Creative Coaching Residencies Taumarunui Day 5 with Kathy White

I got told off today. The kids at Taumarunui Primary told me I didn't finish my story A Hairy Tale properly. They didn't want me to end it where I did - they wanted it to carry on, so they could find out if Vince and Joelle ever got lovey-dovey. I tied up all the other ends, but there was only a hint that the love prospect may come to something. It just goes to show that the author often doesn't know it all. Or perhaps it's a good sign that they were enjoying it so much that they didn't want it to end.

We had a fabulous discussion about the characters in the Harry Potter books and movies and how they changed throughout the seven volumes. I couldn't believe how much these kids have remembered and how much they absorbed that I missed. Hihiri would probably score 100% in a Harry Potter knowledge quiz. Their teacher Kathryn is wondering whether they might have to go on a school outing to the new movie. Personally, I can't wait for Part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Kathryn has proposed that the kids create a collection of short stories, get them illustrated and published, and sell them. It's a great idea. It will also prompt some tough decisions. Some kids are struggling to make progress in the middle of their stories. It's a tough part of the story. All writers sometimes have to abandon a story if it isn't strong enough to go the distance, but it's difficult to know when to give up on it. A couple of students have done that already and they've become inspired by their second idea. We're going to get on the computers tomorrow so we should start to see some of these stories springing into life.

A number of kids at Ngakonui Valley School are nearly finished their first draft, so some people read out their stories and we all made comments and suggestions about what we thought worked well and what we thought would make them even better.

The most common things were:

• Too much telling. Show more with dialogue and body language. Less narrative.
• Change the pace for the important bits. Add tension by changing the length of sentences, and use the senses to create mood and feeling.
• Use verbs like ambled or shuffled (good suggestion from Madison) rather than walked slowly.
• Reduce words like 'was', 'were', 'started to', suddenly, and 'then.'
• Avoid cliches. Try and think of an original way to describe something.

I suggested that sometimes simple is best but not everyone agreed with me. I always used to think that my writing was better when I used a lot of words, especially adjectives. Sometimes it is, but I have to be careful. It's easy for me to fall in love with my own writing. I confessed to everyone that I'm struggling with one of my books at the moment because I've written a beginning that I love but it really doesn't fit with the rest of my story. I suspect I need to dump it. But it's such a lovely piece of writing!

I said "Sometimes you have to kill your babies."

They all roared with laughter.

It's a particularly bad phrase, isn't it?

I don't even know where it came from.

Anyway, I also confessed that I overuse a few words too - actually, suddenly, just and anyway. No one seemed to have noticed but I'll bet they notice from now on.

Kathy