DOES PERFECT GRAMMAR RUIN VOICE? by Hilda Eunice Burgos

During the revision process for my upcoming book, my editor pointed out some places where the eleven-year-old first person narrator didn’t sound natural.  I reread those passages and found that I agreed with her.  The problem was that the narrator’s sentences were grammatically correct, and most kids wouldn’t speak that way (e.g., saying “I felt badly” instead of “I felt bad”).  This created a dilemma for me.  While I didn’t want to sacrifice voice for grammar, I also didn’t want to sacrifice grammar for voice.  So I asked myself: are grammar and voice mutually exclusive?  Or can they happily co-exist?

I think the answer is (mostly) the latter, although I have to admit that I have read many excellent books that toss the rules of grammar aside.  I always feel torn when I read those books.  On the one hand, the grammatically incorrect voice is often a major contributor to the book’s excellence.  On the other hand, I think about how I learned English through school and books because my family spoke only Spanish at home.  If grammar had not been taught at my schools, how would I have learned it?  And if all the books I read had been full of — albeit intentional — grammatical errors, wouldn’t I have been thoroughly confused?  Many middle and high school English classes no longer include rigorous grammar instruction.  Does this mean that books have to fill that void?  If they don’t, will children from non-English-speaking households be at a disadvantage?

I’m not certain about the answers to these questions.  What do other writers think?  I’m going to keep thinking about this.  In the meantime, I don’t want to misinform kids — especially bilingual kids like me — about the proper rules of English grammar.  So I’ll do my best to seamlessly join grammar and voice in my books.  Hopefully my readers will be entertained by the characters and stories while also learning a thing or two about conjugating verbs and using objective pronouns.

What Is Voice–And How Do I Get It? - #Writing Advice from Chris Eboch

Voice may be the number one thing editors want to see in a manuscript. But what exactly is voice? Linda Pratt, Literary Agent, Wernick & Pratt Agency, explains, “Voice is the personality and really whole life history of a character that when done effectively emanates from the page through that character’s word choices, points of reference, context, and actions.” 

Agent Jill Corcoran of the Herman Agency says, “Voice transforms a manuscript from an ‘author speaking to a reader’ to an ‘author immersing a reader in a story’.” She identifies three types of voice in every manuscript: 

1.                  “The Author’s Voice – We each look at life differently so when we write, we write from our own individual style, abilities, personalities, experiences, reactions, world-view, etc. Voice should be natural and unique, just like each one of us when we are not over-thinking but are living in the moment.” 

2.                  “The Manuscript Voice – the voice of this particular manuscript be it first or third, slapstick or sarcastic, literary or commercial, etc. Authors will not choose the same manuscript voice in every book they write but if they are writing authentically and naturally, they hopefully will have a recognizable author voice.”

3.                  “The Characters’ Voices – dialog, ticks, actions, and most importantly, reactions, etc.”

Perhaps this is why voice is so hard to define and teach: it comes in many forms. So how do we know if we have a good voice? And if not, what can we do about it? Often the novels held up as examples of great voice have a literary, poetic voice: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo. Does that mean we all need to be more poetic?

We All Have Voice

Let’s start with two basic truths:

Voice develops over time

First, all writing has voice. It may be a slow, boring voice; a clunky, confusing voice; a straightforward, fast-paced voice; or a beautiful, poetic voice. “Literary” novels have voice, but so do “commercial” novels, genre novels, picture books, easy readers, and nonfiction.

Second, different readers like different voices. Few people would like boring or confusing voices, but many people prefer a straightforward, fast-paced voice, others like a poetic voice, and some readers enjoy both. Your personal taste as a reader should be what you strive for as a writer. Why try to write something that you wouldn’t enjoy reading?

Voice is often seen as a matter of style, but clearly it’s broader and deeper than simply using interesting language. Your voice is reflected in:

·   The kinds of characters you create – awkward loners, fun-loving tomboys, silly adults.

·   Your plot and pacing techniques – action plots, quieter stories, use of cliffhangers, paragraph/sentence lengths.

·   Themes you revisit – finding oneself, what makes a family, important life events such as the first day of school and first romance.

·   Types of settings – urban, suburban, rural; familiar or exotic; at school, at home, journeys.

·   Proportion of all the above – character driven, plot heavy, lots of setting details.

Adventure is part of my voice

Finding Your Voice

Identifying and developing your voice may take experimentation. Read a lot and pay attention to what you most enjoy. Eavesdrop on conversations and think about what dialogue, actions, and gestures tell you about people. Try interviewing your characters or writing diary entries in their voices. Write a scene from one character's viewpoint, and then from another person in the same scene. How do the characters’ age, sex, and other elements affect how they perceive and react to what's happening?

Small Improvements Add up

Many basic writing techniques can also contribute to your voice. These techniques alone won’t make a strong and fresh voice, but polishing your skills can ensure that your voice isn’t clunky or slow.

For example, you should be comfortable with first-person versus third-person point of view. But POV is also about the character’s experiences and how they see the world. Is your character a city girl, farm girl, or suburbanite? Rich, middle-class, or poor? An athlete, musician, or artist? Each of these elements affects the way someone interacts with the world around her – where she’s comfortable, what she notices, what she cares about. For example, a musician may be tuned into sounds and rhythms and use metaphors relating to music. Getting inside your character’s head with a close point of view helps readers connect better with that character. (See my posts on POV.)

Editing can improve voice.

To avoid having a slow, boring voice, learn to eliminate wordiness. Several sources offer lists of words and phrases to eliminate, such as very, really, just, kind of, sort of, a little. That doesn’t mean you can never use those words, but every manuscript will improve by getting rid of unnecessary words.

Tips on writing tactics abound. Show, don’t tell. Minimize your use of adverbs. Use active verbs. Make sure your character names don’t all start with the same letter, to avoid reader confusion. The list seems endless, with some quick fixes and some skills requiring months of practice. If you study each technique in turn, eventually most will be second nature, if not during your first draft then at least during editing.

For some writers, technical rules may seem too practical, too pedestrian, for something as mysterious as voice. But the first step in building a strong voice is to get rid of the weakest elements of your writing. Then you can explore subtleties that are appropriate for the age range, genre, and topic of each manuscript.

Your writing voice is like your appearance, where part is what you are given (gender, height, coloring) and part comes from your choices (clothing, hairstyle, attitude). Voice is made up of your natural expression – the way you see the world, based on all your experiences – plus technical skills you can develop. Practice the external elements that  make for generally strong writing, while tapping into your heart and soul. Over time, your unique voice will develop naturally and shine through.

To Find Your Voice

Nothing wrong with a silly voice!

What are your favorite books – not necessarily the ones you think are the best-written or that you most admire, but the ones you most enjoy?

What do you like about the style? Humor, pace, great characters, language?

Try typing out scenes from your favorite authors to get a feel for their rhythm and word choice. Study what they do, but don’t try to copy their voice. Understand their techniques so you can be yourself.

What is your natural style? When you tell a story to friends, is it funny, tragic, suspenseful? What elements can you see in your manuscripts?

What do you love about your writing or have critique partners praised? What weaknesses do you see in your work or have others mentioned?

What would you be proud to produce?

Additional Resources:

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King

Style, Pacing & Voice: An Editor’s Guide to Writing Powerful Fiction, by Jodie Renner

Finding Your Voice, by Les Edgerton

Rivet Your Readers with Deep POV, by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

Advanced Plotting, by Chris Eboch

Online:

The Voice, by Anna Elliott

Series on Voice, by Chris Eboch

Jordan McCollum offers downloadable free writing guides, including one on Deep POV

Janice Hardy’s Fiction University blog has a lot on these topics. Check the listing for “Show vs. Tell," "Trimming Words," or "Point of View," or simply browse.

Jodie Renner often covers POV, pacing, and more.

Chris Eboch’s novels for ages nine and up include The Eyes of Pharaoh, a mystery in ancient Egypt; The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan adventure; and the Haunted series, about kids who travel with a ghost hunter TV show. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers, and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog.

Reading and Writing a Child’s Voice

A few weeks ago, I was on a panel of MG fantasy writers at Books of Wonder in NYC, and one of the attendees asked:

How do you manage to write in a voice that engages a child’s interest when all of you (he inserted a half-apologetic smile and shrug here) are well past being children yourselves?

The panel members answered the question individually, but basically we all had the same answer, in slightly different words:

In our heads, we are still children.

To be completely honest, I think that answer should have been obvious. I was, after all, sitting next to a grown man wearing a cardboard Pharaoh’s headdress.

To be a writer of children’s books, you need to be a child inside. You need to write like a child would write (except with the skill of an adult), and you need to read what your child-self wants to read. I’m not saying that I never read adult books, but the vast majority of what I read is chosen to entertain my child-self, not my adult-self.

In fact, an elderly librarian recently confronted me on my reading selections. I had just checked-in a stack of MG fantasy and adventure books and was checking-out more of the same. She looked up at me, squinting in puzzlement, and asked: “This is what you read?”

Behind her, a librarian who knew me cringed in embarrassment. For my part, I was rather shocked by her question. I said, “This is what I write, and this is what I read.”

At first, I thought that was going to suffice, but then she asked, “Why? So you can find ideas?”

I bit back my first thought: Right. I have to steal ideas from other books. Instead of being sarcastic, I gave her a better, truthful answer. “No. This is what I like to read.” I wasn't picking out these books as research or to learn the market or assess the competition. I wanted to read them.

She clucked her tongue and promptly suggested other titles I should try – all of them adult memoirs or literary fiction. The kind of books that makes my child-self want to say, “Yuck. Sounds booooooring.” But I didn’t. Because I respected her reading choices in a way that she wasn’t respecting mine.

For all I know, maybe this librarian comments on everybody’s choices. “Thrillers? Is that what you read? Basket weaving? Is that what you read?” But I doubt it. She disapproved of an adult woman coming into the library and checking out nothing but children’s books and she thought she could improve me by suggesting something of supposed greater value.

That’s exactly the kind of person who cannot write children’s books and who will never capture a voice that engages child readers. The best children’s literature is written by adults who think they are still children, not by adults who want to "help" children grow up.

I am proud of my reading choices. But I do regret that I didn’t snag one of those Pharaoh headdresses from Michael Northrop to wear the next time I visit the library.

Writing Prompts for Getting Unstuck by Joanna Roddy

Photo Credit: Drew Coffman

My last post was about returning to the joy of writing--learning to play on the page and let go of the need for right answers. One of the underlying assumptions there is that you can actually show up at the page and free-write as an act of discovery. 

But I'll be the first to admit, sometimes the blank page is intimidating as heck and you just don't know how to begin. This is the time to pull some trusty tools from your belt in the form of writing prompts. Even a single starting phrase can be so helpful! Here's a roundup of some of my favorite prompts for fiction writing.

Style prompts:

1. Try it from another point of view or tense: This is pretty basic stuff, but if you're inclined to write from third person omniscient past or first person present (there are many others, but I won't go into them here), switching to another POV/ tense can give you tremendous insight into scenes and characters that you didn't have the other way. Even if you don't decide to stick with the new style, the occasional foray into a new point of view can be a wonderful exercise, keeping your writerly skills limber. 

2. Experiment with another narrative voice: Stretch yourself. If you tend to be flowery, channel your inner Hemmingway and write a scene like it's a newspaper article. If you prefer to be concise, think about how to make the writing more lyrical. You might even try writing it as a poem. Try out stream-of-consciousness, satire, humor, and literary voices. You can even use an author's voice you love for inspiration. At the end of the day, your voice is your own, but trying out other styles will make you better able to find the unique sound of your characters, and you might find something that works for you that you never expected. 

Character-based prompts:

1. Rewrite a scene from another character's point of view: This does wonderful things for your character development and might reveal potential plot possibilities as you get in touch with that character's motivation.

2. Try on a character's voice: In a similar vein, write a new scene from a character's POV you haven't tried yet. This is especially nice for a character whose voice you haven't found yet, or who's coming off as one-dimensional. Try it with your villain!

3. Base a character on someone you know. If a character's voice is difficult to hear, try to "listen" to someone whose voice you're already familiar with. Build in those quirks and mannerisms that create a personality. Just make sure it's not an exact replica, lest you commit libel.

Illustration by Agata Kawa from Le Carnet Rouge
This image is on my Pinterest board for my novel's main character.

World-building prompts:

1. Go on a research quest: Set a timer for an hour and go on a wikipedia stumble. If thar be dragons in your story (Yar!), for a broad example, start at the page on dragons. Let your whimsey take you to a link from that page and then another from the next page and so on. Gain inspiration from mythology, history, science, and real-world parallels to your story. Take notes. Bookmark pages. Save images that inspire you along the way (Pinterest is great for this). If you exhaust your first stream of research, start another. When the hour is up, stop and write a short scene, setting, or character sketch from what you've discovered. Make sure you limit your time researching (you could do this sort of thing all day!) and follow it with writing. 

2. Pull a magazine or Pinterest image and write about it: Find something that strikes you, that speaks to your project or a specific character. 

3. Create a detective file: If someone were to come upon your fictional world, what is some of the evidence they would find of your story? Are there letters, emails, books, objects, bills, texts or any other physical evidence you could write down or describe? 

4. Write a letter: In a similar vein, write a letter from your hero to another character in your story. See what you find out about how they see themself, the other character, and their situation.

Photo Credit: deblund.com
One of the cards from Fiction Magic

And here are a few prompts inspired by Deb Lund, who recently spoke to my local chapter of SCBWI and is about to come out with a very cool product, a 54 card deck called Fiction Magic: Card Tricks and Tips for Writers filled with prompt phrases and a guidebook. I'll be the first in line to get one when they come out. And, no, I'm not related to Deb--I don't even know her! I just like to toot horns worth tooting. These mostly fall into the category of plot-development prompts:

1. Take something precious away from your hero: If you're relying on an object, relationship, character trait, or skill to save the day, see what happens when you take that away from your character. See what they have to do to get it back. Don't let them off easy!

2. Give more power to your villain while you hide your hero's strengths: The character and the reader need to feel that the stakes are high and the deck is stacked against them. Write a scene where your villain gets more traction. 

3. Make your hero disappoint someone: Whether they don't come through, break a promise, or shift their loyalty, see what happens when your hero makes a bad decision that hurts someone close to them. What are the relational consequences? What are the implications if that relationship stays broken? How will the hero have to alter course to repair the relationship? What will the plot consequences be because of that?

4. Consider an unlikely pairing: Think about how two opposite or unrelated characters might find their motivations to be mutually beneficial in some way. Bring them together and see what happens. Just think of some of the great examples of this in literature--Legolas and Gimli, Sherlock and Watson, Gollum and Frodo, even Hook and Tinkerbell, to name a few. 

That's a few to get you going. If you try any, I would love to hear how you get on with them. What are some prompts in your tool belt that you have found helpful? 

That Middle-Grade Voice by Kell Andrews

The long and the short:
Character sketch for a chapter-book-
turned-picture-book-turned-
middle-grade story

By the time I was middle-grade age, I wanted to be a writer, but for grownups. It was only as a grownup that I found my voice writing for middle grade.

I've been thinking about that since a tweet from agent Sarah LaPolla (whom I've never queried but I like her Twitter feed):

Observation: The line between Adult & MG is much blurrier than the line between Adult & YA. The POV & writing style seem less rigid in MG.
— Sarah LaPolla (@sarahlapolla) May 16, 2014

It's not a coincidence I moved from writing for adults straight past YA to middle grade. Those were the books that made me love reading, and it turned out that I have a middle-grade voice.

Not-blurry middle-grade voice

So what's middle-grade voice? It's elusive -- one of those "you know it when you see it" things. You know it whether it's Lemony Snicket's wry, formal omniscient or Rachel Renee Russell's effusive, run-on first person. And while the lines might be blurry, middle-grade voice itself never is. It's crystal clear and succinct -- no words wasted, whether lyrical or comedic, prose or verse.

And once you have that voice, it's a bit persistent.
 

The long story of a short story

Once I decided to write middle-grade, I wrote two novels. (The second written  turned out to be Deadwood, which releases June 24 from Spencer Hill, and the first of which has not yet decided what it will turn out to be). Then I had a great idea for younger story -- a chapter book featuring second-graders. The draft was 6,000 words, and I loved it. But I was between agents, and my querying efforts yielded exactly zero agent requests -- chapter books are not great agent bait. My single request, actually, was from an editor in an early reader/chapter book imprint who found the voice (third person, whimsical) to be charming but the story too thin for 6,000 words.

I realized that my chapter book wasn't really a chapter book -- it was a picture book. I started with a blank page, chose first person, present tense, changed the age of the characters to first grade, and wrote the story in 850 words. Still loved it -- my favorite story that I'd written.

This time when I queried the story as a picture book, I got an agent offer of representation. On the phone, I told her about my middle grade novels too. She said, "I can tell. Your picture book kind of sounds middle grade."

I chose a different agent and we subbed a different book. But I didn't forget my favorite story. Eventually I rewrote it featuring third-graders and finally sold it as an early middle-grade short story. Which is what it was meant to be all along.

Middle-grade voice is varied. It isn't a length or a genre -- it managed to assert itself as strongly in my 1,000-word contemporary story as in my 60,000 word fantasy/mystery. And if I ever write for grown-ups again, I'm going to have to hope they're looking for a little bit of (not-blurry) middle-grade whimsy. 

Duality of Tone in MG, by Matthew MacNish

One of the things I love most about reading Middle Grade literature is how nuanced I find it often is, especially when it comes to tone. Take Harry Potter, for example: (which could certainly be argued escalates into YA territory by the end, but there's no question the cupboard under the stairs begins firmly in MG) the tone, for the most part, is light and humorous. The world is full of Weasley Wizard Wheezes, Every Flavored Beans, Bogeys, Hinky-punks, and all other sorts of wonderful nonsense. Just the kind of stuff that gets kids really into a story - truly invested, emotionally.

But ... even from the very beginning, the Wizarding World also contains a darker underbelly. Harry's parents were murdered by a dark wizard. His aunt and uncle and cousin, while somewhat humorous, are also unbelievable cruel and uncaring. Much of the darkest elements such as dementors and killing curses don't come up until later, but my point is that Harry Potter, much like a lot of MG Lit, I find, walks this amazing balance of light and dark, a sort of duality of tone that truly makes for a deeply compelling read.

There are countless examples of this duality. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, is a MG novel in which cold blooded murder is committed in the first few pages, and the dark tone of the story stays with the reader throughout, but there is also plenty of humor and love and family, not to mention the somewhat ridiculous but terrific notion of a boy named Nobody who grows up living in a graveyard.

Lemony Snicket and the Series of Unfortunate events is another example. Heck, every Roald Dahl novel ever written pretty much invented this trope, if you could even call it one.

I think this is important, because books and literature are the very best way for young people to become exposed to the world, especially when it comes to some of the darker aspects of it. A picture book that exposes a child to the death of a pet is much better than having to experience such tragedy for real. A chapter book that covers a friend moving away, or divorce, or any other number of topics is a much safer way to explore the emotions that might come up.

Anyway, I'm sure you see my point. Does anyone have any other examples of great MG novels with obvious duality of tone?

Either way: happy Friday! Have a great weekend.

Voice: Defined, by Tracy Wymer

I taught fourth grade for seven years before moving up to the emotional instabilities (and prepubescent smells) of middle schoolers. My first fourth grade class was dynamite. It was filled with smarty pants and brimming with intuitive readers. They challenged me daily. But hey, I was new to this thing called teaching, so what did I know?

Whenever they put me on the spot, which was almost daily, the only thought I had was how many days until Winter Break?

One day, I taught a lesson on voice. I defined it (in fourth grade terms) as “the way or style you write” and modeled examples of different voices in children’s literature. I started with E.B. White. No brainer, right? I threw the most famous passage from Charlotte’s Web (you can find that passage here) on the overhead and read it aloud. Then I said to the class, “What do you notice about his voice?”

Silence.

Darkness. (the overhead is on; lights are off)

A sneeze.

A cough.

Another sneeze. (same Sneezer as before)

Me: Squinting through the dust particles floating above the overhead, trying to find a raised hand.

How many days until Winter Break?

I said it again, this time a little louder. “What do you notice about his voice?”

A boy’s arm began to rise, delicately, like he was a marionette being controlled from above. This boy was unsure, I was sure of that. But maybe he had something valuable to contribute to our phantom discussion. After all, he was one of the smarty pants.

I called on him.

He said, “I thought E.B. White was a girl?”

I swallowed. Here was my big chance. It was my turn to shine. My turn to put the smarty pants on the spot. My turn to be the brain, the IT, the Central Central Intelligence of my own classroom. For once, I was going to tell these kiddos something they didn’t already know.

But another thought, a more teacherly thought, came to me. I said, “How many of you think this passage sounds like a girl?” Over half the class. “How many of you think it sounds like a boy?” A few hands. 

I told them about E.B. White. I even held up a copy of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. I had a tight grip on these kids, had them by their brains. I was teaching and proud of it.

Then, the same boy, the one who raised his arm like a marionette, came to me after class. He asked if he could talk to me privately. The class went to recess, and we stood outside the trailer (yes, trailer!) on the ramp. This, I was hoping, would satisfy his need for privacy.

He crossed his arms, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “My writing voice sounds like a woman.”

Voice. It is paramount when writing for kids. If your main character or narrator sounds like an adult--to put it to you honestly--you’re screwed. Your reader will put down your book after chapter one, if he/she makes it that far, and never pick up your pages again. Your book will be left on the shelf forever. Spineless.

To clear up any confusion, there is a difference in sounding like an “adult” and sounding like “you.” The words that originate in your brain--the ones that travel down your arms into your fingertips and fall out on the page--those words are YOURS, and they make-up your VOICE. But if you’re writing a story that is told by a 12 year-old girl, that voice had better resemble a 12 year-old girl’s.

Remember: Spineless.

I’ve been to countless writing workshops and conferences. I’ve taken writing classes, taught writing classes, and even taught other people how to teach writing classes (if such a feat is possible).

A couple of years ago, at SCBWI in New York, I sat in on a workshop devoted to voice. An editor hosted the workshop. She had a stack of books next to her. She picked up one book at a time and read from the first page. She was giving stellar examples of various voices, and she was doing a fine job of it. But the crowd wasn’t satisfied. The workshop attendees wanted a clearer picture painted for them.

One gentleman stood up and said to the editor, “I’m confused. You’ve read all these examples, but you haven’t really said what voice is? So what is it?”

The editor tried to define it, but she never fully satisfied the room. I was hoping she’d turn the lights down, wheel out an overhead, throw an E.B. White passage down, and say, “How many of you think a girl wrote this?”

I now teach seventh and eighth graders. If you think that room full of adults was tough, try explaining writing voice to pre-teens. Talk about stink eyes. Over the years, I’ve come up with my own definition of voice. One can only endure so much stink eye. Here is my take:

Voice is the style, personality, and method by which a writer tells a story. It's the way a writer communicates with the reader.

There. That’s it. The best I can do.

E.B. White was a master storyteller. His voice was identifiable, but undefinable. His writing makes you feel like you’re sitting around a campfire listening to someone who knows the answers to everything. And yes, he was a man.

No one knows how effective writers do it. There is not one answer or definition that can make your voice standout in a crowd of thousands. There aren’t many writers who sound the same, but there are plenty who, like E.B. White, grab readers and never let go. One thing is certain. It takes time to develop your writing voice. But your voice might vary from project to project, character to character, so achieving a consistent voice has never been a goal of mine. My goal is to become a better writer with each project and to capture whatever voices need capturing.

So how did I respond to that ten year-old boy who said he wrote like a woman?

“Your voice can sound like whoever you want it to be.”

Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead: Giveaway

Liar & Spy is the first Rebecca Stead (Newbery Medal Winner for When You Reach Me) book I’ve read. The title caught my eye, but the romp-in-the-park, spot-on middle grade voice kept me turning page after page to see what would become of the narrator Georges (the S is silent), and these other characters with cool names: Safer, Bob English Who Draws, Pigeon, Candy and Mr. X.

Speaking of voice, here’s the opening paragraph: There’s this totally false map of the human tongue. It’s supposed to show where we taste different things, like salty on the side of the tongue, sweet on the front, bitter in the back. Some guy drew it a hundred years ago, and people have been forcing kids to memorize it ever since.

Here’s some abbreviated cover copy without any spoilers: Seventh grader Georges moves into a Brooklyn apartment building and meets Safer, a twelve-year-old self-appointed spy. Georges becomes Safer's first spy recruit. His assignment? Tracking the mysterious Mr. X, who lives in the apartment upstairs. But as Safer becomes more demanding, Georges starts to wonder: what is a lie, and what is a game? How far is too far to go for your only friend?

I read the first few pages of Liar & Spy to my fifth grade class when we were studying the five senses. They loved it! If I could work it in I’d read them the whole book because it has that captivating read aloud quality that some books have.

I’m giving away one hardcover copy of Liar and Spy. Just leave a comment anytime between now and midnight Thursday Eastern Time to be considered.

Thanks for stopping by.

Writing with a Middle Grade Voice - Holidays

I’m getting ready to attend yet another Thanksgiving pageant at a kiddo’s school, and the memories of them over the years sparked the idea for this post. I thought it would be interesting to take one important aspect of a middle-grader’s life, holidays, and think about how writers go back in time to capture those moments.

I don’t remember ever participating in a Thanksgiving pageant myself, which is probably a good thing, because I didn’t have the kind of mother who could easily whip up a pilgrim costume. The time spent thinking about costumes seems to be a huge part of the anticipation of these events. Only a few of the children with worry personalities stress over the lack of perfection in a costume. Middle graders’ imaginations allow them to look at a child with a few feathers stuck on a brown shirt and see a turkey.

As an adult, I most love the part where each child has to say what he or she is thankful for. The more thoughtful ones always mention a mother, father or a grandparent, and that’s something so important I try to remember when I’m writing. Even though we come up with convoluted ways to get caregivers out of the picture in middle grade stories, their presence still is such a huge part of a middle grader’s existence and thoughts. When it comes to brothers and sisters, though, most don’t mention them. That always surprised me until we brought a second child to our own home and sibling rivalry hit us in the face. There’s no doubt siblings are of major importance, but the relationships even at that age are complicated and certainly not always smooth.

If siblings don’t get much mention, pets do. Has there ever been a middle grader who thinks they have enough pets, or who isn’t interested in them even if they don’t have one? My daughter knows the names and histories of all her friends’ pets but can’t remember the names of the elderly neighbors who have lived near us since she was a baby.

The kids who don’t spend much time contemplating life and relationships mention food. Pumpkin pie gets high marks, but I’m always astounded at how many kids are thankful for mashed potatoes. Most middle graders don’t have a complicated relationship with food. There’s no concern about cholesterol or calories. It’s either good or bad, or totally inedible and would probably make a person gag.

How the kids present themselves during the pageant is middle grade in a microcosm. Most aren’t yet self-conscious about appearing before their peers in handmade turkey costumes or pilgrim bonnets. They are so happy to have attention focused on them, even for brief moments, that they willingly sing silly songs and make gobble noises. For most, attention is not something to be avoided, as will become the case later on. There are always a few of the extreme shy ones who find it torture to stand up and talk. I agonize with those children as they wring their hands waiting for their turn and then mumble out sentences no one can hear. I think everyone in the audience holds their breaths hoping the child won’t cry. That memory, of trying hard not to cry, has to be one every adult shares, even if they weren’t the crying type.

I find when I’m writing about holidays from a kid point of view I have to strip away all the memories of disastrous family gatherings I remember as an adult. As a child, I didn’t catch every detail of the tensions between various relatives who didn’t like each other. I was unhappy if my parents were unhappy or snappy, but I never realized two of my aunts only spoke to each other on holidays.

I remember holidays as being a strange mix of boredom and freedom, where the adults were too occupied with discussing the health problems of distant relatives to bother making sure the kids were doing anything useful. I also remember how I schemed to avoid being served gravy, something I thought a disgusting invention, but one the rest of my relatives seemed to regard as some elixir of the gods. Then there was always the attempt to see how much whipped cream I could put on my pumpkin pie before someone noticed and disapproved. I guess if someone has asked me back then, I would have said I was thankful for mashed potatoes too.

So what do you remember about Thanksgiving as a child?  ETA: I shouldn't have just asked about Thanksgiving, because I don't want to limit comments to American or Canadian memories. Jump in for any holiday that involves a family gathering and a large amount of food!

~Dee Garretson