"It's all about the heartbeat..."

 This time around, each TeachingAuthor is answering the #1 Question

she receives most often from her students and Readers.

I knew mine by heart: What's the one thing about Writing for Children

you wish you knew when you first began?

Ironically, my tried-and-true response also answers the #1 Question I

ask myself when writing my own stories and/or reading the stories of

the writers I teach and coach: Why isn't this manuscript working?!

The answer to both questions?

Every story demands an Emotional Plotline if it's to resound in the

Reader's heart.

Thanks to Aristotle, I knew all about the PHYSICAL Plotline and how 

it structured a story.

The inciting event, the obstacles and struggles, the climax, the

surprise, the resolution.

And I excelled at determining my character's.

Unfortunately, however, after years of toiling on task, I learned 

that wasn't my job.

It's the character's!

Character determines plot. Period.

No more pulling the strings of my character a la Master Geppetto,

guiding actions and re-actions, assigning accompanying emotions

as he seeks to realize his dream, solve his problem, fulfill his need.

No more writing above my character's plotline, unplugged and

disconnected.

I needed to plumb the depths of my character's heart to learn the

WHY of his WHAT, his Or else..., so my story offered an 

EMOTIONAL Plotline.

What misbelief did his hurting heart hold?

What was his bedtime prayer when nighttime came?

I shared several exercises for mining a character's heart in a 2017

TeachingAuthors post, as did Ruth Vander Zee in our January, 

2018 interview and my fellow TA Carmela Martino in her 2017

post.

But, it also turns out, I needed to (bravely) plumb the depths of 

my own heart.

                                        

Marian Dane Bauer's What's My Story? A Young Person's Guide

to Writing Fiction (Clarion, 1992) took my writing to the Next

Level, illuminating a Truth I'd been unwilling to confront.

The writer needs to put his story into the story he's telling.  

That's the only way the Emotional Plotline can be all it must be

to do its job for the Reader.

Mind you: the writer needn't have experienced the actual

inciting incident; he needs only to reconnect with the feelings

that incident provoked, that "I know just how that feels"

sentiment.

In other words, the writer must first connect with the character

if the Reader is to do ths same, if the Reader is to have what

Jane Yolen called the Recognizable Sentiment.

"One heart in hiding, reaching out to one another," Katherine

Paterson wrote of her two characters Jeff Arons and Leslie

Burke in Bridge to Terabithia.

IMHO: this beautiful insight speaks of the character-writer

connection, too, as well as, ultimately, the character-Reader

connection.

            

Fortunately, it wasn't too late in my Writer's Journey to learn

the Why and Wherefore of the Emotional Plotline  (the true

inside story) vs. the Physical Plotline  (the outside actions.)

A story works as it should, as it must, when all three hearts

are inter-connected - the character's, the writer's, the Reader's.

Only then can the story's heart cause another's heart to beat

and burst.

I liken the connection to the three notes of a fine perfume -

the top note, middle note, bottom note - that allow the

singular scent to be known, register and be remembered.

My favorite Coach, Joe Maddon, said it best, though he was

writing about the game of baseball and how it should be

played: "It's all about the heartbeat."

Here's to keeping ours and our Readers' hearts beating!

Esther Hershenhorn

P.S.

Thanks to Ramona and PLEASURES FROM THE PAGE

for hosting today's Poetry Friday.

Once upon a time...

 

Once upon a time, I had the good fortune to learn from the late 

and oh, so wise award-winning author and teacher Richard Peck.

When it comes to crafting story, he taught me, 

“In the beginning is the end, in the end is the beginning.”

It matters little what my character seeks –

a problem’s solution,

a need’s fulfillment,

the realization of a dream,

the granting of a wish.

Somewhere within the story’s requisite inevitable yet surprising 

satisfactory resolution lies its start.

 

Mr. Peck’s sage advice has become a mantra of sorts, one I gladly 

repeat to myself as well as my writers and students when we find 

ourselves facing unreachable endings to our stories.

His words provide the perfect Rx.

Revisiting a story’s beginning allows us to reconnect with our 

characters to finally see their narrative arcs, to remind ourselves 

what our story is about, to remember our story’s promise to the 

Reader.

The beginning and end need to be of a piece so the story works as 

an harmonious whole.

 

Even better, though, especially for picture book writers, revisiting

 a story’s beginning words – those we chose when we launched our 

story, often reveals hidden nuggets that await discovery and 

repurposing.

A word ripe for word play or repetition.

A phrase worthy of a refrain.

A reader-grabbing sentiment, revealing the story’s heart.

For example, in my There Goes Lowell’s Party! (Holiday House), 

with his faith in his family’s love and resourcefulness to over-

come all obstacles confirmed, Lowell confidently casts all doubt 

aside and declares: “Here comes my party!

In my Fancy That (Holiday House), Pippin Biddle honors his 

“Though far, I am near, cheering you on!” promise to his sisters to 

save them from the Poor House, prompting the sisters to in time

exclaim, “Though far, you were near, cheering us on!”

My chosen story structure in Chicken Soup By Heart (Simon & 

Schuster) – a story within a story – begins and ends with, “Here it 

is, from start to finish, how such a nice boychik saved the Chicken 

Soup Queen.”

 

Of course, and fortunately, Richard Peck taught me far more than 

the craft of writing. He modeled for writers, published or not, 

dedication to craft and dogged pursuit of one’s dreams.

Yes, our stories’ ends must hold their original beginnings and vice-

versa.

But his multitude of singular characters showed me what all of our 

story characters come to learn if they are different for the Journey:  

like all ends, THE END inevitably births new and surprising

 satisfactory Once upon a times!

 

Thanks to Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone for hosting today’s Poetry 

Friday.

Here’s to Happy-Ever-After endings – my favorite kind!

 

Esther Hershenhorn

My Storied Treasures’ Treasured Stories!

                                                           (clker-free-vector-images)

I am 100% certain: I learn as much if not more than do my students and writers with each class I teach and each coaching session I facilitate.
And I’m pretty sure I’m incalculably smarter, thanks to my storied treasures as I labeled them in my TeachingAuthors THANKU launch in 2011.

Like Carmela’s students, my students and writers remind me daily of the requisite hard work writing demands and the ultimate joy writing delivers.
Like my Newberry Library students whom I labeled new berries in my 2013 THANKU, they also feed me and juice my batteries.

This past year, courtesy of my students and writers,
I’ve been to Latvia, Mississippi, Detroit and Idaho (twice!),
traveled back in time to 1908, 1948, 1953 and 1967 (twice!),
hung with chipmunks, Scotties, warthogs, abandoned kittens, a heroic mosquito and an opera-loving Gila monster.
Their works-in-progress taught me about dyslexia, lambing, simple machines, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and jump rope jingles.
With each manuscript I learn something new – about a format, a genre or an element of narrative, a subject matter, a readership, a relevant book or author.
And if I’m lucky – and I usually am, I learn my writers’ Back Stories, their treasure, and where it resides in the story he or she is telling.

All of those gifted learning opportunities together REconfirm an important Truth: each of us has a story worth telling.

                (Pixabay/Horwin)

So what if a theme has already been spoken for?  So what if a plot or incident or time period or famous character already claims a book?
The New Baby. Moving Away. Desire for a Pet. Civil Rights.  The Holocaust.  Someone-or-Something lost, then found.
"There’s only one you,” I remind my students and writers, “with your head, your heart, your feelings, your experiences.  No one can tell your chosen story your way.”

Oh, how my storied treasures prove me right with their treasured stories again and again!

Here’s to your story and the treasure it holds!

Esther Hershenhorn