by Hank Quense, @hanque99
What can be more satisfying for an author than showing kids how to create a short story? That’s what I’ve been doing for the last several years in schools and libraries. I think it’s a lot of fun. And now I’ve expanded that experience into a new book called Fiction Writing Workshop for Kids.
By way of background, a few years ago the Valley Middle School in Oakland, NJ asked if I would visit the school and talk to their seventh graders. On visits like this, authors usually talk about their books and read scenes from them. I hate reading scenes! I find it boring and I’m sure I bore the audience with my monotonous voice. Instead of torturing the kids this way, I decided to show them how I go about creating a short story. The slide talk worked like this: I gave them the overall story idea, one that they would want to write. After that, I used a handout with a series of text boxes with questions to have the kids come up with ideas on characters, setting and plot. Finally, I broke the story up into six scenes and showed the kids how to use the text box ideas to write each scene. The talk was wildly successful.
Besides the Valley Middle School, I’ve given this talk in other schools and libraries and I’ve expanded the concept to include two more story ideas.
While I love doing this, my talks are geographically limited. To remove this limitation, I used these three talks as the basis for the ebook called Fiction Writing Workshop for Kids.. Using the advanced technical capabilities of ebooks, the book has graphics as well as audio and video clips embedded into it. The videos show the text boxes and coach the kids on how to develop ideas for the basic story elements: characters, setting and plot. Each story has a final video clip showing the kids which text boxes to use in each scene.
Finally, there is a set of blank worksheets the kids can use to develop stories on their own.
The suggested audience for the ebook is 4th to 7th graders.
This is not an ordinary ebook: it’s interactive and that presents some problems. Not all e-readers can open the epub and mobi versions of this book. Apple computers and IOS devices can open the epub version if they have the free iBook app installed. Some Nooks also can open it. You can open the epub on a PC computer if the computer has Adobe Digital Edition app installed. You can download this free app here: https://www.adobe.com/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html
The mobi edition will only work on the more recent Kindle Fire tablets.
Other Kindle tablets will not be able to deal with the audio and video clips.
The ebook is available on iBooks at https://apple.co/2CJYDjN
and Kindle at https://amzn.to/2RnU5Yo.
Getting a book published is always a great feeling, but this one felt not just great, but also fulfilling.
Have you made any school visits? How did your talks go?
Besides writing novels, Hank lectures on fiction writing, publishing and book marketing. He is most proud of his talk showing grammar school kids how to create a short story. He used these lectures to create an advanced ebook with embedded videos to coach the students on how to create characters, plots and setting. The target audience is 4th to 7th graders.
Photo on Visualhunt.com
HI Elizabeth
Thanks for posting about my ebook. I recently spent day with 7th graders in a different school and has as much fun as usual. And from reports from the school, the kids loved it also.
Thanks for posting today, Hank! When you have a tool that works for middle school visits, it’s a good thing! I can do elementary and high school fine…I never enjoy the middle school visits as much, ha.
Yeah, middle schoolers are in an awkward age. Not quite kids anymore and not quite adults yet. And they tend to be lippy.
They terrify me a little, ha. They say what high schoolers just think. :)
We do a program every year with schools where we teach the kids how to create a character and then they write stories in which the best ones we publish in a book. The kids love it.
that sounds like fun
I love the idea of making connections with children in schools, and coaching them. It’s a great way to pay it forward. Thanks for these ideas.
Not only that Margot, it’s fun. Can’t ask for more than that