I was a chaperone all day Thursday for the 4th grade field trip to Raleigh, North Carolina, our state capital.
It was a long day, but a lot of fun. The kids in my group were great. And I did learn a little along the way (and not just about state government.)
Lesson 1: Remember that our culture isn’t static. Even small references to “modern” society can date our book.
At one point in the trip, I was the traffic cop at the girls’ restroom—letting several in when several came out. Or, at least, that was the general idea. But no one was coming out of the restroom at all and soon I heard sounds of great consternation coming from within: “Mrs. Craig! Mrs. Craig!”
I ran in, thinking the worst. The girls were standing there with soap dripping from their hands. “The sinks are all broken!” they cried out.
Well, no, they weren’t. But the plumbing in this particular building was from the 1960s. These were faucets you had to turn. And there was a hot faucet and a cold faucet. These girls—now y’all, this shocks me too—were expecting to hold their hands under the faucet and have the water automatically turn on. If the faucet wasn’t a Delta style or a lever style or didn’t automatically turn on, then they didn’t know how to work them.
This is the generation we’re writing for, too. And their kids. Because our books will live forever in digital format.
Lesson 2: Be willing to change our game plan to make the reader’s experience better.
We were touring our state’s Museum of Natural Science. I had 6 kids in my group and 4 floors of the museum to tour in about 1 hour. Everyone else had started on the bottom floor to work their way up, so I started at the top to work our way down.
We’d seen the butterfly room, the arthropod zoo, the dinosaur exhibit, the mountains-to-the-sea exhibit, and were just heading to the escalator to see the 1st floor exhibit last. Another adult came up, “Did your group see the reptiles on the 3rd floor? There are staffers there who are letting the kids touch the snakes.”
Well, of course we went back upstairs. The children just loved those snakes. Between petting the snakes and washing our hands afterward, we never did tour the first floor. But the snakes were the highlight of the trip for the children, as they told their parents, later.
There might be a point in our book where an idea comes to us on improving our book for our readers. These ideas usually come to me in the third quarter of my first draft. Sometimes this results in a drastic plot restructuring. It can be a lot of work to change the game plan, but ultimately, it’s worth it for the readers.
Lesson 3: Remember our audience.
It was the very end of a long day of touring. We’d been to 2 museums, the capitol building, and were finally in the legislative building.
The children were exhausted and the tour guide was being very detailed about the legislative building design and cost. (The building was a sort of 1960s style Art Deco Revival.) She was using big words that I likely wouldn’t even write, since I have a folksy voice in my books. The children, literally, were falling asleep—nodding off as she droned on.
She wasn’t engaging the children. She wasn’t making the experience interesting or fun for them. So…she lost them.
When we’re writing a book, it’s fine to use academic language—if we’re writing for academics or writing a textbook. But a more conversational, engaging style works better for many books. We want our readers to enjoy themselves enough to keep reading, after all.
I learned a whole lot of other stuff, too. If you give a 9 year old girl a digital camera, she’ll take a picture of just about everything in a museum. :)
Have you made any discoveries about writing lately?
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Elizabeth – It sounds as though you had a great trip to the museum! What fun! And the lessons you learned make a lot of sense. I was especially interested in what you said about the tour guide’s presentation at the end of the tour. It is so important to write in a way that keeps the audience interested. That means choice of words, mix of dialogue and narrative, and so on. Otherwise, even if we have a good story to tell, it can get lost.
One thing that I’ve learned lately about writing is that characters can surprise one. Even the one who created them. One of the characters I developed for my WIP was supposed to be a “walk on” character. But – surprise, surprise – he’s taking on a life of his own. Who’d’ve thought it?
I love it when you relate writing lessons from your day with your children. That’s hysterical about the faucets in the girls’ bathroom.
Karen
Wow, the bathroom issue was an eye opener. I had not given it any thought before.
I detest reading a good book, then have to keep looking up the ‘big’ words. It spoils it for me if the author comes across as showing off their skills.
I am a simple writer. I use basic words and hope they do the job I employed them to do.
I learned that I do not need a lot of my WIP! Without the waffle it is a far better read. I learned why I got rejections. Positive ones, but can understand why now.
Interesting post,thanks Elizabeth.
That’s funny about the sinks. I don’t even like the automatic ones, because half the time they either don’t work or the water flow is too short.
Sounds like a really fun trip! This post makes me nostalgic for my class trips back in the day. Those were good times!
That’s really funny about the girls and the faucets. Don’t they have faucets that turn in their homes?! Oh my, I can’t stop chuckling about that!
Sports usually teach me something about writing. Like yesterday, the Phillies were having a rough game but at the bottom of the ninth, they came back from a four-run deficit and won the game! It taught me that it’s not over until it’s over so even if things look hopeless, never ever give up!!
Loved that faucet story. Well, as my current story begins in 1938, I hope my readers will accept that things are not quite like they are used to :D
And I did learn something today. I had some Jews with yellow stars on their coats. Fortunately I googled a bit and realized these yellow stars were not introduced until 1939!
Research, research, research!
Want to really freak them out? Tell them to make a call on a rotary dial phone.
Most of my chaperone memories are from high school band trips where the biggest challenge was keeping a bunch of teenagers from doing what comes naturally. Lessons learned? 1 – The boys’ hotel rooms should be on a different floor from the girls’. 2 – Yes, roaming chaparone monitors in the halls at night are quite necessary. (If the rooms have balconies, you’ll need outside guards, er, monitors, too.) 3 – Never under-estimate the ingenuity of teenagers.
Very informative. Those are definitely valuable lessons. I’ve seen a lot of speeches and presentations where the speaker just lost the audience. It’s surprising that more people don’t try to engage their audiences. One of the first things you learn in technical writing (that applies to all writing) is to know your audience.
Now that is a road trip! Almost three hours one way? Just doing the math, as it takes me four hours to get to Charlotte…
Looks like you had a nice trip. I’ve never been to Rayleigh, nor North Carolina, but would liked to visit some time >:)
Cold As Heaven
Margot–Characters are amazing, aren’t they? And they can really make us change our story for them, too.
Glynis–It had never crossed my mind that the girls wouldn’t be able to operate a faucet!
Simple works really well…and is usually a lot more popular at the bookstore.
Alex–I sort of wave my hands under the automatic ones, the whole time I’m washing.
Karen–Nutty, isn’t it?
Laura–The suburb of Charlotte we live in is pretty new–the “older” homes all date back to the 80s. Can you imagine? I was absolutely dumbfounded!
Good point! It’s definitely not over till it’s over. :)
Linda–A rotary phone? Those girls would have been crying. :)
Yes! Oh, too funny. My son had a field trip a couple of months ago (he asked me NOT to chaperone…I think I embarrass him), and the school mentioned all the security guards they’d hired to roam the hotel halls at night–protecting the kids from themselves!
Tom–I think it’s easy for folks who don’t do a lot of public speaking to lose the audience–they’re probably just self-focused and working through feeling self-conscious about lecturing. But a pro tour guide–bleh. They should have that stuff down pat.
Dorte–And it’s so tough to get the details right!
Diane–It was about 3 hours, 15 minutes one way–we were on a chartered bus, so it took a while. Fortunately, they ran movies. Unfortunately, the kids only liked Finding Nemo. :)
Cold As Heaven–It’s a nice city. The whole Triad area of NC is very cultured–lots of art, museums, etc.
Being careful not to date the book by using certain references is great advice. I found numerous such references and deleted them. My editor found some too. Never mention the current President. I’d rather just make up a ficticious President.
Funny about the water faucets. Isn’t that weird. Man, I never thought I’d get that old that common things for me would be foreign objects to the kids.
Stephen–There are so many ways to date a manuscript…some are obvious, but others I really have to think about!
Mary–Isn’t that weird? I just reached over and turned them all on. They looked at me like I had just made magic happen. :)