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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: brainstorming, Most Recent at Top [Help]

Results 1 - 21 of 21

1. Heart Maps: A Review and a Giveaway

By: Elizabeth Moore, on 10/17/2016
Blog: TWO WRITING TEACHERS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: brainstorming, giveaway, georgia heard, heart maps, independent writing, Add a tag

"My hope is that as you explore heart mapping with your writers, you will fall in love with the stories and poems, truths and courage that will unfold--both theirs and your own." Georgia Heard in her newest book, Heart Maps.

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2. Give Heart Maps a Rest! Try Writing Territory Maps

By: Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski, on 8/24/2015
Blog: TWO WRITING TEACHERS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: memories, brainstorming, sharing, writing workshop, back to school, NWP, heart maps, digital writing, Thinglink, writing territory maps, Add a tag

The heart map is a great tool for helping students find personally meaningful topics, but used year after year, it might feel a little stale. Writing territory maps is another option!

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3. App of the Week: Post-it Plus

By: Beth, on 2/18/2015
Blog: YALSA - Young Adult Library Services Association (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Sticky Notes, Post-its, Post-it Plus, Brainstorming, iOS, notetaking, Digitization, apps, App of the Week, Add a tag

Title: Post-it Plus

Cost: Free, with in-app purchases

Platform: iOS

From LiveScribe to Moleskine, there have been a number of visions on how to capture the physical process of notetaking in a digital incarnation. Like many with a love for stationary, I had played around with the digital sticky note applications, but when a student raved about the Post-it app, it sounded like something more than a mere yellow placeholder.

There are two methods for creating notes. You can add them with a click, as you might in decades-old Windows programs, or your can photograph your actual physical notes. The in-app photography mechanism is among the easiest I've seen, coaching you on light levels and holding your device steady. But it's what happens when you take that picture that sets this app apart.

In contrast with Evernote and its associated applications, Post-it Plus is a little different: it doesn't attempt to make sense of your writing. Each note remains its own image, which can be dragged and dropped into intuitive order. But you can write more on the notes, or even use a typewriter gadget for longer, more legible input, or even delete it altogether after you have capture or refined the sentiment.

Your scanned notes retain their original colors, but a $2 in-app purchase gives you access to a rainbow's worth of post-it color options, which also make for fun organizational options. When you're done with your creation, you can share it in a range of file formats, depending on your needs.

Post-it Plus is a possible solution for students, teachers, and librarians, or anyone else looking for digital brainstorming and storyboarding tools that can be output in a variety of file formats. The transformation of the fixed physical into the mutable digital is bound to give you a little thrill, too.

Check out more Apps of the Week in our Archive. Know an app you'd like to see featured? Let us know.

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4. DECONSTRUCTING A POEM...and Happy Last Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month 2014!

By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors, on 4/25/2014
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: brainstorming, National Poetry Month, writing poetry, April Halprin Wayland, cutting, Marilyn singer, Sylvia Vardell, rough drafts, Poetry Friday, revision, Add a tag

Howdy, Campers, and Happy Poetry Friday!

Today's host is Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference.
Thank you, Tabatha!

Our Carmela is out to make trouble. I swear...she's a full-blown cyclone blowing through Poetry Month!

(Actually, she's not. I'm just playin' with you. I've been on the look-out for metaphors all month on my website, and that was a metaphor, blowing by...the poem on my site today compares writing to a challenging walk...)

Carmela has posted (and reads aloud) two versions of one of my poems, and she suggested I talk about the process of writing and revising it.

So...here's the story behind HOW TO READ A POEM ALOUD:

I was asked to help organize a poetry coffee house night for teens, and I wanted to teach them how to read aloud. Could I smush all the information into a poem, I wondered? My teacher Myra Cohn Livingston always read poems aloud twice; I knew I wanted to include that in my instructions.

I've found nine versions of this poem; there may be more. But don't panic--I won't make you read every draft! Here's the very first version:

2/8/07

READ ALOUD HOWS

Take a sip of water.

Read the title to your daughter.

Pause.

Read the poet’s name.

Read the poem.

Read it once again

Take your time.

Say each word slowly

Let each word shine.

Take a breath and sigh.

Then think of how the poet put her hand to pen

and why.

=========================

and here are the next several versions mashed together so you can see the ideas I tried and discarded...

HOW TO READ A POEM ALOUD

[Sit down in a meadow with a friend.

Tell the poet’s name and the title—

Now begin.]

[Stand up in your kitchen with your friend.

Tell the poet’s name and the title—

Now begin.]

[Walk home from the bus stop with your friend.

Tell the poet’s name and the title—

Now begin.]

[Take a sip of tea.

Tell the poet’s name to your friend.]

[Take a sip of tea.
Read the poet’s name
and say its title deliciously
to me.]

[To begin,
say the title
and the poet’s name
with a small smile.]

[To begin,
announce the title of the poem
and the poet’s name.
Make sure to pronounce it clearly]

[To begin,
read the title of the poem
and the poet’s name.
Be clear.]

Now—[your job is to] completely disappear

Say [taste] its title

deliciously.

Tell the poet’s name to me.

[Tell the poet’s name to me.

Taste her title deliciously.]

Pause.

[Be sure you’re heard

so I can savour every word.]

Now:

savour [polish]

every

word.

Let

each

shine.

Then—read it one more time.

Next, take a breath

and sigh.

Then think about the poet

at her desk

late at night

picking up her pen to write—

and why.

* * * * *

And here some of my moods as I write
and rewrite and write and rewrite (can you relate?):

...confused...

...determined...

...patient...

At some point on this journey, I read Marilyn Singer's prose,"How to Read a Poem Aloud"...and though it's a terrific list, it made my head spin, so I decided to stick with just the few points I'd been working with.

* * * * *

And finally, here are the two versions Carmela posted (they've been floating around the internet, passing each other in the night, for years)...which do you like best?

Version #1

HOW TO READ A POEM ALOUD

First, read the title of the poem

and the poet’s name.

Be clear.

Now completely

disappear.

Let each line

shine.

Then read it

one more time.

When the poem

ends, sigh.

Think about the poet at her desk,

late at night, picking up her pen to write--

and why.

* * * * *

Version #2 (as published in Sylvia Vardell's book,

Poetry Aloud Here 2 ~ Sharing Poetry with Children)

HOW TO READ A POEM ALOUD

To begin,

tell the poet’s name

and the title

to your friend.

Savor every word—

let

each

line

shine.

Then—

read it one more time.

Now, take a breath—

and sigh.

Then think about the poet,

at her desk,

late at night,

picking up her pen to write—

and why.

Do I like one version better than the other? Depends on what day you catch me. That's the trick in creating something, isn't it: sometimes I know, I just know when it's finished: there's that satisfying click of the lasts puzzle piece...

from morguefile.com

But just as often, I just...get...(yawn) t i r e d...so...I stop.

And that, dear campers, is the story behind HOW TO READ A POEM ALOUD!

Now, go outside and play.

posted with a glue gun by April Halprin Wayland.
(p.s: I've just been interviewed by author
and Seminar on Jewish Story organizer Barbara Krasner here.)

from mykidcraft.com

0 Comments on DECONSTRUCTING A POEM...and Happy Last Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month 2014! as of 4/25/2014 6:41:00 AM

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5. Wednesday Writing Workout: Let the Showing Begin

By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors, on 5/29/2013
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: THe Emotion Thesaurus, description., brainstorming, Show Don't Tell, Add a tag

. I think all of us TA's have had at least one post on the topic of "show don't tell." It is the flaw I find most often in my student's writing. It's also the hardest to explain. When we relate a story orally, 99% of the time we are telling. We talk about a series of events, heavy on the action, light on the emotion, and almost always leaving out the thought process that led to the action.

Today's post is not so much an exercise as a way to brainstorm your way from "telling to showing."
with the aid of my new favorite writing tool, The Emotion Thesaurus:A Writer's Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012). The book is a listing of every possible emotion with a list of physical manifestations of the emotion, mental responses and other more subtle aspects of the emotion. I have found what I have long needed, a blueprint for brainstorming "show don't tell."

When I am critiquing, I get a lot sentences like "Carol was mad. She burst into tears." But is Carol really mad? Maybe she is frustrated. Or depressed. Or hurt. Any of these emotions could case tears. Mad is one of those "deadweight" words that just doesn't tell you a whole lot. Let's get specific, shall we? Let's decide that Carol is hurt. Someone has said something nasty tp her. How can we show that Carol is hurt?

I have a pet peeve about crying in writing. Once or twice a book is all I will allow myself. That includes all forms of sobbing, wailing, sniffling, crying, blubbering, etc. I have read stories where some is doing one of the above every other page. A little bit of tears goes a long way. By the you get to the third time someone is crying, it loses it's impact. Your reader will either become annoyed or worse, find it funny. Not the effect you want.

So back to poor, hurt Carol. How would you act if your feelings were hurt. Would your eyes water? (Not tear up...water), Might your throat grow tight?, Bite your lips, stutter a reply, leave the room to keep from saying something you'll regret?

What should my body language look like? I could either exit the room with my head held high (to put a good face on the situation). Once out of sight,, my shoulder should droop, my head hang, I might slump against a wall, or drop into a chair.

Anyone who has ever had one of my critiques is familiar with the words "What is he/she thinking/feeling?" We need to get inside Carol's head for the scene to have the final emotion impact. What is going on in her head? I'll bet she's wondering "Gee what did I do to cause that to happen? What did I ever do to her?" Depending on how hurt she is, maybe she feels that her heart is actually breaking. Maybe she is so taken aback she feels stunned.. Perhaps she feel that time has stopped. Or that she is moving in slow motion.

Of course you wouldn't use all of these details. Think about Carol, and choose a few that you think fit how you know apply to Carol. (After all, Carol is your invention. Let's try it, shall we?

Carol could not believe what Mr. Ellis had said. With her head held high, and impeccable posture, she turned on her heel, and left the room, her heels clicking across the linoleum. Once in the hallway, she threw herself against the ladies' room door, and lurched inside. She slumped over the sink, splaying her face with cold water to keep the tears at bay and force the lump in her throat to dissolve. What did I do to Mr. Ellis?she wondered. He has always liked my work. I've always been a good employee?

Then she knew. Jennifer. Jennifer in human resources. Carol and Jennifer had never really gotten along. Jennifer must have said something about her work to Mr. Ellis. But what? What did Jennifer say?

OK, so this isn't Tolstoy, but you have to admit it says a lot more than "Carol was mad. She burst into tears."

I am not telling everyone to run right out and buy The Emotion Thesaurus but I certainly recommend giving it a look. It will give you a new perspective on "show, don't tell."

Posted by Mary Ann ROdman

4 Comments on Wednesday Writing Workout: Let the Showing Begin, last added: 6/4/2013

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6. Finding My Place and the 6 + 1 Traits of Writing

By: Administrator, on 2/6/2013
Blog: Margo Dill's Read These Books and Use Them! (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: brainstorming, Journal Writing, Middle Grade Novel, Middle School Teachers, prewriting, Elementary Educators, six traits of writing, Books With Social Studies Content, Writing Skills, Book Club Possibility, six plus one traits of writing, Finding My Place, Finding My Place by Margo Dill, idea trait, Add a tag

I am currently creating a short guide (PDF or Word) that shows how you can use my book, Finding My Place: One Girl’s Strength at Vicksburg (ages 9 to 12) in 6 + 1 Traits of Writing lessons. The guide will be free for the teachers at any workshops I do at schools and if a teacher/home school parent buys a copy of my book. To give a little preview, I thought I would show an excerpt of each trait on the next few Wednesdays. So, here we go. . .

IDEA is one of the 6 + 1 traits of writing. It is important to start with a good idea when you write because it makes it easier for the words to flow and more interesting for the reader. Usually the first idea we come up with is not our best idea. We need to dig deeper to find a unique idea. You can do this with brainstorming, word webs, free writing, talking to a friend, or even research. For example with my book, I wanted to write about the Civil War for kids, but there are already a ton of books out there about the Civil War. SO, I had to dig deeper, and I did some research. Then, I decided to tell a story from the Confederate viewpoint, make the main character a citizen and a girl instead of a solider/drummer and a boy, and I set it during one specific battle that had extremely interesting elements, such as the citizens living in caves to protect themselves from the Yankees’ bombs.

In Finding My Place: One Girl’s Strength at Vicksburg, Anna, my 13-year-old main character, loves to write. She writes about events that happen in her daily life, poems, fiction stories, and letters. In one section toward the end of the book (page 134, chapter 21), Michael, Anna’s older brother, asks her to tell a story she has written. At first, she doesn’t want to because she doesn’t think it is a very good idea. Then when she does tell it, she realizes she never really ended the story. She started with the premise of a selfish orphan living with an elderly woman, who delivers food to his room. One day the food stops coming, and the orphan gets angry. He must leave his room to investigate.

Michael asks her what happened, and Anna replies, “Yes, she had a heart attack. I never really finished the story.”

Here’s where you can use the IDEA trait with your students and this premise. Give them 10 minutes to brainstorm an ending to Anna’s story. Give them a few questions to think about: What could have happened to the elderly lady? What did the orphan do next? Does the elderly lady necessarily have to be deceased? Could she be teaching the orphan a lesson? And so on.

After the 10-minute brainstorm session, have students discuss their ideas with a partner. Then have a class discussion, where you make a list of the different ideas.

When concluding the lesson, talk to students about a fiction story they have written and ask them to think about their ending. Are they satisfied with it? Could they use these techniques to come up with an alternate (and perhaps better!) ending? Work on these new endings during the next writing period.

For more information on FINDING MY PLACE and to read an excerpt, please go to this link: http://margodill.com/blog/finding-my-place/

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7. What I Learned During Picture Book Idea Month

By: Caroline Starr Rose, on 12/7/2012
Blog: Caroline by line (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: goals, brainstorming, Nerdy Book Club, reading goals, novel-in-verse, Picture Book Idea Month, Picture Book Month, picture books, creativity, Add a tag

Picture Book Idea Month has come and gone, and I'm so happy I participated. Here are some things I've learned:

Idea generating is like any other part of writing: it must be practiced to be strengthened.
Playing with ideas without drafting means deeper, broader, more outlandish concepts; fresh perspective; and creative freedom...things will lead to some pretty fun writing.
With my picture book read aloud years essentially done, I have some gaps in my knowledge I need to fill in. Here are three great places I've found to brush up on my studies:

PiBoIdMo Day #7 -- Tammi Sauer (books in the picture above are taken from this post)
Nerdy Book Club Awards Picture Book Award Nominees
The Picture Book Month website

What are my writing goals for December?

Study, study, study to fill in some picture book gaps
develop a few manuscripts based on my month of brainstorming
line edit my most-recent verse novel for agent Michelle

What about you? What do you plan to accomplish this month?

6 Comments on What I Learned During Picture Book Idea Month, last added: 12/8/2012

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8. Picture Book Idea Month

By: Caroline Starr Rose, on 10/31/2012
Blog: Caroline by line (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: creativity, the writing life, picture books, Ward Jenkins, NaNoWriMo, brainstorming, the process, National Novel Writing Month, Tara Lazar, PiBoIdMo, Picture Book Idea Month, Add a tag

This year I'm joining author Tara Lazar for PiBoIdMo, Picture Book Idea Month. It's an alternative to National Novel Writing Month that also takes place in November (something I tried once and failed at miserably).

Tara started PiBoIdMo in 2008, after realizing there was nothing for kidlit authors and illustrators who don't write novels. Since then, she's had hundreds of others join her. Here's what she has to say:

***Registration is open NOW through November 4th. Click here.***

Tired of novelists having all the fun in November with NaNoWriMo, I created PiBoIdMo as a 30-day challenge for picture book writers.

The concept is to create 30 picture book ideas in 30 days. You don’t have to write a manuscript (but you can if the mood strikes). You don’t need potential best-seller ideas. You might think of a clever title. Or a name for a character. Or just a silly thing like “purple polka-dot pony.” The object is to heighten your picture-book-idea-generating senses. Ideas may build upon other ideas and your list of potential stories will grow stronger as the days pass.

Daily blog posts by picture book authors, illustrators, editors and other kidlit professionals will help inspire you. By the end of the month, you’ll have a fat file of ideas to spark new stories.

PiBoIdMo was first held in 2008 by a party of one—me! Then I hosted it on my blog for the first time in 2009. Each year the number of participants has doubled. In 2011 we had over 600 writers following PiBoIdMo. And now 2012 promises to be bigger and better!

Registration begins on October 24th and ends on November 4th. Then in early December you will be asked to take the PiBoIdMo Pledge stating you have completed the challenge with at least 30 ideas.

Writers who register and pledge will be eligible for prizes:

Feedback from literary agents

Original sketches by picture book illustrators

Picture book critiques from published authors

Signed picture books

Jewelry

Other Cool Stuff

I'm the sort of writer who has to fight for new ideas, and while a month seeking them out will be a challenge, it will also be a wonderful opportunity to stretch and learn with the support of other writers doing the same. Please let me know below if you too are participating!

Thanks to Ward Jenkins for the fun PiBoIdMo banner.

8 Comments on Picture Book Idea Month, last added: 11/1/2012

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9. 30 Days of Innovation #12: Go Crazy

By: Beth, on 4/12/2012
Blog: YALSA - Young Adult Library Services Association (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Brainstorming, Brainstorm, Prof. Development, 30 Days of Innovation, Add a tag

photo of a kid making a crazy face Imagine this: You work in a library in which anything goes. Money is no object. Space is no object. Staffing is no object. Going out into the community is no object. And so on. If you worked in that library what would your wildest and craziest ideas for serving teens be?

Would you…

Have libraries all over the community but not in a traditional library facility? For example, a library in the pizza place where teens go every day after school and every weekend? A library in the clothing store where teens go to see the latest fashions? A library in the park where teens hang out?
Make sure that every teen in the community – no matter what their book reading preference – was a library user in some way?
Give every teen a tablet of some kind with free Internet access so they could download books and apps, play games, do homework, talk with friends, participate in social media from everywhere anytime?
Create a large wide-open physical library space for teens where they could collaborate on projects, hangout with friends, eat and have pizza delivered, watch movies, play games, and read and do homework?
Have the most up-to-date technology possible available to every teen in the community without filters of any kind?
Go to every meeting of community groups that have some connection to teens and/or education and become highly involved in all those that you might collaborate with?
Regularly speak to elected officials and community members about youth development, developmental assets, and the ways in which the library helps teens to achieve these?
Have the physical library teen space, no matter where it is, open 24/7 so that teens can have the access they need to resources, experts, etc. at any time of day, or night?
Be able to make changes to library programs and services on a nimble and flexible basis? No waiting for making sure something is perfect before it launches. No waiting to get approvals. Beta testing of projects is the norm.
Make sure that every library staff member and member of the community always gives teens the respect they deserve?

In order to be innovative it’s important to think about the wildest and craziest possibilities so to get to what has true potential. I think that sometimes in libraries we get so caught up in the day-to-day that we forget to simply go crazy and think about what we would really like to see happen in order to give teens excellent service. Sure, there might be barriers. But who cares when you are being purposely crazy as a brainstorming technique? Maybe when you are thinking outside of the box you’ll all of a sudden have an epiphany and realize that something you think is impossible is possible–you just have to tweak the concept a little bit. Or, maybe if you talk to others about your crazy ideas someone might say, “You know what, that’s not so crazy really. We could do that if we just…..”

So, go crazy. In the comments section of this post take a minute to write what are your wildest and craziest ideas in order to provide really great service to teens in the 21st century. Or, if you’ve had a crazy idea and thought it would never fly, but did, write that too. If you read someone’s crazy idea and think of a way to make it work, post that. Lets all go crazy together and innovate for library teen services at the same time.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user David Dennis Photos.com

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10. Put on your mask: I've found the KEY to Poetry Friday!

By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors, on 7/29/2011
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: brainstorming, Myra Cohn Livingston, Writing Workout, Lesson Plan, April Halprin Wayland, poetry prompt, Poetry Friday, Summer, Book Giveaway, Add a tag

Happy Poetry Friday--see my poem and poetry exercise below!

Today's Poetry Friday is hosted by Kate Coombs at Book Aunt

~ thanks, Kate!

I am writing this as we wait in the airport for our return flight from our summer vacation in...Fiji! The best part of this time away from our real lives was the incredible beauty...and slooooowing down. No internet. No texting. No telephone. No multitasking. I woke up and made my bed without turning on NPR. I poured hot water over ground coffee beans without simultaneously calling my mother to see how she was feeling.

I'm embarrassed to say that at first it was hard to have fun, even though, intellectually, I knew that lying on the deck of Bruce Balan's trimaran was fun...snorkeling was fun, being with my family was fun.

It took a few days to wipe the seriousness, the purposefulness, the To-Do list from my brain. And then, one day, I was there. I was snorkeling in turquoise water over neon tetras and parrot fish and all the fish you see in those wonder-filled tanks at the pet store. I was hiking to the waterfall slides on a red dirt trail. I was biting into an orange paw paw (papaya), or a passion fruit, or a soursop (which looks like a prickly green dinosaur egg and tastes heavenly--sort of strawberry-pineapple-sour-citrus-creamy-banana-y.)

A man biting into a yummy soursop.

I devoured a mystery series, gobbling each book like potato chips. I wrote a poem each day, as always.

So let's keep summer's sense of fun in our writing. Let's pass it on to our students. I'm teaching my summer class at UCLA Extension again. It's the one I call my no-homework-for-the-students-no-homework-for-the-teacher class...but its official title is: The Children's Picture Book Writers' Bag of Tricks: A Six-Week Workshop. The key to this class is to create writing games and prompts which get these adult students out of their chairs, doing spirited hands-on activities before they settle down to write.

WRITING WORKOUT ~ Here's an ice-breaker writing exercise I use in the first class.

Collect keys. Keys of all kinds—house keys, hotel card keys, skeleton keys, car keys, skate keys (remember those?), boat keys, storage shed keys, jewelry box and diary keys.
If you're a teacher and don't have a stash of keys, ask eac

7 Comments on Put on your mask: I've found the KEY to Poetry Friday!, last added: 7/29/2011
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Clara Gillow Clark said, on 7/29/2011 4:50:00 AM
What a great writing prompt for kids and for adults! I use a similar one with boxes, because, well, I have a lot of small boxes that suggest very different personalities. Hope you won't mind if I add keys to go along with my boxes.
Author Amok said, on 7/29/2011 8:00:00 AM
Great exercise, April. I can't wait to try it myself and bring it with me into the classroom.
April Halprin Wayland said, on 7/29/2011 8:18:00 AM
It really is a great exercise, Clara and Laura. And it was my college son who suggested I ask students to bring in keys if I didn't have enough (but I did--I had his old key collection!)
Rasco from RIF said, on 7/29/2011 9:24:00 AM
Thank you for the wonderful exercise, I can use this when I visit classrooms as well as with the RIF staff! And thank you for sharing your vacation with us...lovely!
Carmela Martino said, on 7/29/2011 1:37:00 PM
Welcome back, April! I love this key exercise and will definitely give it a try with my next class. I happen to have a number of keys lying around that no one knows what they belong to. :-)
Myra Garces-Bacsal from GatheringBooks said, on 7/29/2011 6:13:00 PM
This is a lovely exercise that I can share with my teacher-students here in Singapore. The prompts are bound to produce .. interesting results. =) The poem you shared is lovely too. =)
April Halprin Wayland said, on 7/29/2011 6:20:00 PM
Wow--so glad you hope to use this exercise in your classrooms, Rasco, Carmela and Myra! Do let us know how it works, and if you get any poetic gems, please share them!
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11. Getting Unstuck with Brainstorming

By: Ken Baker, on 10/11/2010
Blog: Ken Baker: Children's Author (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: webbing, spidering, imagination, ideas, free writing, brainstorming, creative, clustering, freewriting, ballooning, mind mapping, listing, Add a tag

When you’re stuck for ideas in your writing, brainstorming is one of the best ways to get unstuck. There are a number of brainstorming techniques, but a few of the most popular ones include listing, free writing, what ifs, and webbing (aka spidering, mind mapping, ballooning, clustering). No matter what technique you use, one of the most important things to remember when brainstorming is that there are no dumb ideas. When you brainstorm, you turn off your internal editor and write every idea that comes to you to allow your creative juices to flow freely.

Listing is perhaps the easiest brainstorming technique. As the name suggests, you simply make a list of every idea that comes to you. Listing can be particularly helpful if you have a general topic or idea of what you want to write about, but you need to get a little more specific. For example, you might want to write a story about dogs, so as fast as you can you start listing everything you know about dogs. Your list might start off something like this; bark, fleas, collar, drool, fetch, roll-over, food dish, snoopy, leash, Frisbee, and the list goes on.

Free writing is another great way to get the creative juices flowing. Sometimes we stare at a blank screen for so long, we condition ourselves to think we’ll never come up with a good idea. Free writing is a way to shove aside that negative thinking, by simply writing whatever comes to our mind. It can be words, whole sentences, paragraphs—whatever comes to our mind, we just type it, no matter how nonsensical or unrelated the thoughts are. Once again, you turn off your internal editor and let your imagination go free.

“What ifs” is a good technique to use in conjunction with listing and free writing. You can take some of the more interesting things from your list, and ask what if questions about those items, and free writing your thoughts or answers. For example, you could free write answers to the question what if dogs couldn’t bark?

Webbing or spidering is my favorite type of brainstorming, especially when it comes to creating and developing plots. Like the other techniques, with webbing you write down whatever ideas come to you, but you make visual connections between your different ideas. For example, to web a story idea about dogs that can’t bark, you write “dogs can’t bark” in the center of your paper and as you come up with your “what if” ideas, you write them down and connect a line between it and main your idea. If one of your new ideas sparks another idea, you draw a connecting line between those ideas, and you just keep writing and connecting ideas until you have what looks like a spider web of ideas or something like my picture at the top.

I like to use a whiteboard for my web brainstorm sessions, but the problem with whiteboards is that they aren’t permanent. But here are two easy ways to solve that. The first is to take a picture of your web. The second, which is my preferred method, is to enter your results into a webbing program like FreeMind, (a free mind mapping program). Or if you prefer, you can skip the whiteboard and just begin with the webbing or mind mapping software . My preference is to use a pen and whiteboard first. For some reason, my creative side seems to like the feel of a pen in my hand.

What are your favorite brainstorming techniques or tools?

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12. Getting Unstuck

By: Ken Baker, on 10/7/2010
Blog: Ken Baker: Children's Author (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: ideas, research, outlines, brainstorming, writers block, Add a tag

Once in awhile writers can get stuck at a certain point of their story that prevents them from moving past that point. This might happen for a number of reasons. Perhaps, you’ve discovered some plot problems that need to be fleshed out further. Maybe the characters you’ve written are developing in an unexpected way that requires you to rethink a few things. You might simply be running low on ideas. A lot of times it simply comes down to the fact that you’re not sure what direction to take the story next. This can happen even if you’ve created a detailed outline of your story, requiring you to rethink or revise your outline.

Reworking or further developing my outline is often one of the first things that I do when I get stuck like this. But to do that often requires the acquisition of fresh ideas. So, if a quick fix of the outline isn’t sufficient, I usually do one of two things, or both—more research and brainstorming. Sometimes, it’ll just take a few hours of these activities, other times it can take days, weeks or months. But the longer it takes the more frustrating it can get, especially if I’ve already spent months or years developing the ideas and plots for a story. Once I dig into a story, I don’t like getting stuck. I just want to write.

In the next few days, I’ll talk a little about some of my favorite research and brainstorming tools that I use to get unstuck so I can resume the writing process.

1 Comments on Getting Unstuck, last added: 10/8/2010

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13. Roy Elementary Author Visit

By: Michael Young, on 10/6/2010
Blog: The Canticle (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Hooking Your Reader, Tips, Organization, Sentence Fluency, School Visit, Brainstorming, Writing Advice, Michael Young, Roy Elementary, Add a tag

This week, I had one of the best experiences of my writing career. I had privilege of visiting Roy Elementary in Roy, UT to get the students excited about writing. They are putting on a "Young Authors Fair" later this school year, and my visit was to help them prepare for that.

I gave two different assemblies to the school to talk about how I became and author (and how they can too) and then I was off to the classrooms. Over the course of two days, I visited 21 different classrooms, ranging from Kindergarten to Sixth Grade. Each teacher had been stressing some part of writing in their classrooms and they had me give one of four presentations about an aspect of writing that they wanted their students to work on. I was so impressed how well-behaved the students were and how many of them were excited about learning how to write and telling their own stories.

It was a bit of a challenge tailoring my presentations to match the needs and learning levels of such a wide variety of age groups (for example, in Kindergarten, we just talked about ways to use your imagination, while in sixth grade, I could hold a lengthy discussion about the elements of a story), but in the end, I feel that I got the hang of it.

From an author's point of view, it was a very worthwhile exercise. The principal suggested that I have books on hand for the students to purchase, and through this, I sold 33 books, which is far greater than most events that I hold in bookstores.

As a teacher, the experience was incredibly satisfying, as I saw those young minds light up and ask very intelligent questions about writing and I could tell they were getting excited about it.

I want to make the presentations I used available for use by other writers and by other teachers. There are four in all, including:

How to Organize Your Writing
Sentence Fluency
Brainstorming
Hooking Your Reader

I am going to use this opportunity to explore each of these topics on my blog; once a week for four weeks. I will prepare a post on this topic and then the PowerPoint presentation file available for free download.

I would love to hear about other opportunities to visit schools. If you know of any such opportunities, please contact me at [email protected].

1 Comments on Roy Elementary Author Visit, last added: 10/6/2010

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14. Twist On an Old Topic

By: Margo Dill, on 6/10/2010
Blog: WOW! Women on Writing Blog (The Muffin) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: fiction, novel writing, brainstorming, Margo L. Dill, Katherine Howe, Add a tag

Last time I posted, I discussed writing articles that had a different slant for topics that have been done a million times like water safety or Abraham Lincoln. That post also made me think about novels and plot lines, and I've decided that the same concepts can be applied to longer works.

At one critique group I belonged to, somebody told me there are no new stories. All plots can be categorized in to one of four categories: man vs. man, man vs. God, man vs. nature, or man vs. self. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I do know there are some topics that have been written about time and time again, and they continue to be written about--but with a little spin.

Take for example Katherine Howe's debut novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, which centers on the Salem witch trials. There have been countless books written about this period of history. So if it interests you, how do you come up with something new? Howe did by asking an interesting question or two: "What if magic were real? What if there really were witches in the world (Salem)?" She explores these questions as she weaves together the present-day life of graduate student Connie Goodwin and the 1680s and 90s life of Deliverance Dane. She took an old topic--the Salem witch trials--and put a new twist on it--maybe some of the women really were witches.

I tried to do this myself with the middle-grade novel I wrote titled Finding My Place (which is currently under contract with White Mane Kids). My story is set during the United States Civil War, and we all know how many hundreds of books--fiction and non-fiction--have been written about this time period. I read a lot of kids books, and what I discovered is most are set in the North and most are about soldiers or a child in the army. So, I decided to do a twist or two with my story--I set mine in the South, tell the story from a Southern girl's point of view, and keep it mostly about the citizens. Hopefully, it worked--I guess it worked enough to be noticed by a publisher.

So, if you are interested in writing a book about a topic that already has several titles about it listed on Amazon, then don't give up your dream. Look for an unusual story in your research that no one knows much about and expand on it. Try writing from a point of view that most people don't. Ask questions that are unusual or not often thought about. You can still write about that common topic and write a great novel--just put a twist on it.

post written by Margo L. Dill , http://margodill.com/blog/

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15. Writing Articles with Unique Slants: A Nonfiction Writing Exercise

By: Margo Dill, on 5/29/2010
Blog: WOW! Women on Writing Blog (The Muffin) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Query Letter, Creativity, brainstorming, magazine articles, Margo L. Dill, Add a tag

Last week, WOW! team member Jodi Webb wrote an excellent blog post about getting your query noticed. If you missed it, check it out here. Today, I thought I'd continue the theme of queries with a writing exercise about creating unique article slants. (Hopefully, light bulbs will be going off above your heads soon!) I recently gave this writing prompt to my children's writers online class I teach for WOW! Here's the prompt:

An editor whom you've worked with before wrote an email to several writers and asked for someone to come up with a unique article idea to teach children water safety rules for the summer. She explained it's a topic that's been covered many times during past years in the magazine, but the managing editor thinks it's important to remind kids (and new readers) the importance of water safety in the summer. She invites you to turn in a query for an article with a different slant on water safety. The best idea/query will get the contract for the article.

I talk with my students about how important it is to cover subjects that have been written about excessively but that some readers new to the age group or magazine haven't read about before. I've been to conferences where editors talk about how they still need articles about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington (a subject that's been covered time and time again), but they need an article for kids with a new slant. I imagine the same is true for a magazine like Good Housekeeping--the editors still need articles about tips for saving money or household cleaning secrets, but the article slant needs to be new and original.

One of the best ways to think of new article slants is to just engage in old-time brainstorming techniques of lists or word webs or brain maps. I like to put my subject, such as water safety, in a circle in the middle of the paper, and then create branches off the center with any idea that pops into my mind whether it's been done before or not. I keep going until I get an idea that is new or fresh or important and then write my query. As a matter of fact, I did this very exercise for the next WOW! issue on fiction writing and came up with an article about dialogue tags, which Angela accepted and will be in the July/August issue.

If the above writing prompt doesn't fit your genre or freelance writing career, you can substitute almost any topic for water safety and get your creative wheels moving. Here's wishing you have many light bulbs go off this weekend!

post by Margo L. Dill, http://margodill.com/blog/
photo by thomasbrightbill www.flickr.com

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16. Subject: The Power of the Adult World (or What's In Your Desk?)

By: Heather Hedin Singh, on 3/15/2010
Blog: Composition Book: Heather Hedin Singh's writing blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: brainstorming, writing, Add a tag

Last Friday, my daughter had the day off from school, and she spent a better part of the morning digging through shelves and files in my desk.

She found:

A package of Avery pre-perforated business card paper
A box of yellow, pink, green, and orange chalk pastels
Stacks of old, unfiled photos
A box of gouache paints
An empty plastic 8x12” envelope, and
A file box containing drafts and sketches from the first picture book I ever wrote

What she did next:

She took three sheets of the business card paper to make business cards of her own, advertising the “grocery store” she runs out of our pantry.
She commandeered the pastels for her art class on Saturday.
She requested the box of paints for someday.
She filled the envelope with money and receipts from the grocery store.
And she complimented me on my drawing skills.

(As an aside… oh, how strange to see that old picture book story. It’s a full thirty-two pages long. I started it in part thanks to a challenge from my husband. Madonna had just released another picture book, and he said something like ‘If Madonna can write, then surely you can, too.” Thanks, love, for the nudge!)

Back to my desk

The treasures my daughter discovered reminded me of something I read once about Inkheart author Cornelia Funke:

Like Philip Pullman, Funke understands that children are intrigued by the power of the adult world (“Harry Potter’s German Cousins,” Times, May 13, 2006)

The power of the adult world.

I love that notion. It makes me think not just of Meggie in Inkheart and Lyra in A Golden Compass, but also of Millicent Min, Junie B. Jones, Ramona, Roy in Hoot, and Dewey in The Green Glass Sea, all trying to make sense of what is happening in the world around them and how they not only fit in but contribute.

So many aspects of the adult world fascinate our kids. Look at the way even toddlers beg to play with their parents’ cell phones or laptops. Think about the way they play dress up and “grocery store.”

I remember playing with the cash register at my grandma’s Laundromat, tapping on the secretary’s typewriter at my dad’s office, and sorting through fabric samples that my mom got from the Design Center in San Francisco. I dreamed of being a zoologist, a marine biologist, a journalist, and a spy like Harriet in Harriet the Spy (another character fascinated by the adult world).

Although Friday’s school holiday limited my writing time, my daughter’s questions and discoveries made me think of some character questions to explore:

What about the adult world intrigues the protagonist in my India novel?
If she dug through her mother’s desk, what would she discover?
What about her mother’s life intrigues her? Confuses her? Appeals to her?
And how do the answers to those questions impact her dreams and bel

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17. Happy New Year!

By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors, on 8/10/2009
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mary Ann Rodman, revision, brainstorming, first drafts, Jimmy's Stars, first day of school, Writing Workout, Lesson Plan, stream-of-conscious narrative, First Grade Stinks, Add a tag

Happy New Year! As any student will tell you, the new year doesn't begin January 1; it's the first day of school. Today it's heading toward another 95 degree day here in Atlanta, but it's "the new year"; the first day of school.If you've read First Grade Stinks, which is based on my daughter's struggles to adjust to a new teacher, you might guess that "Happy New Year" is not the way we greet the

2 Comments on Happy New Year!, last added: 8/13/2009

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18. Brainstorming

By: Bruce Black, on 5/24/2009
Blog: wordswimmer (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: scenes, brainstorming, james v. smith, Add a tag

Every few months I meet a friend for lunch, and, over sandwiches and multiple cups of coffee, we discuss our works-in-progress and the vicissitudes of this crazy writing life.Each of us works alone, so it’s good to brainstorm a bit, offering encouragement to each other in the way that only other writers can provide support for one another when they step away from their desks for a few hours.At

1 Comments on Brainstorming, last added: 5/27/2009

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19. Character Bait

By: Darcy Pattison, on 4/15/2009
Blog: Darcy Pattison's Revision Notes (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: write a book, prewriting, novel, characters, characterization, brainstorming, create a character, Add a tag

Letting Characters Emerge

Hurrah! My potential character took the bait!

As I was thinking of ideas for picture books, an idea came up: what if the family was structured in a distinctive way?

At 2 a.m. this morning, the character woke me up and started dictating a scene about dealing with her family. I wrote furiously for fifteen minutes, then went back to sleep. The bit of story even looked pretty good when I got up at 7 am.

Creating a character this time is interesting: I’m not in a rush, because I know I won’t start this new story until June. So, I’m thinking of things that could be a part of a character’s life, then ignoring it for a while and at the oddest moments, the story starts flowing. I still haven’t got the right voice for this character, but slowly, slowly, she’s starting to emerge.

Related posts:

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20. Where do you get your ideas?

By: John, on 10/20/2008
Blog: DRAWN! (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: inspiration, ideas, Creativity + Ideas, How-To, brainstorming, Add a tag

In this wonderful post, Jillian Tamaki answers the question every artist dreads, Where do you get your ideas?

The article is a handout from her class at New York’s Parsons School of Design (I hope these students realize how lucky they are!). She also points to this Frank Stockton article about inspiration.

Where do you get your ideas?

1 Comments on Where do you get your ideas?, last added: 10/20/2008

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21. Brave New Words: Expletives & Profanity

By: Rebecca, on 4/17/2007
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Literature, Reference, Technology, Science, oxford, words, A-Featured, Lexicography, Prose, swear, norman, fugghead, fannish, laney, towner, barron, brave, prucher, dictionary, Add a tag

Do you know that a ramscoop is “an electromagnetic field at the front of a spaceship that captures interstellar hydrogen to be used as fuel for a fusion-powered space drive?” Or that a timecop is “a time-traveler who attempts to prevent the past from being changed, typically as an agent of an organization?”These words, and many more, can be found in the Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction edited by Jeff Prucher. Prucher’s entertaining entries are a window to the entire science fiction genre, through the words invented and passed along throughout the years. Below we excerpt a sidebar entry on Expletives and Profanity. (more…)

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