing by reading and researching mentor texts in the month of March. ReFoReMo 2017 starts on February 27.

Laura Purdie Salas sends out a helpful monthly e-newsletter for children’s writers, A Writer Can Be…. (sign up here) and also a monthly e-newsletter for educators (sign up here).

Picture Book Builders is a group blog that explores "how one element of a picture book’s story or art manages to grab us or wow us or strike an emotional chord." Our good friend Jill Esbaum is part of the group. Pat Zietlow Miller's February 17 post, "Crunch: It’s not just for cooking," lured me in again recently after I hadn't visited for a while. Then I just kept reading.

The Art of Storytelling is an exploration of the storytelling process at Pixar.

Increase your vocabulary and help fight world hunger. For each answer you get right, Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor is a daily email that includes a poem and brief biographical information about writers whose birthdays fall on that day. Yesterday's poem, "Lucky"
by Kirsten Dierking, grabbed me.

All this time,
the life you were
supposed to live
has been rising around you
like the walls of a house... 

(Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017)

Finally, your best resources might be your own desk drawers or computer files. Last night's storm reminded me of this poem I wrote in 1999.

Illumination

Snowflakes whirl at night,

Circling around the streetlight

Like bright summer moths.

snowy owl on streetlight

What surprises lurk in your old files? See what you can revisit, rework, and repurpose. Good luck!

Book Giveaway Details 

Marie D. won our latest book giveaway of Tuktuk: Tundra Tale by Robin Currie, Congratulations, Marie!

To enter our new drawing for a chance to win a copy of the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market 2017, use the Rafflecopter widget below. You may enter via 1, 2, or all 3 options.

If you choose option 2, you must leave a comment on today's blog post below or on our TeachingAuthors Facebook page. If you haven't already liked our Facebook page, please do so today! If you prefer, you may submit your comment via email to: teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com.

Email subscribers: if you received this post via email, you can click on the Rafflecopter link at the end of this message to access the entry form.

Note: if you submit your comments via email or Facebook, you must still enter the drawing via the widget below. The giveaway ends March 10, 2017, and is open to U.S. residents only.

P.S. If you've never entered a Rafflecopter giveaway, here's info on how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway and the difference between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address.

Today's Poetry Friday Roundup is at Karen Edmisten*. Enjoy!

JoAnn Early Macken

a Rafflecopter giveaway

4 Apps for Writers and Creatives, and a Terrible Poem (Sorry)

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Howdy, Campers and Happy Poetry Friday! (Links to PF and our latest autographed book drawing (!) are at the end of this post.)

Our current topic is Writer Resources. Esther's fabulous post offers five books for young writers, all of which I covet. I'd like to share four free apps I continually draw on. They enrich my life.

Meditating sometimes helps me hear that still, small voice that tells me the truth about a story I'm writing, about a life crisis, or about a relationship in flux. Insight Timer is an app I use for both silent meditations and also for its free guided meditations. I can filter them by topic (sleep, morning, energy, healing, fear, etc.), by length (from one minute to over an hour), by teacher (from all over the world), by how many thousands of times it has been played, by reviews, etc. I've been meditating for about fifteen years; this app makes it hard not to.

Adblock Plus My computer guy downloaded this popular browser extension for me years ago; it changed my life. It's free and open source and I donate to it. Why? Because if I open a web page without Adblock Plus, there are ads and moving images screaming at me. I can't focus with Las Vegas pounding on my brain. With ABP, all I see is the resource itself in a quiet field of white. Like Ferdinand the bull, instead of fighting in bull fights, I get to sit quietly under my own cork tree and smell the flowers as I write with the aid of the next two resources.

Illustration by Robert Lawson from Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf, first published in 1936

Thesaurus Many of you already use this resource. If you click on the link, you'll see that it takes you to a word which helps me write. That's the page I bookmark.

RhymeZone Another one that many of you use. 

If these last two resources were pencils, they'd be little tiny stubs, I use them so much!

Okie dokie...it's Poetry Friday, so here's my poem for today. I fully admit that it's terrible, but it was fun to write and it makes me laugh.

A RAT'S TALE
by April Halprin Wayland
                     .

Ree was a rat who lived by the Source.

She did nothing but watch the Source water course

from her lonely rat hut 'neath the sourwood tree.

Ree was inactive.

Ree had no life.

Just the Source and her hut and her hot, bedtime tea.

But Ree's life was changed

when she joined the gym.

She became a gym rat and the gym referee.

She took 20 classes

that first week on a spree.

And all of her coaches said, "Sweat is the key!"

But the more Ree worked out, the more parched she got—

sweating at night

(though Ree was not hot.)

She guzzled her tea, then looked in her cup.

She pondered, then wandered outside near that tree

then drank from the Source 'til she was filled up.

And that's when Ree realized what gumption begets—

she stood taller, was forceful...

and declared,

"I'm

Ree

Source

full!"                                                               (Sorry.)

The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893

Readers, now's your chance to enter our drawing to win an autographed copy of Tuktuk: Tundra Tale (Arbordale Publishing), by Robin Currie, illustrated by Phyllis V. Saroff. The drawing ends February 22, 2017. click here for more information.

Thank you, dear Jone, for hosting PF today at Check It Out!

posted by April Halprin Wayland with gratitude for the love and support of you, our peeps of the Kidlitosphere

Writing Books - My Personal Favorites

Happy Friday! I don't know about you, but I've bookmarked Mary Ann's Wednesday Writing Workout. What a fun exercise! Now, back to the topic of favorite craft-oriented books. We all have our personal favorites, of course, and there are certainly enough out there to satisfy everybody's tastes. I hadn't even heard of Carmela's pick, Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook, but I'm going to have to try to find a copy. I'm more familiar with the terrific books on Mary Ann's list, although I've never had the pleasure of reading Marcia Colub's I'd Rather Be Writing. These two are going straight to my (ever growing!) "must read" list. For my own list, I'm going to stick to those books that deal with writing fiction.

When I feel the need for a writing boost, there are books I go back to again and again. But if I were going to be stranded on a desert isle with only three books about the writing craft to read while awaiting rescue (and praying for a cookbook to wash up:  500 Ways to Cook Coconuts), my picks would be:

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne & Dave King. This little gem was first published in 1993, but it's no less relevant now than 20 years ago. It's packed with information that vastly improved my writing. Vastly. And it's written in a friendly, chatting-over-the-back-fence style that appeals to me. So many illuminating examples are sprinkled throughout – good, bad, hilarious, and cringe-inducing – that there's no way you can read it and not come away a better writer. How many writing sins did Beginner Me commit? That's for another post.

Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, by Lawrence Block. Reading these essays is like picking the brain of a warm and witty, well-published favorite uncle who's willing to cut through the baloney and give it to you straight. He covers every topic I can imagine about writing and the writing life. From selecting a pen name (or not) to speeding up your writing to creating believable characters to "the perils of icebox thinking." I'm not kidding. It's ALL here. An often eye-opening read.

For my third choice, I’d have to go with Stephen King’s On Writing. Half memoir, half instruction manual, candid and, by turns, heartbreaking and funny, this book gives me hope that success can happen for any of us willing to work hard and BELIEVE. And who doesn’t need that?

Many, many other books on my bookshelves beckon, but these three remain my faves.  Since I never studied writing formally, they pretty much provided my writing education, helped get me where I am today. How could I not love them?

Jill Esbaum

Writing Craftily

     Asking me about my favorite writing books is like asking me about my favorite movie. I mean really, how can one have a favorite movie? I probably see as many movies as Roger Ebert.  I have to categorize my favs: war/adventure: The Great Escape; comedy: Annie Hall, Airplane, Blazing Saddles; musical: Cabaret, All That Jazz: too bloody to fit in a category: Godfathers I & II, Donnie Brasco, Good Fellas, Pulp Fiction. Also anything with Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep or Johnny Depp. (Yes, I paid money to see Joe and the Volcano in a theater.)

   When it comes to my favorite writing books, I pare it down to three categories of one or two books. (Aren't you relieved?)

   Inspirational books. Marcia Golub is a woman I would love to have as a next-door neighbor. Anyone who can write a book called I'd Rather Be Writing about how those of us without nannies, housekeepers and writing retreats in the Caribbean manage to write anyway, is someone who has my number. Lesson taken away from Marcia' book:  if you have a family and a writing career, you're always going to feel conflicted. Get over it. Oh and don't bother also trying to live the Martha Stewart life (even Martha Stewart doesn't live the Martha life without a platoon of assistants.) Alas, Marcia's book is out of print. I'd loan you mine...but then I don't loan books. (I never get them back.)

   If you have been following this blog for awhile, you probably know that my favorite book after Charlotte's Web is Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. I re-read Bird by Bird on a continual basis. (All right...I keep it in the bathroom for moment of "unavoidable delay.") Anne is funny and profane (for those of you who object to the occasional profanity in your how-to books, this might not be for you.) Anne taught me two important lessons: 1) first drafts are always crappy. That's why there are second, fourth and seventy-fourth drafts. You aren't going to get it right the first time. 2) You don't sit down to write with an entire story arc in place, any more than you would sit down to eat one of those 64-ounce-steak joints (finish it and it's free....and you have probably just had a coronary so the point is moot). The title Bird by Bird is Anne's shorthand for writing only what you see before you right this minute. Don't worry about that elusive center section, or that fuzzy ending. Write what you see clearly now.

     Craft books.  Darcy Pattison's Paper Lightning: Pre-Writing Activities That Spark Creativity and Help Students Write Effectively was written with the middle school writer in mind. Therefore, it is perfect for me, when I find myself with big story problems I can't solve myself.  There are exercises here for developing characters, settings, plots, dull language....you name it, Darcy and Paper Lightning can solve it. I have always wanted to teach a full-year class just to have the pleasure of sharing all of Darcy's common-sense suggestions and solutions. However, since I am currently relegated to teaching six session workshops, Paper Lightening is my atlas to writing sanity.

     Craft books for kids:  The classic book I hand a student who wants a book "that tells me how to write a book" is Marion Dane Bauer's What's Your Story: A Young Person's Guide to Writing Fiction.
Although this is geared to a slightly younger crowd than Paper Lightening, it was my fiction writing bible in the Vermont College MFA program (and not just because Marion Dane Bauer was one of my four mentors.)  Unlike Paper Lightning, which is designed to be a textbook, Bauer's book can be read and understood without teacher assistance.

    My six-session workshops can be problematic. It is not reasonable to expect any student, adult or child (and I teach both) to complete more than a rough draft in such a short time. I focus on writing exercises that are fun and have the possibility of  "growing" into a larger work. Ralph Fletcher has written more books on writing with kids than I can count, but my favorite is the one he has written for teachers, Craft Lessons. Fletcher takes students Pre-K through middle school through the components of fiction writing. The exercises and lessons can be used as stand-alone lessons. Each exercise is tailored to the skills and understanding of that particular age. My kids' workshops are for grades 4-8, so this is perfect for me. And if you like this book, check out the rest of the Ralph Fletcher bookshelf; you won't be sorry.

    Tune in Wednesday when I share my favorite writing exercise that I did not learn from any of my favorite writing books!

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Book Giveaway! The Author's Name Rhymes with Halloween: FORGET ME NOT by Carolee Dean

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Howdy, Campers! Happy Poetry Friday! Info about how to enter today's Book Giveaway is far, far below.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by the Paper Tigers--thank you!

Years ago, I attended an informal farewell lunch after speaking at a writers' conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  I was tired and wasn't feeling well and very nearly skipped that lunch.  Luckily, I didn't. That's where I met the dynamic and sparkling Carolee Dean.

I have since had the great pleasure of being on a panel Carolee put together for this year's International Reading Association Convention in Chicago.  (That's where I learned how generous, well-organized and cool-under-pressure she is.)

Carolee keeps a gazillion plates spinning in the air at once.  She not only works in public schools as a speech-language pathologist, she also teaches writing, helps sponsor middle school and high school poetry slam teams, and is the author of three young adult novels all including original poetry.  They are: COMFORT (Houghton Mifflin), TAKE ME THERE (Simon Pulse), and the JUST ABOUT TO BE PUBLISHED paranormal verse novel FORGET ME NOT (Simon Pulse, Oct. 2, 2012)--which you, yes you can WIN in our Book Giveaway--woo-woo (details below)!

So let's meet Carolee in person.  Hey, Carolee--how did you officially become a TeachingAuthor?

I've spent over a decade working in the public schools as a speech-language pathologist with students of all ages and a variety of challenges. The most difficult thing for most of them is writing, and understandably, many of them hate doing it. I'm always trying out activities to inspire my reluctant writers. Sometimes the activities work. Sometimes they don't. When they do work I like to share them with other educators because I know how difficult it can be to continuously come up with inspiring lessons.

Among some of my better ideas is a twelve step story analysis method I call The Secret Language of Stories. I've given presentations on it at several state, national, and international conferences including the International Reading Association 2012 in Chicago where I co-presented on an all day panel with you and TeachingAuthor
Esther Hershenhorn. I have a description of the twelve steps
on a tab at my blog.

What's a common problem your students have and how do you address it? 

It's easy to get stuck staring at a big white page or a blank computer screen. I can't tell you how many times I hear the words, "I don't know what to write."  I reply, "writing isn't about knowing. There is no magic right or wrong answer as there is in other subjects.

Writing is about choosing, about considering the infinite possibilities and picking one." To this the student inevitably replies, "I still don't know what to write." Then I usually give the stumped pupil a whole list of suggestions which he or she usually doesn't like because that blank computer screen is still just so darn intimidating.

One strategy that has worked extremely well for me is to create a PowerPoint with directions on each slide for what part of the story to write on that particular slide. I also include suggestions about what kind of accompanying images to select. I usually let kids choose the images first since the pictures often inspire their writing. This has worked extremely well with even the most struggling writers. Kids love power point and they love Google Images.

I have some high school students who read and write at first and second grade levels and they have come up with some of the most amazing stories.

(Directions for Carolee's PowerPoint story along with a downloadable PowerPoint can be found under the Teacher Resources section of her blog).

Would you share a favorite writing exercise with our readers?

I like to get kids talking about stories before they write them. There is a strong connection between oral language and written language and it often helps to verbalize ideas before putting them down on paper.

One of my favorite activities is to cut out unusual pictures from magazines. Advertisements often contain images that may be interpreted in a variety of ways. I play music and then ask students to walk around the room. When the music stops I tell them to sit down in front of a picture and describe to the class what they think is going on.

We do this several times and I've found that the random nature of the activity takes off the pressure to think of something good. After they've all come up with two or three ideas, we sit down to write. I often use the structure of poetry for this stage of writing because the focus is on ideas rather than grammar.

I LOVE that idea, Carolee. I can see using it in my classes for adults writers, too. Okay, so tell us...what's on the horizon for you?

I'm in the process of writing up The Secret Language of Stories as a teacher sourcebook and I just wrote an article for Cynsations exploring the history of verse novels going all the way back to Homer and the Iliad and the Odyssey.

In the immediate future, FORGET ME NOT, my paranormal verse novel, is coming out October 2! It's about a girl who has been cyber bullied and hides out from her tormentors in a deserted part of the school only to find herself stuck in a hallway full of ghosts.
(Read the great Kirkus review of FORGET ME NOT here and another terrific review of her book here.)

Sounds wonderfully SPOOKY, Carolee--and just in time for Halloween! 

And finally, since it's Poetry Friday in the Kidlitosphere, would you share a poem from your new book with our readers?

Absolutely.  Here is an excerpt from FORGET ME NOT:

WRITE IT OUT

That's what Ms. Lane,
my writing teacher,
would say.
Spill it out onto
the page.
Sometimes it's
the only way

for thoughts heavy
as bricks
to become feathers
and fly away.

I could go
to her class.
Get my head
together.

I'd sit next to
Elijah.

I wonder if
he's heard.

Even if he has,
I know

he
wouldn't say
a word.

poem © 2012 Carolee Dean. All rights reserved

Wonderful!  Thank you SO much for stopping by to talk with us, Carolee!

Here's the exquisite book trailer for FORGET ME NOT:


Campers!  Join Carolee's Ghost Tour which starts Oct. 3, and check out the original jewelry made especially for Carolee's book launch!

Carolee has generously offered to autograph a copy of  her about-to-be-published book for our BOOK GIVEAWAY.  Yay!  To enter, just follow these rules:

You must follow our TeachingAuthors blog to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of Forget Me Not by Carolee Dean.  If you're not already a follower, you can sign up now in the sidebar to subscribe to our posts via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs.

There are two ways to enter:
1) by a comment posted below
OR
2) by sending an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.

Just for the fun of it, tell us a true ghost story of your own in 50 words or less. This is optional!

Whichever way you enter, you MUST give us your name AND tell us how you follow us. If you enter via a comment, you MUST include a valid email address (formatted this way: youremail [at] gmail [dot] com) in your comment. Contest open only to residents of the United States. Incomplete entries will be discarded.
Entry deadline is 11 p.m. Thursday, October 11, 2012 (Central Standard Time). The winner will be chosen in a random drawing and announced on October 12th. [Note from Carmela--the original deadline was a week off. These are the corrected dates.]

Good luck, Campers!

WIRED FOR STORY: TWO Thumbs Up!

I’m a TeachingAuthor, right?

So, the Teacher and the Writer in me can combine their high opinions and enthusiastically award Lisa Cron’s WIRED FOR STORY (Ten Speed Press, July, 2012) two Thumbs Up!

Both parts of me were actively, indeed compulsively engaged while I read this book, subtitled “The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence.”

I’m happy to say: the book proved providential. I’d just begun what I hoped would be a final revision of a middle grade novel.  Thanks to the beginning chapters, I instantly saw I still had Back Story to discover.

Maybe that fact explains why my copy of WIRED FOR STORY is now inked and yellow-marker-ed from cover to cover, the “Aha!’s” circled and starred, the turn-me-around explanations of and insights into key story elements underlined at least twice.  Page corners are bent, both top and bottom. 

Just to make sure I truly got these Story Truths - Truths now showcased in a whole new neuroscientific light, Truths I know cold and fervently teach, I first copied them into my Writer’s Notebook, next into my ongoing novel revision, then finally into the body of emails I sent several of my writers and students presently immersed in their storytelling and revisions.

As a teacher, I relentlessly remind my children’s book writers to think about their readers. 

Where are they cognitively, emotionally, chronologically?
What questions are they asking at the end of the chapter?
What keeps them caring and turning the pages?
But now, thanks to Lisa Cron and WIRED FOR STORY, I’ll exhort them to keep in mind their reader’s brain!
It’s wired, it turns out, to grasp the architecture of story; it’s wired to expect its necessary building blocks.

“Fire,” the author reveals, “is crucial to writing; it’s the very first ingredient of every story.  Passion is what drives us to write……but there is an implicit framework that must underlie a story in order for that passion, that fire, to ignite the reader’s brain.”

Lisa Cron is an instructor at the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program.  She’s worked in publishing, as an agent, as a TV producer, as a story consultant for film. 

In other words, she’s a TeachingAuthor too.
And it shows.

The book illuminates “the intricate mesh of interconnected elements that hold a story together," while zeroing in on how the brain works.

Its twelve-chapter organization is pure Show, Don’t Tell, from “How to Hook the Reader” to “What Does Your Protagonist Really Want?” to “Courting Conflict, the Agent of Change” to “Cause and Effect” to “The Road from Setup to Payoff” to “The Writer’s Brain on Story.”

Each chapter begins with a Cognitive Secret and a Story Secret.  For instance, when digging up our protagonist’s inner issue, cognitively we see the world not as it is, but as we believe it to be.  Story-wise, Cron tells us, we must know precisely when, and why, our protagonist’s worldview was knocked out of alignment.

Each chapter ends with a summarizing Checklist usable at any writing stage.
Cron parcels out the techniques and tips in delicious bites that build logically, using familiar examples from literature, movies and television for further concrete explanation.  Within each informational segment, she distinguishes between the Myth and the Reality.
Her tone is warm, friendly, personal, because she too is a writer who knows the challenges of story-telling.
Each chapter’s opening quote, many unknown to me, begs to be copied and shared.

Lisa now contributes to WriterUnboxed, a blog about the craft and business of fiction.

Visit her website to learn more about her and WIRED FOR STORY.

And, Good News:  YOU can enter to win an autographed copy of WIRED FOR STORY.  Be sure to see the details below.

So, thank you twice, Lisa Cron.

The Writer in me now embraces her current revision more confidently, knowing the story parts my reader’s brain expects in order to live and breathe and care (!) inside my novel.

The Teacher in me now has a new gift to bear.

Esther Hershenhorn

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

You must follow our TeachingAuthors blog to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of Wired for Story by Lisa Cron.  If you're not already a follower, you can sign up now in the sidebar to subscribe to our posts via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs.

There are two ways to enter:

• by a comment posted below OR
• by sending an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.

Just for the fun of it, see if your cortex is working.  Along with your name, share the name of a part of your brain!

Whichever way you enter, you MUST give us your name AND tell us how you follow us. If you enter via a comment, you MUST include a valid email address (formatted like: teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com) in your comment. Contest open only to residents of the United States. Incomplete entries will be discarded.
Entry deadline is 11 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012 (Central Standard Time). The winner will be chosen in a random drawing and announced on Sept. 26.

Good luck!