How to teach your child to write a novel: Follow-up and FAQ

Officially authorized to write novels. Beware!

I am not a writer and I’ve never written a novel. Can I still teach this course?

Yes! In fact, if you want to, you can do the course right along with your students and be a great example to them of someone who can tackle a creative challenge with bravery and style.

The method you’re presenting seems to create a highly formulaic and predictable novel. Aren’t you encouraging the kids to indulge in a lot of clichés?

Yes. At the age of 7, or 8 or 9 or even 15, writing a formulaic novel is great practice. Writing *any novel*, even the most derivative piece of copycat nonsense, is a huge accomplishment for a child. I don't care if they set the book at Hogwarts and name their characters Parry, Permione and Pon. The truth is that a lot of the books they're going to read are very formulaic, follow a predictable, comfortable plot arc, and defy no rules. A lot of what this course is about is learning how to read books, see how they’re made and how they operate. Understanding the formulas, the scaffolding, the inner workings, begins with learning the “rules” and how the typical book is organized and arranged. Experimentation can follow. In fact, experimentation can happen right now today — they don’t have to follow the guidelines that I’ve laid out, but the rules are there to fall back on, when they’re looking for direction.

My child is frustrated and wants to quit. What should I do?

Make sure your child knows that the feeling of frustration and the desire to quit is very, very common and normal. It happens to the best of us, even to great novelists who have been published and read around the world. It is part of writing. If it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

One of the reasons it’s a good idea to do this course with a small group of kids, rather than just one, is the cheery sense of “we’re all in this together” that the group can generate. You can help this along by having frustration sessions: groan and moan and tear your hear, pretend to choke on your own angst. Make it funny, make it ridiculous. Do not take anything very seriously. This is, after all, a course that ends in the presentation of a paper clip. Don’t let the kids get too down on themselves. If you do have a child who absolutely stalls out and is truly upset and miserable, of course you don’t want to push them past where they’re comfortable. However, try to end each session on a good note. If they can’t think of what goes in chapter 5 and they’ve become morose about it, tell them chapter 5 doesn’t exist any more and that they should make a list of as many ice cream flavors as possible before the end of class. Always always try to end with a success, however minute.

Where can we find support for young novelists online?

I strongly encourage participating in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. You can find the web site here: http://www.nanowrimo.org. The Young Writers Program is fantastic — the kids can set their own word count goals, interact with other young writers on safe message boards, and more.

The novel is done. Now what do we do with it?

If you’re a homeschooler, submit it to the Book Arts Bash! The Book Arts Bash is a novel contest for homeschooled writers, judged by best-selling authors like Sara Gruen and Holly Black. The prize-winning novels in each age category are critiqued by literary agents. Find out more at the Book Arts Bash web site: http://www.bookartsbash.com.

I have students that are at different levels with their writing abilities. Some are not writing at all yet. What do you recommend for teaching this course to kids at variant levels?

When I taught this class, I had third and fourth graders. I had kids at all levels of writing ability! Some very hesitant phonetic spellers, some spelling bee whizzes, and everything in between.

If you have a child who's not writing at all, I'd encourage her to draw pictures for her answers, or just verbally tell you. It's not necessary to write everything down (like for example in the "Verb Hunt" activity) as long as the mental process is happening! I would advise keeping the class very small if your students aren't writing/reading on their own, and just plan to do a lot of the exercises verbally. You can help them write down what they need to write down to remember their ideas, but there's no need for everything to be perfectly recorded. No one's going to grade it after all. ;D

The good thing about doing stuff like this that kind of stretches their abilities: they can see the benefit to writing, and they can see the use for it. Writing helps you record your ideas so that you can look back on what you were thinking and remember it. That's a very basic, fundamental reason that humans need to write, and experiencing that need will probably boost your students' interest in getting those skills up. :)
 

Any more questions? Please email me! I will add them to the FAQ. And visit me at my web site, Little Blue School.

All lessons include links to printable worksheets and documents, so everything you need is right here! If you would like a free copy of the full course as one PDF, including all lessons and worksheets in one printable document, here's how to get it: Email me with evidence that you've promoted this course to at least one other person (in an email, on a list, on a blog, on your Facebook or Twitter, etc.) and I'll email you the PDF of the whole course. You can CC me on your email, or point me to your Twitter or FB, or show me your blog. Please help me promote this course, and get a full PDF of the course to easily print and use or save for future use! To promote the course, here's a shortened URL for you to use: http://bit.ly/1s42Ou