What Can I Write About? What to Do When the Well Runs Dry by Pat Miller

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Recently, one of those registered for my upcoming NF 4 NF Children's Nonfiction Writing Conference asked a surprising question. "It's my writing day today and one of my task list items is to ask you for homework. Sounds strange, I know, but I feel like I'm having writer's block on what to do next."

I find that taking action creates motivation, rather than the other way around. Asking for help is one way to take action when the well runs dry. Perhaps you need a little "homework?" This was the assignment I gave for her nonfiction needs. 

1. Revive a languishing manuscript

If you're like me, you have manuscripts “under the bed” that just didn't catch fire. Distance from your once-loved manuscripts creates a detachment that makes it easier to delete paragraphs, remove incidents, and see where sensory details are needed. Hopefully it’s been long enough that you’ve forgotten the information you subconsciously brought to the page, revealing assumptions and gaps for the reader you were blind to before.

Choose one of your non-starters that still seems to have some juice in it. Use Nancy I. Sanders' checklist to attack your story methodically. Have fun giving this work a thorough makeover. Play with the language. Add details that put us there. Sketch each scene with stick figures to see if you have provided enough detail for the reader’s imagination and the illustrator. Nonfiction needs the same detail so the reader can picture the time, the people, or the science you are writing about. 

2. Do a quick investigation

When you find yourself thinking, “I wonder why…?” or “How does …?” you have a bridge to a writing project. And if those thoughts don't occur to you regularly, here are some books I use to pique curiosity. Sometimes the unpressured action of investigating a mental nudge bypasses the perfectionism that may be keeping you from writing. (I've included a similar website in parenthesis.)

Chase’s Calendar of Events. This book contains 12,500 entries. Many of those could start one writing. The day of the request, for example, was the birthday of Elizabeth Fry. She devoted her life at the turn of the 19th century to improving the conditions of women in prison. Sounds hopeless—why did she care? How did she try? Did she have any success? It was also the beginning of the Mudbug Madness Festival in Shreveport, LA. What is the appeal of mudbugs (crawfish)? What’s their life like? Why is it such a mainstay of the Cajun cookbook? (Important Dates in History)

An Uncommon History of Common Things is a National Geographic book by Bethane Patrick and John Thompson. Chapters include Food & Drink, Toys & Games, Symbols & Customs, and six more. Any of these may make you wonder—and investigate further. This technique works--my upcoming book from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is about the guy who invented the hole in the doughnut. (Origins of Everyday Things)

Robertson’s Book of Firsts: Who Did What for the First Time by Patrick Robertson. Learn about the first microwave oven, the first railroad accident, even the first elevator music. Perhaps you can challenge yourself to write about the event in 100 words or less—giving yourself practice in getting the best bits into the best words. (Firsts in America)

3. Prime the pump with mentor texts

There are so many engaging and inspiring children’s books that you can use as a mentor or template. For this assignment, you'll need at least three books in your genre—maybe three biographies, or three books about animals.

First, read each one thoughtfully with the goal of choosing your favorite. Second, make a page by page list of the structure of the story. You’re looking at the bones, not the meat.

For example, here is the page by page structure I would write for Those Rebels, John & Tom by Barbara Kerley:

1. Set the stage, and the hook, with a single summary sentence 
2. Single sentence that is true about both
3. John as a kid
4. Tom as a kid
5. Two lists of differences between two men
6. John at home and work
7. Tom at home and work
8. They were different, but one big thing they  had in common…

Last, using that structure, build a similar book on the same structure. For this example, choose two people who are similar in a major way, but different in many others, and plug your research into this structure. Maybe Eleanor Roosevelt and Calamity Jane? Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison? Elizabeth Blackwell and Amelia Bloomer?

Or you might choose a book about wolves, and use its structure to write about raccoons. Or a book about the early settlers in Virginia as a model for your book about the early settlers of your home state.

If these suggestions don't get your fingers on the keyboard, here are 11 pages of nonfiction writing prompts from Los Gatos High School, Los Gatos, CA, to keep you busy and inspired. Good luck!