As a follow-up to last Friday's
Guest TeachingAuthor Interview with Sherry Shahan, I'm repeating the
Wednesday Writing Workout she shared with us in
July 2014. After reading this post, I'm sure you'll want to enter for a chance to win a copy of Sherry's
Skin and Bones (A. Whitman), if you haven't already entered the contest.
Sherry's young adult novel is a quirky story set in an eating disorder unit of a metropolitan hospital. The main character “Bones” is a male teen with anorexia. He falls desperately in love with an aspiring ballerina who becomes his next deadly addiction.
The novel was inspired by a short story Sherry wrote years ago, “Iris and Jim.” It appeared in print eight times worldwide. Her agent kept encouraging her to expand “Iris and Jim” into a novel. Easy for her to say!
* * *
Wednesday Writing Workout
Tell It Sideways
by Sherry Shahan
During the first draft of
Skin and Bones I stumbled over a number of unexpected obstacles. How could I give a character an idiosyncratic tone without sounding flippant?
Eating disorders are serious, and in too many instances, life-threatening.
Sometimes I sprinkled facts into farcical narration. Other times statistics emerged through dialogue between prominent characters—either in an argument or by using humor. Either way, creating quirky characters felt more organic when their traits were slipped in sideways instead of straight on.
There are endless ways to introduce a character, such as telling the reader about personality:
"Mrs. Freeman could never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point." — Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People."
Or by detailing a character’s appearance:
"The baker wore a white apron that looked like a smock. Straps cut under his arms, went around in back and then to the front again, where they were secured under his heavy waist ." —Raymond Carver "A Small, Good Thing"
The art of creating fully realized characters is often a challenge to new writers of fiction. As a longtime teacher I’ve noticed:
1.) Writers who use short cuts, such a clichés, which produce cardboard or stereotypical characters.
2.) Writers who stubbornly pattern the main character after themselves in a way that’s unrealistic.
3.) Writers who are so involved in working out a complicated plot that their characters don’t receive enough attention.
In Skin and Bones I let readers get to know my characters though humorous dialogue. This technique works best when characters have opposing viewpoints.
Consider the following scene. (Note: Lard is a compulsive over-eater; Bones is anorexic.)
“I’ll never buy food shot up with hormones when I own a restaurant,” Lard said. “Chicken nuggets sound healthy enough, but they have more than three dozen ingredients—not a lot of chicken in a nugget.”
Bones put on rubber gloves in case he’d have to touch something with calories. “Can’t we talk about something else?”
“That’s the wrong attitude, man. Don’t you want to get over this shit?”
“Not at this particular moment, since it’s almost lunch and my jaw still hurts from breakfast.”
Lard shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t live inside your skin.”
“It’d be a little crowded.”
Exercise #1: Choose a scene from a work-in-progress where a new character is introduced. (Or choose one from an existing novel.) Write a paragraph about the character without using physical descriptions. Repeat for a secondary character.
Exercise #2: Give each character a strong opinion about a subject. Do Nice Girls Really Finish Last? Should Fried Food Come With a Warning? Make sure your characters have opposing positions. Next, write a paragraph from each person’s viewpoint.
Exercise #3: Using the differing viewpoints, compose a scene with humorous dialogue. Try not to be funny just for humor’s sake. See if you can weave in a piece
of factual information (Lard’s stats. about Chicken Nuggets), along with a unique character trait (Bones wearing gloves to keep from absorbing calories through his skin.)
I've enjoyed reading my fellow TeachingAuthor' posts on plotting and planning. That series ended with Esther's post on Monday. Today, I'm presenting a new topic: a guest TeachingAuthor interview and book giveaway! But first, I want to share some updates regarding our blog. The next few months will be a busy time for me due to a variety of personal and professional commitments. (If you live in the Chicago area and you're looking for a writing class, I hope you'll check out my class offerings, including one tomorrow on "Great Beginnings.") So, while I'll continue to work behind the scenes here, I'll be taking a blogging break. And I'm THRILLED to announce that the talented Carla Killough McClafferty will be blogging in my place. If you don't know Carla, do read her bio info on our About Us page. I hope you'll give her a hearty welcome when she makes her debut here three weeks from today.
Now, for today's guest TeachingAuthor interview, let me re-introduce you to Sherry Shahan, author of picture books, easy readers, and novels for middle grade and young adults. You may recall that Sherry contributed a terrific Wednesday Writing Workout back in July. I began that post by saying:
>>Sherry and I first met virtually, when she joined the New Year/New Novel (NYNN) Yahoo group I started back in 2009. I love the photo she sent for today's post--it personifies her willingness to do the tough research sometimes required for the stories she writes. As she says on her website, she has:
"ridden on horseback into Africa’s Maasailand, hiked through a leech-infested rain forest in Australia, shivered inside a dogsled for the first part of the famed 1,049 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, rode-the-foam on a long-board in Hawaii, and spun around dance floors in Havana, Cuba."
<<
Sherry's most recent young-adult novel,
Skin and Bones (A. Whitman) required a different kind of research, as she shares in her interview below. According to
Kirkus Reviews, she did her work well::
"Shahan tackles eating disorders in a fast-paced, contemporary coming-of-age novel. . . A quick read with a worthy message: We are all recovering from something, and the right companions can help you heal. The wrong ones can kill you."
The paperback edition of
Skin and Bones will be released in March. Meanwhile, Sherry is generously contributing an autographed copy for a
TeachingAuthors' book giveaway. To enter, see the instructions at the end of this post. First, though, be sure to read the following interview:
Sherry, how did you become a TeachingAuthor?In the 1980s I lived in a small town and didn’t know anyone who was a writer. I hadn’t even heard of
SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). I heard about a local Writers Conference and signed up. At the end of the workshop focusing on children’s books, I asked the instructor if she’d critique my middle-grade novel manuscript. She agreed. Soon thereafter she told me she’d shared it with her editor (a school book fair publisher). They bought that novel and I worked with them on five more.
Fast forward: After graduating from
Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, 2007) I was brimming with enthusiasm about writing. My friends soon tired of discussions of emotional subtext, objective correlatives, polyphonic elements, etc. When I heard that UCLA was seeking teachers for online writing courses I sent the department chair my resumé. I’ve been teaching for them ever since.
What's a common problem that your students have and how do you address it?It’s simply the overuse of passive verbs—and that’s across the board, no matter what the person’s writing experience. As an exercise, I post a short paragraph that’s riddled with ‘was,’ ‘seems to be,” ‘must have been,’ ‘would,’ ‘had,’ etc. I then ask them to reconstruct the paragraph using active verbs. Happily, writings submitted after the exercise shine with lively, active language.
Back in July you shared a terrific Wednesday Writing Workout with our readers and talked a bit about Skin and Bones. You mentioned then that the novel started out as a short story. What inspired that original story and how did you expand it to a novel?I had a crazy idea about a love story from the perspective of a teen guy with anorexia, which I set in an Eating Disorders Unit of a hospital. The short story sold right away to a major literary journal. Later, a London publisher included it in their YA anthology, and after that it appeared in their Best of collection. So far the 1,400-word version of
Skin and Bones has appeared eight times worldwide.
My agent kept encouraging me to expand the story into a novel. But I wasn’t ready to spend a year (or more) with young people in the throes of a life-threatening illness. I weighed the pros and cons.
Pros:* The short story would serve as an outline since the basic story arc was in place.
•
Each character already had a distinctive voice.
•
The hospital setting was firmly fixed in my mind.
•
The subject matter had proven itself to be of interest to readers.
•
Proven ground is attractive to editors and publishers, as long as the topic is approached in a fresh way.
Cons:* The story would require an additional 60,000 words.
•
I would have to create additional characters.
•
Every character would require a convincing backstory.
•
I would need compelling subplots.
•
Every scene would require richer subtext.
Well, the "Pros" obviously won out.J We don’t often hear or read of boys having anorexia. How did you go about researching this story? What kind of response has it received from readers and teachers?My primary research was memoirs about teens with addictions. There were striking similarities between the mindset of say, someone with anorexia or bulimia, and a young person addicted to drugs. Shame and guilt effected both addictions. I wasn’t prepared for the skillful manner in which teens—males and females—manipulated friends, family, and the environment in order to keep their obsession secret.
I’ve been visiting high schools and libraries talking about
Skin and Bones and the dangers of eating disorders. Many people have known a male with anorexia. According to
N.A.M.E.D. (National Association of Males with Eating Disorders) approximately ten million males in the U.S. suffer with this disease. Sadly, there are too many heart-breaking examples on the Internet.
Do you have any suggestions for teachers on how they might use one of your books in the classroom?My Alaskan-based adventure novel
Ice Island (Random House/Yearling) is used as part of the “IDITA-Read” program, a fun reading race from Anchorage to Nome.
Goal: 
Read *1,049 minutes or pages appropriate to student’s reading level.
Procedure: 1. Explain to the students that they will compete in their own Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Their race will be a reading race.
2. Each student draws a musher from entries on the
Iditarod website (which includes trail maps, mushers’ diaries, etc.). Students try to read faster (pages or minutes) than the distance their musher travels on the trail.
3. Teachers track each student’s progress on a large map of Alaska by daily visits to the
Iditarod website.
4. Students select their books before the “vet check.” (Dogs are checked before the race to make sure they’re healthy.) Teachers decide if students’ books are “healthy” (grade/ability level).
5. As students read their way to each checkpoint, they are responsible for logging in their time and having it checked by a race marshal (teacher or librarian).
6. Provide prizes or special recognition for those who compete in the reading race.
Materials: 1. Large map of Alaska with Iditarod Trail & checkpoints clearly marked.
2. Legend listing distances between checkpoints.
3. Name pins/tags to mark students’ reading progress on the trail.
4. Sleds or dogs (felt or construction paper) to mark progress of mushers.
5. Iditarod “Reading Log” for each student.
6. Lots of books!
Objectives: 1. Encourage recreational reading.
2. Develop an interest in history and geography of Alaska.
3. Encourage completion of a project.
Wow, what a fun activity! I hope some of our blog followers who are teachers will give it a try and report back to us. Finally, Sherry, what are you working on now?I’ve just finished a very rough draft of a YA novel that explores the emotional and psychological trauma of abduction. My protagonist is a sixteen year-old girl who’s kidnapped on her way to meet her boyfriend. The kidnapper isn’t someone the readers will suspect.
Sounds like a real thriller, Sherry. Good luck researching that one! And thanks again for today's interview.Readers, here's your opportunity to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of
Skin and Bones (A. Whitman). Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter via 1, 2, or all 3 options specified.
If you choose the "comment" option, share a comment to TODAY'S blog post answering this question: What will you do with the book should you win: save it for yourself or give it away?
If your name isn't part of your comment "identity," please include it in your comment for verification purposes. Comments may also be submitted via email to: teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com.
If the widget doesn't appear for some reason (or you're an email subscriber), use the link below to take you to the entry form.The giveaway
ends on Feb. 6. After you've entered, don't forget to check today's
Poetry Friday roundup over at
A Teaching Life.
Good luck and happy writing!
Carmela
P.S. If you've never entered a Rafflecopter giveaway, here's info on
how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway and the
difference between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address. Email subscribers: if you received this post via email, you can click on the Rafflecopter link at the end of this message to access the entry form.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Today's
Wednesday Writing Workout comes to us courtesy of the talented
Sherry Shahan. Sherry and I first met virtually, when she joined the
New Year/New Novel (NYNN) Yahoo group I started back in 2009. I love the photo she sent for today's post--it personifies her willingness to do the tough research sometimes required for the stories she writes. As she says
on her website, she has:
"ridden on horseback into Africa’s Maasailand, hiked through a leech-infested rain forest in Australia, shivered inside a dogsled for the first part of the famed 1,049 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, rode-the-foam on a long-board in Hawaii, and spun around dance floors in Havana, Cuba."
Her new young adult novel
Skin and Bones (A. Whitman) is a quirky story set in an eating disorder unit of a metropolitan hospital. The main character “Bones” is a male teen with anorexia. He falls desperately in love with an aspiring ballerina who becomes his next deadly addiction.
The novel was inspired by a short story Sherry wrote years ago, “Iris and Jim.” It appeared in print eight times worldwide. Her agent kept encouraging her to expand “Iris and Jim” into a novel. Easy for her to say!
* * *
Wednesday Writing Workout
Tell It Sideways
by Sherry Shahan
During the first draft of
Skin and Bones I stumbled over a number of unexpected obstacles. How could I give a character an idiosyncratic tone without sounding flippant?
Eating disorders are serious, and in too many instances, life-threatening.
Sometimes I sprinkled facts into farcical narration. Other times statistics emerged through dialogue between prominent characters—either in an argument or by using humor. Either way, creating quirky characters felt more organic when their traits were slipped in sideways instead of straight on.
There are endless ways to introduce a character, such as telling the reader about personality:
"Mrs. Freeman could never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point." — Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People."
Or by detailing a character’s appearance:
"The baker wore a white apron that looked like a smock. Straps cut under his arms, went around in back and then to the front again, where they were secured under his heavy waist ." —Raymond Carver "A Small, Good Thing"
The art of creating fully realized characters is often a challenge to new writers of fiction. As a longtime teacher I’ve noticed:
1.) Writers who use short cuts, such a clichés, which produce cardboard or stereotypical characters.
2.) Writers who stubbornly pattern the main character after themselves in a way that’s unrealistic.
3.) Writers who are so involved in working out a complicated plot that their characters don’t receive enough attention.
In Skin and Bones I let readers get to know my characters though humorous dialogue. This technique works best when characters have opposing viewpoints.
Consider the following scene. (Note: Lard is a compulsive over-eater; Bones is anorexic.)
“I’ll never buy food shot up with hormones when I own a restaurant,” Lard said. “Chicken nuggets sound healthy enough, but they have more than three dozen ingredients—not a lot of chicken in a nugget.”
Bones put on rubber gloves in case he’d have to touch something with calories. “Can’t we talk about something else?”
“That’s the wrong attitude, man. Don’t you want to get over this shit?”
“Not at this particular moment, since it’s almost lunch and my jaw still hurts from breakfast.”
Lard shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t live inside your skin.”
“It’d be a little crowded.”
Exercise #1: Choose a scene from a work-in-progress where a new character is introduced. (Or choose one from an existing novel.) Write a paragraph about the character without using physical descriptions. Repeat for a secondary character.
Exercise #2: Give each character a strong opinion about a subject. Do Nice Girls Really Finish Last? Should Fried Food Come With a Warning? Make sure your characters have opposing positions. Next, write a paragraph from each person’s viewpoint.
Exercise #3: Using the differing viewpoints, compose a scene with humorous dialogue. Try not to be funny just for humor’s sake. See if you can weave in a piece
of factual information (Lard’s stats. about Chicken Nuggets), along with a unique character trait (Bones wearing gloves to keep from absorbing calories through his skin.)
I hope these exercises help you think about characterization in a less conventional way. Thanks for letting me stop by!
Sherry
www.SherryShahan.comThank you, Sherry, for this terrific Wednesday Writing Workout! Readers, if you give these exercises a try, do let us know how they work for you.
Happy writing!
Carmela
That’s Not How You Play Soccer, Daddy by Sherry Shahan (Illustrated by Tatjana Mai-Wyss)
Reviewed by: Chris Singer
About the author:
Sherry Shahan is a photojournalist and the author of numerous books for young readers, including Death Mountain, a young adult survival novel based on a real-life experience. Her bilingual picture books include Spicy Hot Colors and Cool Cats Counting. When not writing in her California beach bungalow, Sherry sits in the bleachers cheering on her grandsons’ soccer and baseball teams.
About the illustrator:
Tatjana Mai-Wyss was born in Switzerland. She grew up with her nose in a book and always wanted to be the one to draw the pictures. Today, she is a freelance illustrator in sunny South Carolina, where she can draw out on the screen porch all year long and listen to the birds. She has illustrated a number of picture books, including A Tree for Emmy and That’s Not How You Play Soccer, Daddy!
About the book:
Mikey takes his duties as captain of the Hot Diggity Diner soccer team very seriously. After a tough practice, his dad takes him to play in the park, but Mikey only wants to practice for the Big Game. Daddy offers to help, but to Mikey’s dismay he doesn’t put in much of an athletic effort. He keeps bending the rules and telling his impatient son to “just have fun.” After an irresistible ticklefest, however, Mikey comes around to Daddy’s way of thinking — and joins him and his dog Socks in the best soccer game ever!
My take on the book:
If you’ve been visiting Book Dads for awhile, you’ve probably noticed I have a tendency to review a lot of children’s books about soccer. Soccer is a beautiful game for so many reasons and while I can’t wait to share my love for soccer with my daughter (I already have, but there’s still more to share!!), I’m a little nervous about those soccer nazi parents who treat every game like it’s the World Cup.
One of the ways I plan on easing some of my nerves is by getting involved and coaching. Part two of my plan is to give everyone on the team a copy of this book. The beauty of Shahan’s book is that it is the complete opposite of so many sports books written for children which usually portray a young hero or heroine winning the game with a crucial play or having their team win the championship. Instead it focuses on the joy and good times when participati
