A Tool Box for Creatives

By Suzy Leopold

Today is Groundhog Day! Will Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow?

Since today’s GROG Blog post is about toolboxes—not the legendary groundhog, let's move on . . . 

Many creatives keep toolboxes. 

A toolbox contains various tools. A toolkit also keeps tools—resources and skills to increase knowledge and support—creativity all kept inside a box or container.

Many writers and illustrators create toolboxes. Items are organized in one place and can easily be transported. The toolbox supports creating at home, at the library, a cafe, at a writing conference or workshop.

A writer's toolbox can be used to expand and master the craft of writing.

A toolbox may be a physical container with shiny tools and resources or it can be a metaphorical toolbox to develop deeper knowledge. Both are designed to improve creativity.

It is not the tools that matter but what one does with the tools and the ability to use the tools effectively.

Peer Inside a Toolbox

Suzy’s Writing Toolbox

• Writing tools--pens, pencils, markers

• A package of highlighters

• Post-its for plotters and pantsers; Post-it plotting ideas 

from Leah Cheak; from Julie Cohen (links will redirect you)

• Index cards

• Dictionary and thesaurus

• Mentor texts to mine for the author's craft

• A timer

• Craft of writing books

More Tool Ideas for a Writer's Toolbox

• A writer's notebook or journal

from Ralph Fletcher & Dolly Garland

• Picture book elements 

from Kathyrn Evans

• Picture book essentials 

from Joanne Sher

• Writing tips:        

 1. Make every word count with excellent word choices 

from Debbie Ridpath Ohi & Josh Funk 

 2. Rules of three 

from Pamela Hodges

• Create graphic organizers 

from Rob Sanders

• Create book templates or book dummies 

from Debbie Ridpath Ohi

• Continue to grow and learn 

from Josh Funk

• Revisit goals and adjust as need be; SMART Goals 

from Joe Bunting; Suzy

• Keep records of manuscript submissions 

from Marcie Flinchum Atkins

Index cards with tips

What's in your toolbox? In the comments share the tools you keep in your writer's toolbox.

Nonfiction vs. Informational Fiction: A Former School Librarian's View by Kathy Halsey

During February. I've taken advantage of NF Fest, a new challenge for nonfiction picture book authors. It's a free deep dive into the genre created by the NF Chicks, Pat Miller, Linda Skeers, Lisa Amstutz, Nancy Churnin, Peggy Thomas, Stephanie Bearce, Susie 
Kralovansky.  

The Facebook Discussion from NF Fest

Recently we've had an in-depth Facebook discussion about the nomenclature of "informational fiction" vs. "nonfiction." Melissa Stewart, who I consider an authority on the subject, has given us definitions and examples of each, yet confusion still remains. 

From our discussion, Melissa indicated, "An informational fiction book has some  documented information and some made up parts." She goes on to say that labeling a book as informational fiction alerts readers "to the fact that some of the info in the book is made up. We need to be honest with them." I agree. 

Some writers in the NF Fest suggested libraries create a separate section for informational fiction. However, this may be problematic for school librarians who have cataloging done by library jobbers such as Follett. (Note that many school librarians are in charge of several buildings and don't have the time to catalog.)

Another trend nonfiction writers need to know about is the "genrification" of library collections. To gentrify is to arrange a library by category to make book location easier, similar to bookstores. Some libraries may only genrify fiction (all dragon books shelved as a subgenre in fantasy.) Other school libraries may place all fiction, nonfiction, biographies and picture books together in genres such as war, sports or supernatural. (They ditched the Dewey Decimal system.)  School librarian and nonfiction author Marcie Flincum Atkins said, "Books that haven't moved in years are getting lots of love." It transformed her circulation numbers - data that administrators understand when determining library budgets.

Melissa Stewart and I continued our discussion privately where she shed more light on this topic.

• First, wholesalers are already tagging informational fiction in their databases, so it's no longer a matter of debate as to whether people agree to the term "informational fiction." As Melissa states, "It's part of the landscape."
• Stay tuned for Melissa's new book this fall from Stenhouse about the classification of nonfiction and the research showing that many kids prefer expository nonfiction. She does discuss informational fiction in this book, but it isn't a major focus.
• Finally, here's a blurb from Stenhouse, a publisher that provides professional resources for educators. 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children's Books highlights more than 150 high-quality children's nonfiction titles for K-8. It provides strategies for building strong, diverse classroom and library collections and includes 22 innovative reading and writing activities that show teachers how to utilize the many wonderful nonfiction children's books being published today. This book will be a boon for writers, too.

NF vs. Informational Fiction Exercise

As a former school librarian, I'm sharing a process of determining whether these exemplary books are informational fiction or nonfiction. 

Both Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem by Patricia Newman and Wait, Rest, Pause: Dormancy in Nature by Marcie Flinchum Atkins are nonfiction. Check out these books, and follow theses clues with me yourself.

• If one turns to the dedication pages and looks at the CIP, Cataloging-In-Publishing data, we see their Dewey Decimal numbers - 599.7695 for Sea Otter Heroes and 571.78 for Wait, Rest, Pause. 

  

  Patricia's book - DDC 599.7695

  
  
• They are both by Millbrook Press, a well-respected name in nonfiction. 
• They have back matter that includes further reading, web sites, photo acknowledgments, and acknowledgments of subject matter experts who have provided information or vetted the book. 

  

  Marcie's book back matter
  
  

  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

Atlantic by G. Brian Karas is a lyrical informational fiction book. Follow the clues to see why.

•  The writing uses extended metaphors and a first person POV to give facts about the ocean. 
• From the book one can pick out the facts: "I am the blue water at the beach, the waves, mist and storms. That salty smell is me, too. / I stretch from the icy poles, North and South. I rub shoulders with North America and bump into Africa. I slosh around South American and crash into Europe. 
• The Cataloging-In-Publishing data indicates no actual Dewey number but places it in "E" (a designator for picture books organized by author's last name). The cataloging summary indicate the text gives characteristics "as described by the ocean itself." The ocean is speaking. That is a fictional element.

  

  Can you find the "E" designator and heading "Fiction"?
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  
  

Head over to the NF Fest and join in the Facebook discussion and go to the web site to read posts. You may want to try these exercises with students or for yourself asking questions like this: 1. Can you identify the real stuff and the made up parts? 2. Can you figure out why the author included them? 3. Is it NF or IF? Happy classifying.

No More Waiting for Wait, Rest, Pause

by Sue Heavenrich

Wait, Rest, Pause is a book worth waiting for. And today we get to find out more about it from the author -

Wait. What's that? Sorry, folks. We have to wait just 3 more lines because - Announcement!  Cathy Ballou Mealey has won the tote from Teresa Robeson. Cathy - please send a PM to Kathy Halsey. Now back to our regularly scheduled blogpost...

What do you do when you need a book – but there isn’t anything published yet? If you’re Marcie Flinchum Atkins, you write the one you need. While teaching fourth grade, she found herself searching for a book about dormancy. You know: that stage trees go through in winter, volcanoes go through when they aren’t blowing their tops, the stage some insects and amphibians overwinter in.

So four and a half years ago, Marcie began scribbling a draft for that book. At the same time she was (as she recalls) knee deep in moving across the state, selling her house – and buying a new one, not to mention interviewing for a new job. But she managed to share her story with critique partners and submitted it to a number of agents, reaping a basket full of rejections.

Then she put it away for a while. Tucked it into a safe spot where it could… go dormant. Wait. Rest. Nap. Then in March of 2018, Millbrook Press put out a call for manuscripts. Marcie nudged her manuscript awake, helped it shake the sleep out of its eyes, and sent it off to the editor.

How fitting that next week, her book Wait, Rest, Pause: Dormancy in Nature hits the shelves. It is a lyrical book – you can see immediately when you read the first page:

If you were dormant, you would pause—
waiting,
   resting,

      huddling,
         curling,
            napping.

The book is also filled with verbs. Not all that surprising, since Marcie focused on verbs in her fourth-grade classroom. As a teacher she told students to “Highlight your verbs!” Because verbs make our writing stronger, she says. A fan of word banks, Marcie often jots the verbs from a story-in-progress on a separate page, then eliminates the weak verbs.

“You want to look for specificity and readability,” she says. She’ll also list other categories of words, such as colors. “I use a lot of dictionaries and thesauruses to make sure I find the right words.” She’s posted some examples of this on her website, where she shares tips with other writers.

The process doesn’t end once the book is accepted by an editor, either. From book title to words on the page, Marcie said she found herself making plenty of tweaks to the language.

“Sometimes a slight change in order makes all the difference,” she says. Sometimes it’s finding a new way to say the same thing. For example, Marcie wanted to use the word “antifreeze” to describe how insects survive freezing temperatures. “But it’s not very lyrical, so I tried to figure out how else to say it, in a better way.”

Titles undergo scrutiny as well. Marcie’s original title was Pause: Dormancy in Nature. But when said aloud, some people heard “paws”…  and that was confusing. So the editor asked if Marcie could come up with a title that would reflect the lyrical nature of the text. To help her think up titles, Marcie wrote keywords on index cards.

There was one little thing Marcie wouldn’t budge on. “I wasn't willing to give up the word dormancy in the subtitle. As a teacher and now librarian, I knew having a subtitle that really shows what the book is about was important.” Fortunately, the editors agreed.

Luscious language is just one of the things I love about Wait, Rest, Pause. I like that Marcie has back matter for curious kids, older siblings, parents, teachers – anyone who wants to learn more about sleeping through the cold season. This makes it a great resource for older elementary school children who are looking for an understanding of what happens in the natural world when it’s too cold for sap to flow or ladybugs to fly.

“I hope my book makes kids curious enough to want to learn more,” Marcie said. “I see it as a springboard for inquiry.”

Thank you, Marcie, for talking shop with us today on GROG. Wait, Rest, Pause officially releases on Sept. 3 - just six short days from now.
Find out more about Marcie over at her website. Check out my review of Wait, Rest, Pause here, and  Jenna Grodzicki's interview with Marcie from July over at the Lerner blog.

How to Find Picture Book Mentor Texts ~ by Patricia Toht

I recently reached out to my GROG buddies to help me brainstorm about picture book topics for upcoming posts. I had already covered: 

making a picture book dummy 

page turns 

the rule of three

metafiction

wordless spreads

when your picture book wants to rhyme

The GROG hive mind came up with many suggestions, but one buzzed to the top --

How do you find picture book mentor texts?

• The most important thing you can do is to build your own reference guide. Read! Read! Read! When you find elements that are done particularly well in certain books, WRITE THOSE TITLES DOWN! I have a notebook just for this purpose, and it lists a different topic every few pages (e.g. humor, quirky characters, fractured fairy tales, minimal words, lyrical language, etc.) Soon you will have your own amazing reference guide at hand.

A recent stack of rhyming books
that I checked out of my library.

• Enlist the help of your librarian and/or bookseller. These folks are walking, talking versions of the above-mentioned reference guide.

Love your local bookseller!

• Use Google to sleuth for mentor texts. Narrow down the topic you are interested in and type key words into the search box, connecting them with the plus sign (e.g. picture book + cats + humor). You may soon discover that there are several wonderful websites with collected lists of picture books by topic. 

Nerdy Book Club 

(mine the collective minds kids' book nerds)

Pragmatic Mom 
(great lists from Mia Wenjen)

We Are Teachers 

(check the Classroom Ideas Archives)

Reading Rockets 

(select Children's Books and Authors/Themed Booklists)

Marcie Flinchum Atkins 

(Marcie blogs about mentor texts and how to use them.)

• Poke around Pinterest. Many Pinterest pages have collections of picture books by theme.

• Don't forget Twitter! The recent hashtag #nf10for10 on February 10 focused on nonfiction titles. Here is an example from an elementary school librarian outside of Boston.

• Sign yourself up for a month of mentor texts. ReFoReMo, Reading for Research Month happens every March. Throughout the month, guest posters focus on a particular aspect or theme of picture books and provide a handful of recent titles for further research on these aspects/themes. 
I will be joining the fun on March 7th when I look at "How To" picture books. You can find out more about ReFoReMo here.

I hope this helps you get started on the path to finding picture book mentor texts. 

Do you have questions? Tips you'd like to share? Please include them in the comments below.

nErDcampMI by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

While the Grog was on vacation, I've had a really packed summer. Out of four big trips I took, the first was nErDcampMI.

I don’t know about you, but as a writer, I keep a “bucket list” of conferences I’d like to attend some day. I made the bucket list a few years ago because I realized I wanted to do so many conferences but I couldn’t afford to do them all right away both financially and in time away from work and family.

I put Highlights Foundation on my Vision Board next to my computer. Within a few months, I’d made enough money on freelance work to pay for a workshop. Nerdcamp Michigan (also known as nErDcampMI) was also on the list. I knew it would be packed with book-loving authors, librarians, and teachers just like me who loved readers and books as much as I do.

For those of you who don’t know what nErDcampMI is, it’s an ED camp that has become a conference that draws people from all over the US and Canada to a little town in Michigan where Colby Sharp, teacher and book lover extraordinaire (and one of the Nerdy Book Club blog founders), gives teachers, librarians, and authors a place to mingle and share. And did I mention it’s FREE?

We Need Diverse Books panel moderated by Tracey Baptiste

Day 1 involves panels, NerdTalks (a 7 minute long “Ted Talk”), and dozens and dozens of conference-style sessions to attend. 

Mr. Schu talks to R.J. Palacio before her "NerdTalk."

Sarah Albee and Jess Keating talk about writing nonfiction

Day 2 is ED campstyle. The attendees propose sessions and we take off to different rooms to have conversations about different topics of interest to us. It's more of an impromptu session.

The amazing authors also stay the evening after the conference to do a nErDcamp Jr. which hosts 1,000 kids for FREE! They get to hear authors speak, get free books, and learn to be nerdy just like the rest of us.

I attended sessions on diverse books, how to host an author visit, nonfiction writing tips for kids, a Mr. Schu interview with R.J. Palacio and a mini-book talk and giveaway. On the ED camp day, I attended sessions by Jack Gantos about writing instruction, tough topics in middle grade, and doing your own Sibert Smackdown. I left with a to-do list of things to try for next year.

Jack Gantos talking about his many journals

One of the best parts of nErDcampMI is meeting author, teacher, and librarian friends I’ve known on Twitter in real life.  The internet has made our networking so much easier, but nothing beats the energy you get when you put a bunch of people together in real life who love, love, love books and have the desire to share that love with kids.  

If you are like me, and live far away from Michigan, the cool thing is that nErDcamps are popping up all over the country. 

Do you have a bucket list of conferences? What's on your list?

What Do You Need as a Writer? Three Things Highlights Gave Me by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

In May I attended a Highlights workshop on Novels in Verse with fellow Grogger, Jan Godown Annino. I set my eyes on a Highlights workshop many years ago, and even put it on my vision board so I would keep that goal in the forefront. But it couldn’t just be any workshop. In my mind, it had to be just the right workshop for me. 

I wrote a book in 2010 that needed some work. It was written in prose, but it also had some poetry sprinkled throughout. My critique group, and eventually an interested agent, said they thought it would work as a novel in verse. 

I worked on it several times and after several rejections, I finally put it back in the drawer knowing that I just wasn’t ready to write this book yet. 

But this book wouldn’t leave me alone. It kept begging me to work on it. I worked on other books, but this one was determined not to stay in the drawer. 

When the Highlights Foundation advertised the Novel in Verse workshop led by Kathy Erskine and Alma Fullerton, two writers who have written novels in verse, then I knew, this was the “just right” workshop I’d been looking for. 

Highlights provided 3 things for me:

1) Quiet. 

I work as a librarian in an elementary school with 700+ kids. Then I go home to a 7 and 11 year old. Quiet is something I don’t get much of. It’s part of the reason I get most of my writing done at 5:00am, when no one else is awake. The quiet at Highlights is amazing. There’s no TV, internet in the cabins is slower than usual, and cell phone service is spotty. I’m not complaining about this. I needed to be away from all of that noise anyway. There’s something about a quiet cabin that allows you to focus on the writing at hand. In fact, I’m craving that quiet so badly that I hope to go to an unworkshop very, very soon. 

2) Camaraderie. 

While I loved the quiet time and space to write, I also loved my time with other writers. Our group really connected. The writers attending this conference were passionate about their writing and serious about craft. I learned so much from being with them. I get energy from being around other creative people who are also diligently working to create their best stories. The encouragement from Kathy and Alma and others really helped buoy me through revisions. 

3) Craft. 

While I love going to bigger conferences, I have found that I’ve grown the most as a writer when I attend smaller, craft-focused writing events. I’ve made it a priority to attend more craft-focused events, instead of just publishing related events. Keeping up with publishing is essential, but in order to get my writing ready for that world, I know I need to push myself to get better and better at the craft. Each day we focused on a different aspect of writing the novel in verse. Then I had opportunity to go back to my cabin and apply what I learned. This was HUGE. So many workshops I’ve been to  provide a lot of information in a short amount of time, then I have to sift through the information after returning home. Having the time to sift and sort while still there was just what I needed. 

What About You?

What is that one thing you’ve been wanting to do for awhile? An area of writing you want to pursue, a workshop you want to attend, or a gift you want to give to yourself? 

Write it down, and hang it up. 

It took me several years to make this workshop happen, but because I had my radar out for such a workshop, and I had a specific manuscript that needed extra work, I knew that this opportunity was THE ONE I wanted to pursue when it came across my email. 

Make today the day you acknowledge that goal. If you want to make that goal public, leave a comment and share it with your fellow writers. 

Plot Holes? Resources for Repair by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

Plotting is my nemesis. I love to write lyrically. I love to write description. I love writing myself into a hole. I half-hoped that somewhere, I’d find a plot, waiting for me, one that I could just open up and it would fit my story perfectly. It turns out, it’s a bit more work than that. 

I write middle grade novels, I have a rogue YA novel-in-verse lingering on my computer, and I write picture books. In every single case, I have struggled with plot. I knew that plotting was the very thing that could elevate my writing, and so I began to study that which was so difficult for me. The ever-elusive plot. 

I wish I could be a plotter from the beginning, but I usually have to do some brainstorming, then I begin to write. I know where I want to end up, but I don’t always have a complete road map for how I’m going to get there. I’m a pantser, which is why I end up having to go back and do so many revisions—there are always plot missteps or holes along the way. 

This post is not about answers. I don’t have the perfect solution for your plot problems. I'm not peddling "Plot Your Bestseller Novel in 30 Minutes." I'm in the trenches with you. What I do have is a list of resources that I’ve used and some examples. All of these examples are for novels. I have studied plots in picture books as well, but that would be a whole other post.  

Books I Recommend

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

Don’t shy away from this book because it’s for screenwriters. This book is a gem for novel writers because it helps you understand the essentials of good story telling. Snyder goes into explanations about beat sheets and how to break up your story. Check out the website with lots of plotting resources as well. 

Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell

This is a new one I’ve recently read and I love his simplified version of dealing with plot and the essential elements you have to have. It addresses the needs of both the pantser and the plotter. 

The Plot Whisperer by Martha Alderson 

This book is full of details about plotting. She is the plotting guru. I’ve had friends tell me this book overwhelmed them because it’s definitely nitty gritty details on how to plot. For those of us who would consider ourselves more literary writers, it’s sometimes hard to wade through so much plotting detail. However, this is an excellent book about plotting and one that I definitely recommend. 

Here is a WIP of mine that I took apart while reading The Plot Whisperer. 

Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell

This is one I refer to quite a bit. He breaks down plotting techniques and makes them accessible and he understands the great importance of studying mentor texts to gain an understanding of how plotting works. 

Courses

Cheryl Klein’s Writer’s Digest Master Plotting Class

I took this course several years ago, and I can't find any upcoming dates for this class. However, her book Second Sight talks about some of the revision techniques she talks about in her online class. 

Be forewarned, you must love spreadsheets (and I do!). It’s a great way to see into an editor’s mind and really be able to delve into your own book. You need to have a book already written and ready to revise to really make this class worth your while. If you didn't have it written, it would be hard to employ the revision techniques. 

Techniques I’ve Used

1) Study books as mentor texts

After reading James Scott Bell’s book Plot and Structure, I realized I needed to study novels in the same way that I study picture book texts. I picked several of my favorite middle grade novels and mapped out their plots, chapter by chapter. Because none of the above resources (with the exception of Cheryl Klein’s class) are really for children’s writers, I wanted to see how the plotting was handled in the kind of books I wanted to write. 

Bell’s technique used index cards for recording the plot of each chapter in the mentor texts.  I recorded a summary of the chapter, characters, setting, ending (did I want to keep reading), and type of chapter it was (action, reaction, setup, deepening). James Scott Bell describes in detail how to do this type of study in his book. 

By walking through this process with books I loved, it helped me see the big picture and how those smaller plot pieces were woven together to make the big picture. 

2) Spreadsheets

Cheryl Klein’s class uses a lot of different spreadsheets. I use spreadsheets because it is another way that you can see the different plot elements of your book in a big picture way, while also keeping track of those little items. There are some elements I’ll always want to track, but some will change depending on the book. For example, for one of my novels, my spreadsheet headers tracked these elements for each scene: 

* Action

* Emotion

* Setting

* Characters in this chapter

* What does the character want?

* Climax

* Ending/Hook for next scene

* Clue revealed (specific to that book)

* Magic element (specific to that book)

The advantage of spreadsheets is that they are easily color-codable and it’s easy to see your whole book on a few pages. 

3) Scrivener

I’ve written a previous blog post about Scrivener, but I always draft my novels in Scrivener. It helps me see things as a whole and I can also easily move parts around, much more so than in Word. 

The index card feature is helpful when trying to have summaries of your story at a glance on your computer. You can also print them off, cut them apart, and physically arrange them just like you would with real index cards. 

4) Plot chart

Remember 5^th grade when you plotted stories on a chart that looked like a steep mountain? Another way to map out your story and see where it falls apart is to actually make one of these large charts of your book. After reading The Plot Whisperer, I actually got brave and did this with one of my books. 

5) Shrunken Manuscript

Darcy Pattison teaches how to do this technique here. Basically, it’s another way to see your novel as a whole. It helps identify your weak spots and strong spots. 

Plot On!

I still have a lot to learn about plotting. I’d love to know your favorite books about plot and your favorite techniques for revising for plot. Tell me about it in the comments.