What Kids Have Taught Me About Writing
By Kathleen McCleary | April 15, 2015 |
Flickr Creative Commons: Vassilis
As a writer, it can be remarkably helpful to spend time around kids. When I’m not doing my own writing I work with kids ages 8-18 on everything from short stories to college essays, and at least once a week something happens that takes my breath away.
Young kids—eight to eleven-year-olds— who love to write, REALLY love to write. “Writer’s block” is an unknown concept; they’re open about sharing their work; they delight in other’s work; they laugh a lot. Adolescents are trickier. Some are so shy they barely speak during workshop, but then they write vivid, bold, incredible stories. Others can’t wait to tell you how wonderful their writing is, but then their stories are tentative, stilted. They are all incredibly brave. You know how hard it is to share your writing as an adult? How vulnerable it makes you feel to have your soul there on display? Right. Imagine doing that as a 14-year-old.
Here are three of the best lessons I’ve learned about writing from kids:
Don’t be afraid to play. A big part of working with kids is playing writing games. Writopia, the non-profit creative writing organization I work with, has its own games, but you can easily search for “creative writing games” online and find dozens. Playing writing games pushes kids to write scenes and stories and characters outside their usual comfort zones, often with surprising results. I play every game along with the kids, and it’s pushed me outside my comfort zone, too. One student of mine wrote very serious, deeply philosophical fiction. (He’s 13 and reads Albert Camus “for fun.”) One day I had students write down a single “Aha!” moment that could happen to a character (I learned to tell the truth, I understood parents make mistakes) and then write a character and scene leading up to that moment of insight. But first I had the kids swap “Aha!” moments, so they had to write something based on another student’s idea. My very serious student had to create a story leading up to the insight “I stopped believing in Santa Claus,” and wrote a delightful, sharply funny piece about a little boy walking down the stairs expecting to meet “the Fat Man himself” only to run into his father. “This is nothing like what I usually write,” the student kept saying. And he smiled the entire time he was writing.
[pullquote]Playing writing games pushes kids to write scenes and stories and characters outside their usual comfort zones, often with surprising results. I play every game along with the kids, and it’s pushed me outside my comfort zone, too.[/pullquote]
Find the unexpected. I see a lot of “fan fiction” in my creative writing classes, but I also see kids who take a story or character from another source and turn it inside out in astonishing ways. One boy wrote a novella-length story about Bowser, the villain in the Super Mario games. Only he began with Bowser as a small monster, riding the school bus: “It was the end of a wonderful school day, all the children were happily chatting and making jokes—all, except Bowser. Bowser was ignoring the other children’s chattering and laughing. He was thinking about his day, staring out the window, into the world of thoughts and imagination.” The story went on to trace the ways in which Bowser, a sweet, dreamy little monster, was bullied and scared, until he grew into a villain himself. It was an insightful and sensitive and surprising story and a good reminder to look for the unexpected complexities inside every character.
Simple can be powerful. One of the exercises I do with kids is 7-sentence story, in which I ask them to write a story by filling in these blanks: “Once upon a time____. And every day____. Until one day____. And because of that____. And because of that____. Until finally____. And ever since____.” Last summer, a quiet, 14-year-old boy wrote this story, in less than 10 minutes:
“Once upon a time, the sun fell in love with the moon. And every day she chased him across the sky but he always slipped just out of sight and set as she rose. Until one day she caught up to him in what the humans called an ‘eclipse’ but she called a ‘miracle.’ And because of that, she discovered that she and the moon could not ever stay in the sky at the same time, except for eclipses. And because of that, every day she felt lonely and sad as the moon set and she rose. Until finally an eclipse came again and she and the moon met once more. And ever since she has been hoping and waiting for another so they may be together again.”
It gives me goose bumps every time I read it. It makes me want to be a better writer. It makes me grateful I get to work with young people.
Now gather your words together and go play.
Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels—House and Home, A Simple Thing, and Leaving Haven—and has worked as a bookseller, bartender, and barista (all great jobs for gathering material for fiction). A Simple Thing (HarperCollins 2012) was nominated for the Library of Virginia Literary Awards. She was a journalist for many years before turning to fiction, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and USA Weekend, as well as HGTV.com, where she was a regular columnist. She taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and teaches creative writing to kids ages 8-18 as an instructor with Writopia Labs, a non-profit. She also offers college essay coaching (https://thenobleapp.com), because she believes that life is stressful enough and telling stories of any kind should be exciting and fun. When she’s not writing or coaching writing, she looks for any excuse to get out into the woods or mountains or onto a lake. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two daughters and Jinx the cat.
Thanks for this post!
That last ‘story” WOW! I hope that young boy is working on writing professionally somewhere. I would love to read his writings. Spectacular and inspiring!
~Stefani
Yes, Stefani, he’s a very talented guy. I hope he’s continued writing, too!
I loved this post Kathleen. And that last story! Wow!!! Thank you fr that. Just watching my own kids write with utter abandon in the midst of chaos and I wonder, how amazing that they can block out all the noise and have this focus … and I realize it’s because they love their story! In the early days when I had no deadlines, I too wrote like that. There was more joy, more playfulness. It does return when I’m not pressed but I see the same stifling in my children as they get “assignments” even if they like some of them.
That’s always the goal for me, Vijaya, to try to ensure writing has some element of fun, even when I’m on deadline, even when I feel I’m in over my head. That sense of playfulness allows us to play with ideas and words even when the subject matter is serious.
Kathleen-
So why is it that playing on the page becomes so difficult for adults?
Fear. Fear of not being accepted, of wasting one’s time, of failure and embarrassment. Kids do not expect to query. Because publication is not on their radar they have no fear of rejection. They are free of fear.
Kids also are not locked into story tropes, genre requirements, their own outlines or fixed ideas of how their stories should go. They also have prompts, like yours, that lead them into new territory.
For adults to free themselves to play the solutions are obvious. Let go the sources of fear. Use prompts to push your writing out of bounds. (There are tons of prompts out there and they’re easy to find.)
The censors and fear monsters may have grown strong but we still are children inside–and children are stronger than monsters. On some level they know they are imaginary.
Great post.
Great point about the extent to which fear holds us back, Donald. I’ve been guilty of this on my current WIP every time I start to think about whether or not readers will “like” a certain character, or a character’s actions or choices. That’s not the point. The point is to write a story that’s true to itself, which is something kids seem to know instinctively and that I sometimes forget.;-)
Great post, Kathleen. Teaching often implies standards and rules–you have opened windows for these young writers and they are certainly responding. I still remember an art class where everything I attempted was negated. Maybe I would never have yearned for art as a means of expression, but the class certainly was a detour in my own mind.
I hope you try art again one day, Beth! Who knows what you might discover? I’m sorry you had a bad teacher. My goal with kids is to motivate them to elevate their game when they write, and to make sure I don’t dampen their enthusiasm for writing or their belief in their own stories.
Kathleen, we have parallel lives! I am also an author and a teacher of student writers from ages 8 to 18, in my San Diego-area home, offering small workshops and private lessons (and summertime Fireside Poetry Pow-wows). I have not found any other authors who do what I do until now, via your blog post. You might find it very interesting to read some posts from my blog about my writing classes: http://www.susanllipsonwritingteacher.blogspot.com.
(Perhaps I should submit an article for THIS Writer Unboxed blog, too.) Thank you for sharing your students’ works and your poignant observations with us. I feel as if I found an author-teacher colleague here! We are blessed to learn from our students.
Loved the moon story, Kathleen! Ah, young love. LOL
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
And this is why I want to open a nonprofit creative writing center for youth in my hometown (something like 826 National and their chapters). I want to get goosebumps when I hear a good story, too. :)
“Don’t be afraid to play.” That’s something I always have to remind myself. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in Writing, with a capital W, but it’s really just wordplay, isn’t it? Thanks for the reminder and the great post.
I’m in favor of anything that keeps us in touch with beginner’s mind. Children are a rich source, as are keen learners in any environment. (One of the reasons I appreciate the WU community.) And they love to be part of their “teacher’s” rejuvenation, too. Win-win.
Thanks, Kathleen.
Loved this post. Thanks!
By setting aside fear, we are free to create.
Wonderful post. Kids have that ‘no-idea-is-bad’ attitude and their brains are always working on creating something. And I just love your point about simplicity that can be powerful – it’s so true.