I am working on a new early chapter series (more details after the contract is signed!) and the first step is to nail down a series title.

What Makes a Good Series Overall Title?

Here’s some of the criteria we are thinking about as we work on a series title.

1. Search Engines. The title must be easy for search engines to find. No funny spellings. Very obvious. Must be findable on Amazon and Google.
2. Character Name v. Topical Titles. Many early reader series take the character’s name as a title for the series. Witness: Clementine, Judy Moody, Junie B. Jones or The Buddy Files. However, some take a more topical title, such as the Magic School Bus series, the classic Box Car Kids, or the Magic Tree House. We’re discussing which is more appropriate for this series.
3. General enough, yet specific enough. The series title must be general enough to allow a variety of individual titles; yet it must be specific enough to individually identify this series from all others. Some suggested titles have been too specific, too restrictive. They would lock the series into certain areas and not allow for flexibility if the series takes off. Others are too general and don’t give enough of a flavor of what is happening in the series.
4. Short, snappy. In all the above, we are keeping in mind that the series title must be memorable. Short is better, and something that trips off the tongue lightly.
5. Fun. Of course, writing for the early elementary ages, it must be a fun title.

The individual titles will come later. For now, it is vitally important to nail this one.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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We’re done! But I thought you might like a re-cap and a table of contents.

The 31-day Think Like a Writer series challenges writers to write at least 750 words each and every day for a month. I used the website 750words.org, but you can do it with pencil and paper or on your computer. These creative writing prompts are meant to be “morning pages” or practice in Thinking Like a Writer.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Observe the world around you
2. Observe Sensory Details
3. Noses: Observe Characters
4. Make Your Characters Move
5. How to Create a Mood with Sensory Details
6. Discover Your Passions
7. Be Mean to Your Character
8. How Old is Your Character?
9. Subtext: What is this story really about?
10. Write in Scenes
11. Give Your Character Something to Hold
12. Emotion from a Photo
13. 3 Ways to Handle Time in a Novel
14. Titles that Readers will Love
15. Make an Image become a Symbol
16. What what you are SCARED to write
17. Everything is Worse and Worse
18. Writers Need to Whine Sometimes
19. Found Object Stories
20. Set the Scene: Panorama
21. Set the Scene: Zoom
22. Set the Scene: Scan
23. Omniscient POV
24. 1st Person POV
25. 3rd Person POV
26. Different Perspectives for Different Audiences
27. Before and After: Reveal Character
28. Secrets and Letters
29. The Other Side of the Story
30. Unlovable Characters

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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This is the last day of our 750 words per day challenge! Have you written every day? What have you learned from your writing this month?

Today, write a reflection about your writing for the last month. What have you learned? What was hard? What was easy?

In light of what you have learned, where do you need to focus efforts to improve your writing?

Please share with me, post a comment! I always like to hear your good news!

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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We’ve talked about different points of view and here’s a related idea: different perspectives based on audience. Using any of the three POV choices (Omniscient POV, 1st Person POV, 3rd Person POV), we’ll shift the thinking a bit.

If you are a 16 year old boy and have a car wreck and you want to tell the story of that car wreck, how do you tell the story? Where do you start? What do you emphasize? It depends on the audience. What you tell your best friend, is different from what you tell your Mom. And for sure, you tell the police man something else entirely. Each version could be entirely true. It’s just that given a certain audience, you tailor your storytelling to meet the audience’s needs, interests and well, um, whether or not you’ll get in trouble for emphasizing some small point here or there.

For example, with his best friend the driver might emphasize the risk taking that led to the wreck; he might speak in jargon or use curse words. With his mom, the driver will emphasize how well he obeyed the speed limit, while gloss over his “dancing in the street with his car”; he’ll also play the wreck for sympathy, emphasizing the slightest hurt. With a cop, the driver will be straightforward, business-like in the recitation of details, giving the appearance of cooperation, while glossing over some details.

Each telling will have a different tone, different emotional content, different details.

Today, choose a character from a story you’re writing.
Choose an event.
Have your character tell about that event in three different ways. Actually choose a person to whom they will tell the story and think about how and why you’ll change the story for this person.

Again, this is NOT changing the point of view from 1st to 3rd. Instead, stay in one point of view, but just change the audience–which changes how the story is told. This is Thinking Like a Writer!

BTW, think like a reader, too. A good example of this is Orson Scott Card’s novel, Ender’s Game which is paralleled in Ender’s Shadow. The two books tell the same story, but from perspectives of two different characters.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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For the last two days, we have focused on point of view in your story or novel. Your writing tasks for today–for your “750 words each day in January”–is to practice POV.

Today, focus on 3rd person point of view.

3rd person POV

A 3rd person POV pulls back from the position inside the character’s head to be right beside the character. You see what s/he sees, hear what s/he sees, know the thoughts of the character. But the pronouns are he or she.

Coach scribbled something on his clipboard and she leaned over to see that he was scratching out Jimmy’s name and writing Dave instead. No! He couldn’t sub in Dave, he was lousy at passing. Mary glanced up at the stands, where Jimmy’s mom waved around a video camera. Where had she borrowed it, Mary had no idea. His mom just said, it was Jimmy’s big game, his big break and she had to get it on film. Mary rubbed her temple, the headache still nagging. She wondered about the red pill Jimmy had given her, would it help ease the headache? Or would it make her loopy.

Watch your pronouns: he and she, not I.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Yesterday, today and tomorrow, we are focusing on point of view in your story or novel. Your writing tasks for the next 2 days for your “750 words each day in January” is to practice POV.

Today, we’ll focus on 1st person point of view.

1st person POV

When the camera resides inside one character’s head and we hear that character speaking it is 1st person: the pronouns used are I, me, my. This POV is great for character novels where the inner life, the emotions, the personality are up front and center.

Coach scribbled something on his clipboard and I leaned over to see that he was scratching out Jimmy’s name and writing Dave instead. No! He couldn’t sub in Dave, he was lousy at passing. I glanced up at the stands, where Jimmy’s mom waved around a huge video camera. Where she had borrowed it, who knows? She just said, it was Jimmy’s big game, his big break, she had to get it on film. I rubbed my temple. Headache still nagging. That red pill Jimmy gave me, would it help? Or would it send me loopy?

Remember: Generally, you must stay in ONE POV choice at a time, not switch. You’ll probably find exceptions to the rule, but it’s a good rule for most situations. If you want to switch within a story, you would switch when you start a new chapter.

Go! Think Like a Writer in first person POV.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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For the recent discussion on focal length of your scene, I accidentally confused a reader. I wrote:

A scan is a way to show a crowd scene economically, yet in an interesting way. It involves a series of small zooms: the quarterback’s mother is taping the game with a new video camera that she borrowed money to buy; the coach’s pencil is hovering over two names, trying to decide if he’ll start the injured quarterback or his backup; the head cheerleader is trying to shake off a headache and wondering if that red pill the quarterback gave her would help or not. In a short paragraph, you get the complexities of the crowd!

READER wrote in to ask about point of view, or POV. When we dip into each person’s head this way, it is omniscient POV. Of course, you can do scans in any point of view, so that’s not the problem. Instead, READER wanted a clearer explanation of POV.

So, your writing tasks for the next 3 days for your 750 words is to practice POV. I’ll explain them here and then ask you to take a day for each POV. Even if you know this, it’s still good to go back and practice Thinking Like a Writer.

When you think about POV, you could ask a simple question: where is the camera?

Omniscient POV.

For the omniscient POV, the camera is overhead, looking at things from an overall perspective and it’s an all-knowing camera. It knows what every character is thinking and can dip in and out of any perspective at any point. The SCAN that I wrote above is omniscient.

1st person POV

When the camera resides inside one character’s head and we hear that character speaking it is 1st person: the pronouns used are I, me, my. This POV is great for character novels where the inner life, the emotions, the personality are up front and center.

Coach scribbled something on his clipboard and I leaned over to see that he was scratching out Jimmy’s name and writing Dave instead. No! He couldn’t sub in Dave, he was lousy at passing. I glanced up at the stands, where Jimmy’s mom waved around a huge video camera. Where she had borrowed it, who knows? She just said, it was Jimmy’s big game, his big break, she had to get it on film. I rubbed my temple. Headache still nagging. That red pill Jimmy gave me, would it help? Or would it send me loopy?

3rd person POV

A 3rd person POV pulls back from the position inside the character’s head to be right beside the character. You see what s/he sees, hear what s/he sees, know the thoughts of the character. But the pronouns are he or she.

Coach scribbled something on his clipboard and she leaned over to see that he was scratching out Jimmy’s name and writing Dave instead. No! He couldn’t sub in Dave, he was lousy at passing. Mary glanced up at the stands, where Jimmy’s mom waved around a video camera. Where had she borrowed it, Mary had no idea. His mom just said, it was Jimmy’s big game, his big break and she had to get it on film. Mary rubbed her temple, the headache still nagging. She wondered about the red pill Jimmy had given her, would it help ease the headache? Or would it make her loopy.

The differences are subtle, but important between 3rd and 1st. 3rd person POV is the most common POV for storytelling and novels today. Use the 1st person POV when you have a unique character with a unique voice. One disadvantage of 1st POV is that you are limited to scenes where the character is present, so you must plot accordingly.

Today, practice writing a scene in Omniscient Voice.
Tomorrow, try 1st person and the next day 3rd. I’ll remind you on the next two days of the ways we are practicing Thinking Like a Writer.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Here’s another creative writing prompt for your 750 words, a challenge to write 750 words each day in January to better Think Like a Writer.

What are you afraid to write about?
Write about it.
Grit your teeth.
Take a stiff drink (of sweet iced tea) and write.

Do it now.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Here’s another creative writing prompt for your 750 words, a challenge to write 750 words each day in January to better Think Like a Writer.

Today, you want to think about creating symbolism in a short piece. This can be powerful stuff in a novel, a short story or even an essay. You want to think about the objects in your story, something concrete, some object you can see or touch or hold. Now you’ll work to add an emotional attachment to that object.

The best way to explain what I mean is with an example. I taught Freshman Composition for seven years. One student wrote an essay about her high school basketball career, how that sport, that team, that basketball court was her life. On the night of her last game of her senior, she walked out of the locker room and her Dad threw her a basketball. She caught it and held it cupped in both hands, a brown globe, a world that had consumed her last four years.

Suddenly that circular shape of the ball becomes a globe, a world that represents much more than just a pebbly brown ball that bounces. It held all her high school memories and it was a poignant moment.

See if you can make that moment happen in your story as you think like a writer.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Here’s another creative writing prompt for your 750 words, a challenge to write 750 words each day in January to better Think Like a Writer.

Today, spend your precious 750 words doing nothing but writing titles for stories that you might want to write. Every ten or so, stop and think about which ones you might actually like to read yourself. Think about what titles would make you pick up this story and read farther.

In his book, Stein on Writing, Sol Stein says you need some kind of imagery and it doesn’t hurt if it trips off the tongue sweetly. So, try a metaphor, make it rhyme, use consonance. Play with words today.

Not: Diego Rivera
But: The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera

Not: As Others Are
Not: The World’s Room
Not: They Who Get Shot
Not: An Italian Chronicle
Not: The Sentimental Education of Frederick Henry
But: A Farewell to Arms (by Ernest Hemingway)

So, if you need to write a lot of Nots, go ahead. Search for one great title. Write titles; but think like a writer and a reader!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win