View From the 5th Grade Trenches - October 2011 - I'd Like to Read About...

The kids in my class are reading maniacs. They have accepted our principal's challenge to read 30 books each between August and June. 


When I asked what kind of books they'd like to see, here's what they told me:


I'd like to read a book about...
...a homeless boy who builds something that will be passed on for generations
...a soldier who finds an abandoned bunker filled with robots
...a frog named Andy who goes on a space adventure to Venus and meets an alien named Moe
...a modern kid lost in prehistoric times
...a talent show
...a fifth grader who solves the mystery of bank robbery in his town
...a girl who explores the Costa Rican forest
...Santa Claus and a leprechaun who are stuck in Halloween 
...a funny story about the gold rush
...a fifth grader who falls off a cruise ship and gets stranded on an island
...a fifth grade boy who loses his sports ability when he makes fun of a witch in Las Vegas

Okay all you MG authors. Get writing. Can you say, "NaNo?"

If you write it, they will come.


photo credit

And the Beauty Queen is...

...Vicki Tremper

Congratulations to a gal who swears in French while she's doing the Argentine tango. Does it get better than that? I don't think so.

Vicki - Prepare to laugh until your stomach cramps.

Celebrating BEAUTY QUEENS by Libba Bray

Here goes my very first blog contest, and I’m totally nervous. Does my hair look OK? Is there anything in my teeth? Does my butt look big in this post? I need to be pretty.

Welcome to the BEAUTY QUEENS by Libba Bray CELEBRATION/EXTRAVAGANZA…

I am an audiobook nut, especially when the author is the one reading the story. BEAUTY QUEENS is hands down my best ride through an audiobook EVER! I was laughing so hard at Libba Bray’s narration that I got lost in Fresno for over an hour on my way back from Yosemite. This hilarious story is well worth the mileage and confusion.

Libba’s performance is one of a kind and takes this brilliant comedic romp to a whole new level. At the SCBWI-LA conference I had the privilege of meeting Libba, and she graciously 

re-enacted a few lines from my favorite character in the book, Tiara. That memory is now my happy place.

BEAUTY QUEENS is more than a snort-laugh inducing treat. It also shares the journey of the girls as they discover who they truly are. Great message for our teens. Thank you Libba for this story that is sparkly gold with a chocolate center.

Laugh with me if you will by watching this BEAUTY QUEENS VIDEO starring Libba Bray herself.

THE CONTEST

 Pretty Prize – A copy of BEAUTY QUEENS autographed by Libba Bray.

*Throws Confetti, blows a bugle, and marches around the room with a baton*

Many of the contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant share a Fun Fact page with us in the book. Here’s mine:

Name: Leslie S. Rose

State: The voices tell me I’m normal.

Age: Old enough to be stalked by AARP.

Height: 2 inches shorter than my dream of 5’6”

Weight: In pounds or stones?

Hair: What day is it? Okay, blonde.

Eyes: The paint chip from Home Depot says cinder block blue - so pretty

Best Feature: My Star Wars memorabilia collection

Fun Facts About Me

• ·      I have a titanium hip, but magnets don’t stick to me so what's the point in having it?
• ·      I used to be able to do a back bend, grab my ankles and walk. If only the Corporation had invented Cirque du Soleil back then.
• ·      Once a Shetland pony bit me.

NOW IT'S YOUR TURN

Leave a comment below telling all of us a Fun Fact about you. Comments must be in by midnight EST on Monday, October 24th. The winner will be drawn at random and announced starting October 25th on each of the celebrating blogs. Don't forget to leave your email. My apology to the international blogging community, but this is a US only contest.

KEEP PARTYING

Go to the BEAUTY QUEENS posts on the blog links of my awesome (and pretty) writing buds below to share more fun facts and earn two more chances to win our fabulous prize. You can earn an entry for your comment on each of the three celebrating blogs.

Lisa Gail Green         Julie Musil

     

Stay pretty.

Audible. com on BEAUTY QUEENS:

The 50 contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. What’s a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program - or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan - or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up?

Designing a Character: Using Texture

Texture connects us directly with our senses of sight and touch.  Discovering the feel of hard vs. soft, smooth vs. rough, or shiny vs. dull, gives us information about the world, through our fingers and eyes.  As a general perception, we are drawn to soft, smooth, and shiny, while hard, dull, and rough aren’t always as desirable. 

How does imposing texture add dimension to your character?  Do you want them to be appealing, or dangerous?  Is their texture deceptive to their true nature, or an affirmation of who they really are?  Every character has an exterior and interior landscape.  Are these layers of their texture contrasting or complementary?  Do your character’s textures come out in touchable form, such as clothing, or are they reflected in speech, action, and expression?                          

Back to Harry Potter for a peek at texture.  I see Voldemort as a black charred core, surrounded by a slick metallic coating, covered in gashes with knife-sharp edges.  

Be a texture seeker.  Mentally sculpt your character with materials that reveal them.  See what nuances you may discover.   

Designing a Character: Using Color Schemes

Individual colors each have their own subjective emotional impact, but start putting them together and you can create dramatic, sympathetic, or powerful structures.  Assign your characters colors and then play with combining them into scenes to create discord, harmony, mystery, or chaos.   

Monochromatic – This is when you take a single color and add either black or white to it.  Think of it as the shadings of your character.  Your protagonist might start out their journey as a primary blue until the obstacles they face darken them into a more mysterious midnight shade.  On the other hand, a character may lose burdens and lighten into a powder or sky blue, moving closer to the white end of the spectrum.

Triads – Play colors like chords on the piano, three notes of different hues.  The color triad of red, yellow, and orange stimulates appetite.  Think about the color scheme of many fast food restaurants.  These three colors are also high value, suggesting energy and vitality.  I imagine three teen friends on an adventure when I think of this triad. (Probably all boys, stopping to eat often at fast food restaurants)

The triad black, white, and red radiates power, and may suggest villainy.  Picture the flag of Hitler’s Third Reich.  

Complimentary – Colors in opposite positions on the color wheel work against each other in dynamic harmony, red/green, orange/ blue, yellow/purple.  Complimentary schemes may signal conflict between characters.  Picture a romantic entanglement where opposites attract and join for an exciting relationship.

Analogous – Any neighboring colors on the color wheel – ex: purple/magenta/red or blue/turquoise/green.  You feel them fading in to one another and getting along.  An analogous scheme may signify the calm family life of a character before their quest/problem throws their life into turmoil.  At journey’s end analogous colors reflect the happy well-balanced land to which a hero returns in triumph after slaying literal or figurative dragons. 

Go check out Color Scheme Designer and play with color combos of your own.

Designing a Character: Using Light-Direction

When you visualize a scene, reveal your characters with light.  Illuminating people differently will project their qualities.  In particular, changing the direction from where a light originates can model a figure in a variety of ways, each creating a unique specific effect.

FRONT LIGHT: Car headlights.  No secrets.  Let it all hang out.  Projects a huge shadow behind.  Character revealed.

BACK LIGHT(Directly or offset to one side)/DOWNLIGHT(Straight from above): Sunlight/Moonlight/Streetlight.  Separates the character from their surroundings.  Allows them to pop out and be distinct.  No one melts into the scenery.

UPLIGHT: Unnatural direction.  Burning sewer grate.  Candle under the chin.  Creepy.  Monstrous.  Beware the up-lit character.  

SIDELIGHT: Room lamps.  Sunrise/Sunset.  Adds dimension.  Fills out the form of your character.  Depth, complexity.  Brings out the folds in their clothing. Used strongly in dance.

What direction of light is catching your characters? Are you playing with cast shadows or internal shadows?




photo credits

Designing a Character: Using Light-Purpose

In the spirit of: "It ain't nice 'til you've read it twice," here's the next installment of the Designing a Character Series from last year.

Why do we need light?  Illumination, right?  Ding, ding, ding…correct.  Ah, but illumination has a myriad of subtexts.

DIRECTING OUR FOCUS: We look where the light is strongest.  It guides our line of vision.  Is your current action bathed in the brightest light?  Are distinct pools of light guiding your reading through moments?

CONTRAST:  We may be looking at the light, but who or what is lurking in the shadows.

MOOD: A character walking out in the midday sun projects a different purpose than a character strolling through the dappled sunlight filtering down along a tree-lined path.

STABLE VS. UNSTABLE: Dependable electric lights shining in a room at night give a secure feeling, safety from the darkness.  The light of a candle or the fire in a fireplace is not so constant.  What are we missing in a character’s face lit sparsely by a flickering light?

STRONG VS. WEAK: Are you exposing your characters with sharp, crisp rays, or do more diffuse beams gently reveal them?

Play with the concept of light.  Let it be a tool to bring an added layer of dimensionality to your characters and scenes.  Try visualizing light that would not be expected in a given situation.  How does that change intention or outcome?

Designing a Character: Using Shape

It's conference week for me so I'm repeating a post from my designing a character series. Enjoy or re-enjoy as the case may be.

Shape, an area defined by line or color, evokes emotional responses similar to line.  We are surrounded by both two and three-dimensional shapes in our world.  In writing we want to avoid two-dimensional characters, those with only length and width, like the plague.  B-0-R-I-N-G.  It’s that third dimension of depth that adds spice to our puppets.

The fun begins when we manipulate shape.

BALANCE:  X O X O X O

Are you asleep yet?  Balance can be a story device you employ as a baseline only if you’re intent on utterly destroying it quickly.  As an overriding plot element, it can be deadly.

Once upon a time there were little pig triplets with ungodly trust funds.  The loving pig brothers, all equally intelligent and motivated, left tail in snout to find their way in the wide wide world.  Using their unlimited Renaissance Pig talents, they build a compound with three identical houses where they could live together in harmony.  Best of all they had a bushy-tailed wolfy neighbor who refused to eat anything except stupid pigs who never wore clothing.  The End.     

INTERVAL OF SPACE:    X X X X X X       X

I know which X you are looking at!

Once upon a time there were little pig triplets with ungodly trust funds.  The first pig made a horrendous investment due to his lack of online research, and was left destitute.  His brothers shunned him, and he had to live out his porcine existence in a cardboard refrigerator box under the forest overpass.  Since he was stupid and did not wear clothing, his brothers’ bushy-tailed wolfy neighbor ate him.  The End. 

IDENTIFIABLE SHAPE:  X    - ò ﾐ

A shape we recognize and are able to assign meaning, is always dominant.

One upon a time there were two amorphous blobs and one pig with ungodly trust funds.  The blobs had no hands or faces and therefore no means to access their riches.  The pig opened a small bookstore under the oak tree with his money and was wildly successful since animals who wear clothing, also read.  The indefinable blobs could not communicate with the non-blob world so no one in the forest had any clue what they were thinking, doing, or planning.  They hung aimlessly in the air below the branches of the oak tree, doing nothing, for the rest of all time.  The End.

Note: If you speak “blob” and can order the last mini-story in their original tongue, “blob,” thus being able to identify their unique culture and language, you’ll find the journey of the blobs hanging in the forest is actually an epic to rival Tolkien.  Who knew?

Whadaya Think About Blog Awards?

There are some pretty cool awards floating around the blogosphere. It’s true that accepting an honor, fulfilling its requirements, and passing it on can add yet another serving to your already overflowing “to be done” plate. Sometimes we just can’t respond to an award. I’ve been guilty of losing an award because I didn’t bookmark or write down the generous giver, and I feel bad. Thank you and I’m sorry to anyone that feels I snubbed them.

Lisa Gail Green presented a clever solution to passing on an award in her Paranormal Point of View blog.

We have to guard our writing time fiercely, but if you find a sliver of a moment, I think adding a link to the award chain can send some positive vibes out there to cyberspace.

Here are a few reasons why,

Awards –

• may send you to a blog you otherwise wouldn’t visit
• connect writers and give a sense of the peer community that’s out there
• let you learn details about a blogger you might never know thus providing a giggle or the occasional guffaw
• help build followers for a fellow blogger
• encourage new bloggers to stick with it

Two Thank Yous I didn’t lose, go out to Lacie Myers and Prerna Pickett for gifting me with the Liebster award (the name makes me crave lobster) that goes out to blogs on the way to the 250 followers goal.

So I'm sending lobster, I mean the Liebster to these delicious voices:

Caryn Caldwell

Pat Newcombe

D.M. Cunningham

Michelle Brown

Augusta Scattergood

Pass the butter, and share your opinion on blog awards. Happy Fall and welcome to my new followers.

View From the 5th Grade Trenches - August 2011 - The Scieszka Zone

You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, 

The Scieszka Zone

Where else can a math cursed kid escape by putting two halves together to make a hole in the wall?

Where else can the Big Bad Wolf plead his case?

Where else can a cowboy crack up about a head of lettuce?

Where else can Chicken Licken seek an audience with Obama?

Nothing tops the giggles of a roomful of kids. That is why I start every school year sharing the witty and hilarious words of Jon Scieszka and the crazy-perfect pictures of Lane Smith with my class. Their stories are every bit as guffaw-inducing for adults as they are for the kids.

Jon Scieszka has clocked time as a teacher in the elementary school trenches and he proves over and over his special magic for communicating with kids. As a teacher I appreciate everything Scieszka for the teachable moments the works provide above and beyond engaging kids with their solid gold humor.

MATH CURSE – Introduces the Fibonacci sequence: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34 (Have you cracked the code?) as well as empathizing with students about the mind boggling math concepts they have to conquer each new school year.

THE TRUE STORY OF THE 3 LITTLE PIGS – Is an approachable and entertaining example of teaching voice and point of view.

COWBOY AND OCTOPUS – Is Diversity 101. The relationship and tolerance between these two unlikely amigos exemplifies the joy of putting differences aside and being friends with someone unexpected.

THE STINKY CHEESE MAN AND OTHER FAIRLY STUPID TALES – Besides the perk of getting to say “stupid” for the guaranteed laugh, these quick spins on traditional tales are ripe for teaching the elements of a story.

Thank you Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith for all the lesson plan blanks you’ve filled in for me, and above all else, for making kids crave books.

Look for the signpost up ahead – your next stop, 

The Scieszka Zone

The Twilight Zone introduction is written by Rod Serling.