Karen Comer

Collecting Stories

The Grand Imaginarium writing workshops for kids

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On the loveliest of spring days these school holidays, my friend Renee and I took our kids to the Abbotsford Convent for a writing workshop with Lucinda Gifford, run through the Grand Imaginarium.

Lucinda is an illustrator and writer. She showed the kids her sketchbook – it was amazing. If I could choose an instant new talent, it would be drawing. I love looking at artists’ sketchbooks and Lucinda’s was fabulous.

Lucinda guided the kids through a group drawing, then set them off, creating their own alien.

Renee and I left at this stage, and went across to the other side of the quadrangle to the cafe where we discussed our own writing projects.

The kids reappeared two hours later with a mini library – their own books about aliens, complete with imprint details on the back page.

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It’s not easy to find kids’ activities that cater for kids from 5-12, so it was a workshop that worked well for our family. The Grand Imaginarium run many programs – their vision is ‘a world where books by children for children strengthen culture, language and literacy in all communities’.

As the kids received two copies of their story, as well as the original, Mr 8 decided he could sell the copies. Please look out for his book, Kailback crash landing, available in all good bookshops – unless he cons his grandparents into buying a copy first!

Guest lecture on writing and blogging

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Female speaker giving presentation in lecture hall at university workshop. Rear view of unrecognized participants listening to lecture and making notes. Scientific conference event.

I had the pleasure of presenting a university guest lecture this week for third-year teaching students. My topic was writing and blogging, with a focus on writing workshops for primary school students.

As I caught the tram to the university, it reminded me of my own uni days – a long time ago! I spent mornings at uni studying literature, and worked at an after-school-care program in the afternoons.

As a twenty-year-old coordinator for the after-school-care program, often responsible for up to sixty children an afternoon, I felt hugely accountable for these children. Sometimes I was the first person they could talk to if they had a tough day at school, a transition person between school and home. Sometimes I helped them negotiate playground matters or helped with homework. Often I heard about problems at school or home, while making hama bead pictures or shooting a basketball.

I thought about how important these teaching students are, and what an impact they’ll have on so many children. While I never had to worry about curriculum as an after-school-care coordinator, these teaching students will teach the curriculum, as well as resilience, overcoming obstacles, social behaviour and communication. And think abut the technology changes they will see over the course of a teaching career!

When I was a coordinator, even at age 20, I felt I would never have another job with so much responsibility. Publishing books and editing websites may have more accountability sometimes but it doesn’t have the same consequences if something goes wrong.

So I did get on my soapbox and talk about the importance of communication. After all, these teaching students, and their future students, will need to deliver a eulogy at a funeral, give a speech at a wedding, send a passionate email to a girlfriend or boyfriend overseas and present a talk asking for funding. We will all need to do some of those things, so it’s important to be intentional about whatever you’re presenting, however you’re presenting.

I spoke a lot about the writing workshops I offer, how to guide kids through creating characters and following their plots. All of the worksheets I’ve created can be downloaded and printed.

I recommended some of my favourite picture books and middle grade books, with ideas for how to use them in the classroom.

My favourite part of the lecture was when I invited the students to create a story with me, because it’s important that we understand what we ask children to do. The students made up an amazingly funny and gorgeous story about a boy called George who wanted a monkey to cuddle. The stakes were high, the problems seemingly insurmountable but George won through in the end!

Thank you so much to the teaching students who have subscribed to my blog – I look forward to sharing more writing tips for children with you.

Sad, the dog – a video book review

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The Little Bookroom in Carlton is one of those wonderful places that I could stay in all day. It’s cosy and inviting, and filled with children’s books. In the last school holidays, I took Mr 6 there for a story and drawing session with Tull Suwannakit. Tull is the illustrator of Sad, the Dog, written by Sandy Fussell.

Tull read us Sad’s story, and then taught us all – kids and adults – how to draw dogs. So much fun! Some of my dogs looked a little wonky but Mr 6 was very proud of his efforts.

Sad the dog is the story of a neglected dog, who eventually is given a new name because – you guessed it – he is not so sad at the end of the book.

I can’t imagine a small kid who wouldn’t like this story – a gorgeous dog, a lovely and satisfying story, beautiful watercolour illustrations.

Some students from RMIT filmed a short video about Tull. Thank you to Binny Park from RMIT for allowing me to share it. For those of you who know our family, you can find a tiny glimpse of Mr 6 and me in the film. Tull’s words about art offering the ‘freedom to express, to explore’ resonated strongly with me.

 

You can read a fabulous interview with Sandy Fussell on Nicole Melanson’s blog, Word Mothers.

Allison Tait – author interview

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Fanned-BooksToday I am excited to bring you my first author interview – with Allison Tait! Allison is a freelance writer, one half of the Australian Writers Centre podcast with Valerie Khoo, and the writer of The Mapmaker Chronicles – a trilogy for children. Her third book in this series, Breath of the Dragon, was released this week. You can read my review of the first Mapmaker book, Race to the end of the world, and you can have a look at the Mapmakers Chronicle website here – lots of information about maps for kids awe well as teachers’ notes.

The Mapmaker Chronicles: Race To The End Of The World was named by Readings as one of the top 10 Best Middle Fiction Books of 2014 and was a Notable book in the 2015 CBCA Children’s Book Of The Year Awards.

The Mapmaker Chronicles website tells us, ‘The king is determined to discover what lies beyond the known world, and has promised a handsome prize to the ship’s captain who can bring him a map. To do that, they’ll need mapmakers – and 14-year-old Quinn is shocked to be one of the chosen. While his older brothers long for adventure, Quinn is content with a quiet life on the farm, but when word of his special talent gets out, he has no choice but to pack his bags and join the mismatched crew of slaves and stowaways on board the Libertas.’

Thank you for joining us, Allison!

KC: I know you’re more of a pantser than a plotter – writing the first draft to see where you end up rather than planning everything in the beginning. Did you have a rough idea of what you wanted each of the books in The Mapmaker Chronicles to cover or did you work on one book at a time? After you finished the third book, did you have a chance to change anything in the first book if you needed to emphasise or delete anything?

AT: When I wrote the first draft of the first book, I started with an idea – a race to map the world and a boy who didn’t want to go – and started writing. I wrote 48,000 words during NaNoWriMo in 2012, and then wrote another 5000 words during the following week. Once I had that first draft, I did a short – one paragraph – outline for the following books.

What I discovered as I wrote books two and three was that things changed. I also discovered that things I’d put into book one really came into their own by the time I wrote book three, particularly Quinn’s family history. I hadn’t had a clear picture of a lot of that in the beginning, but my subconscious was working for me and it all came together beautifully in the end.

The books came out six months apart, so there wasn’t a lot of room for making big changes as I went. I wrote the drafts of books two and three as quickly, and as close together, as the editing process would allow because it did give me an opportunity to seed things in to book two that I knew I would need for book three.

It’s not the most scientific process for writing a series, but the organic nature of it worked for me.

KC: How many drafts did you write and what did you change or refine in each draft?

AT: I did two drafts of each book before I sent them through to my publisher, Suzanne O’Sullivan at Hachette Australia. The first was the ‘get it all down’ draft. Then I read the draft aloud to my son (now 11), which helped me to see what was working and what wasn’t. Once I’d redrafted (which was more a sense of adding bits and deleting bits rather than an entire rewrite), they went to a structural edit. So that’s another draft – and, with one book in particular, that required some hefty additions. The books then went to copy edit – so I went through them again, and this is not just moving apostrophes but also answering a lot of questions that come up when a new person reads the story – and then to proofreading.

So I guess we’re looking at five drafts for each book.

KC: The Mapmaker Chronicles has a great pace – enough details to paint the scene but not enough to slow down the story. How did you balance the details with the action?

 I’m not sure I thought about it that much. It was more a question of writing the kind of story that my sons and I both like to read – none of us are fans of long passages of description… They like things to move along and I’m the same.

Perhaps my journalism training comes into play here as well because I’m used to getting a message across in a limited word count – you want to let the reader know exactly where they are and exactly who they’re dealing with without wasting too many words.

KC: Quinn, Ash and Zain are well-developed, memorable characters with strengths and quirks and particular ways of speaking, thinking and acting. Did you spend a lot of time developing them before writing or did you get to know them as you wrote?

AT: Very much the latter. Quinn appeared to me as a fully-formed person even as I was having the idea for the series. Zain developed for me even as he developed for Quinn. At first, he was this large, taciturn Deslonder and I was thinking, ‘what am I going to do with you?’, but he slowly revealed all his different facets over time. As for Ash, well, as soon as she popped up in that garden, complaining about the fact that girls weren’t even allowed to apply for Mapmaking school, I knew we were going to get along beautifully.

KC: Did you ever get stuck while you were writing your trilogy? If so, what did you do to work your way out?

AT: I did get stuck, of course. I remember sending out a tweet during the writing of Prisoner of The Black Hawk saying ‘I’ve put my character down a hole and have no idea how to get him out…’

But I find when I get stuck that the best solution is to walk away and do something else for a while. I walk for miles with my dog. I weed the garden. I wash dishes. And while I’m doing active, repetitive things, my mind quietly goes about its business.

Having said that, the biggest problem I had actually came up during the writing of Breath Of The Dragon, and it was my good friend Anna Spargo-Ryan who reminded me, during one desperate phone call, that every character is the hero of his or her own story. Even the villains.

KC: Are you planning any more adventures for Quinn and Ash? We hope so!

AT: Unusually for me, I do have plans. They’re plans that change daily, depending on where my thoughts wander, but I’m hoping we’ll see them again. They’re both telling me that there’s more to the story, so fingers crossed!

KC: Are you working on any fiction now?

AT: I’m working on a new kids’ novel, this time a contemporary story with a most delightful heroine. I’m not sure what will happen with it just yet, but I’m really enjoying getting to know her.

KC: What advice do you have for young and adult writers?

AT: Much like my plans, my advice changes on a daily basis. Today, I have three tips:

  1. Write a lot. It takes a long time to develop your voice and to discover how you write a book (which is probably very different to the way I write a book). Don’t just talk about writing, do the writing.
  2. Read a lot. I know this comes up all the time, but, really, read widely. Not just things that you know you like, but things you’ve never tried. When you write a novel, you bring every single book you’ve ever read to the page in a funny way, so make sure you’re drawing on a wide library.
  3. Finish what you start. I know a lot of aspiring authors who have drawers full of half-finished novels. They get halfway through writing a manuscript and become distracted by a shiny new idea. The thing is, the middle of ANY manuscript is hard. ANY other idea looks better than what you are writing when the writing is hard. Finish what you start so that you know that you can.

Thank you so much, Allison!

100 story building

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venue-hireThere is a place, deep in a Footscray shopping strip, where Mr Raw, a dinosaur teacher teaches his dinosaur students on the 28th floor, while Reg, on floor 72, can turn your dead friend’s skull into an ornament. Maybe there’s a pool of sharks on the 47th floor or a disco on the 99th floor.*

But it is on the 100th floor at ground level, where all the action really happens. A small group of staff and volunteers guide kids in workshops for reading and writing. At the 100 story building on the 100th floor, there are holiday workshops for making comic books, packing a backpack for a hero’s quest or inventing a choose your own adventure book. During the term, there are free classes after school for kids, often kids with English as their second language. The staff and volunteers provide bookclubs and writing classes. It is a great place to hang out – comfy chairs and cushions to read in, long tables to write at and plenty of bookshelves filled with books and quirky objects. My kind of place!

The mission for the 100 story building is ‘to provide opportunities for the most marginalised children and young people in our community to build the literacy skills, confidence and sense of belonging that are fundamental to future success’.

A small group of kids form an editorial team and produce a quarterly magazine with contributions from well-known writers and illustrators like Sally Rippin and Sherryl Clark.

My three kids did a workshop on comic books a few days ago. They had plenty of time to explore the 100th floor but were warned to stay away from the trapdoor leading to the underground floors!

They learnt about the arc of the story to build tension in their writing and were encouraged to ‘stretch the truth’ of their stories. Then they drew up their plan, and wrote and illustrated their own comic book. All comic books were copied and the copy rolled up to put in a special vending machine, where we bought another child’s comic book story.

Simon, Brendan and Lachlan were funny, gentle, enthusiastic, kind and creative – my kids engaged with them immediately.

We have bought a subscription to the Pigeon Post magazine – such a worthwhile contribution. My kids are so lucky to grow up surrounded by books and language and stimulation and creative holiday classes – all tools to help them grow up to be their best possible, literate, communicative selves. So important to do something to give all kids the same opportunities!

Mr 11 wrote a comic book about a skater coming head to head with a wizard – riveting stuff. Miss 9 exaggerated a knee injury story – her suffering was terrible! And Mr 6 created drama and tension with a showdown between Batman and the Joker. Three new stories to add to our collection!

 

 

 

  • I have definitely mixed up some of the floor numbers! Refer to the amazing illustration on the 100 story building window for correct details!

Creative writing ideas for primary school kids

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creative writing for kids - karen comerNot all kids like writing, and some kids don’t mind writing but find it difficult to start or come up with ideas. I’ve put together some writing worksheets in pdf so you can print and write on them. They are linked to the points below, which can be used as guidelines to help you help your kids to develop a story at home or at school.

It’s so important at the beginning of a story to encourage wild brainstorming! No idea is too whacky to form into a story. Be open to all ideas and fragments – anything can be developed and teased out. If you have a child with a passionate idea for a story about black ice-cream but has no idea how to take it further, keep asking questions until you can stretch it out into a plan. Where does the black ice-cream come from? Who makes it? Where can you buy it? What happens when you eat it? Who wants the black ice-cream? Do you have to eat it – can you do something else with it? What texture does it have? What does it taste like? Do kids like it? Do adults like it? Who wants the black ice-cream most of all? What will that person/thing do to have the black ice-cream? Who will stop that person/thing who wants the black ice-cream? Your questions can really help your young writer to work out their story. [Read more…]