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

Creative Coaching Residencies Taumarunui Day 4 with Kathy White

There have been a few breakthroughs in our classroom sessions - and not just for the kids taking part in this project. Often they say things that help me to understand something about my own writing.

When we started talking about characters at Ngakonui Valley School, Chelsea discovered she didn't yet have a villain (or antagonist) in her story. We talked about how important that role is, and she quickly saw how it was affecting her story. Conflict needs a protagonist and antagonist, even if the antagonist is something like a tornado or an evil car. There needs to be someone or something putting obstacles in the hero's path. Before we'd finished our conversation, she had invented a ghost, and she raced off to fill in the info in her character chart.

Daniel at Manunui School said he doesn't run away from conflict. He tells people how it is. I realised when I looked at my own book that I sometimes go around the bits in my story where there's major conflict or I gloss over it. Sometimes I even let someone other than my hero handle it. That's no good! What do I keep telling the kids? The main character has to face problems himself and try to resolve them. He's going to fail sometimes, but he has to try. At the weekend, I dug out my teen novel and fixed one of the scenes where my character Jack faces a particularly nasty pest controller called Jono. Jono thinks Jack has been tampering with his car. It's not pleasant but it's now more realistic. Jono IS the scariest character in my book. He's not going to be kind to Jack.

Mrs Munro at Taumarunui School pointed out to some of her students who were struggling with the plot, that it helps to think about fairy tales, myths and legends. That got me thinking (and talking) about the many ways that a 'search and rescue' story like Rapunzel can be used. My own book A Hairy Tale is a twisted modern version of Rapunzel, featuring paragliding, helicopters, flying foxes, hair models and gorillas. Tangled has just been screening at the movies, and that definitely reverses the traditional roles in Rapunzel. Even Star Wars reminds me of Rapunzel. Luke Skywalker rescues Princess Leia from the evil villain Darth Vader on the Death Star. I suppose it's not that different from the Prince rescuing Rapunzel from the wicked witch in that tower.

We looked at Showing and Telling today and talked about how to use action, body language and dialogue to reveal how a character thinks and feels. It's better to hint at things and let the reader figure things out rather than over-explain and make it dull. We also looked at ways to quicken the pace of a story (using short active sentences, specific verbs, sound effects, and dialogue). Liam at Ngakonui Valley School demonstrated this really well when he read out his spy story at the end of the day. It had lots of humorous dialogue in it too, which really suited his main character. I loved the twisted ending!

It's just as important to know when and how to slow things down with longer more descriptive narrative (for an important place or situation), and how to add tension and suspense (using the senses). I used an example I borrowed from Ashleigh at Manunui, where we focused on the smell of petrol, and the sound of a window being wound down, just before a boy is kidnapped. Ashleigh likes scary stories. It sent shivers down my spine, just thinking about it. Rosalie at Taumarunui Primary added tension by dropping hints in her story, but keeping some things secret. It intensified the misunderstanding about a missing zookeeper and an affectionate lion, and reminded me how powerful misunderstandings and secrets can be in stories.

I really enjoyed listening to people reading out their stories today. Everyone's style is different.

Kathy

Creative Coaching Residencies Taumarunui Day 2 & 3 with Kathy White

What a beautiful day to go out to Ngakonui Valley School. The trees and mountains are spectacular, especially Mount Hikurangi. Sue says it's okay to climb it so I'll pray for good weather at the weekend.

There's a mixture of ages in this writing group but everyone is imaginative and enthusiastic about writing short adventure stories. In fact, they were so keen that we managed to use every story-starter I had - cards, objects, and the Lolly Mixture (adjectives & nouns). That was great because it meant they brainstormed a few ideas and ended up with choices about which story they wanted to pursue. Everyone was happy and confident they had an idea that they could turn into a story. Liam was inspired enough to turn my humble TV remote into an Alex-Rider-style super-gadget and he did a lot of thinking overnight about the character that would use it.

William said he likes books that hook him within the first paragraph, so we looked at some great examples: Bill's New Frock; Stormbreaker; Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; Matilda. We looked at the bomb (also known as the inciting incident) that gets the whole story moving. It's like 'that was then and this is now.' From the moment of the bomb, everything changes. We decided that it often works to start where the trouble starts, where something new happens or when a stranger arrives. You can start during a quarrel, posing a question, or finding out something unusual about the main character.

The kids really got into making their own beginnings. Some people found it easy. Some found it difficult. I often find that I don't come up with the perfect beginning first time, so I suggested that they just start writing and not worry about getting it right.

We talked about the sorts of conflicts and complications that normally happen through the middle, and looked at a traditional story structure like The Three Little Pigs to see all the essential features of a story. Olivia mentioned a new Scholastic book about 20 stories that had been written by children - one of them was a twisted Little Pigs story - so we found it and read it. It was fabulous - and written by a ten year old - so that's a HUGE incentive for this group.

The stories are starting to look good already. Olivia's writing a suspenseful halloween story which is based on a misunderstanding between friends and Kyra is working on a funny story about an alien grandma who has a ferocious lion for a pet and doesn't realise that there's anything wrong. It didn't start off that way, but that was just a reminder to me how everything is a WORK IN PROGRESS.

There are also great stories unfolding at Manunui School. Eden has the most incredible beginning (involving blood on her character's hands) and Ashleigh's main character starts his story in the room where his kidnapper has hidden him. Spooky stuff!! You can tell these kids are into horror stories. Tyler was frustrated for a while because he didn't know where his story was going, but he's happier with it now that he's past that hurdle. I can see the makings of a great story there now - one that confuses reality and the virtual reality of a PlayStation game. Cool stuff.

Kathy White

Creative Coaching Residencies Taumarunui Day 1 with Kathy White

It's lucky my motel is across the road from Taumarunui School. There was no chance of me getting lost, not like the previous day when I followed the map given to me by the Information Centre, which supposedly had Ngakonui Valley School, and the road I should take, marked with a highlighter pen. I ended up in the middle of nowhere. I don't blame them. I've been lost before. That's why I always do a trial run before the day.

Kathryn Munro at Taumarunui School introduced me to the staff at their lively staff meeting. I think Bethwyn, the Principal is worried she may see her staff and comments in one of my books one day. But it's okay, no one will recognise themselves (scribble, scribble, frantic note-taking).

I met the children in the library. They're going to write short stories over the next two weeks, so we introduced ourselves and talked about what we like about our favourite stories. There are a lot of fans of Geronimo Stilton out there! I read part of A Hairy Tale, my favourite of all of the books I've written, then we did an exercise where we mixed up adjectives/verbs and nouns so that we had unusual combinations like carnivorous grandma, exploding grass, pooping spaceship and kissing lion and brainstormed all of the possible actions and reactions. Everyone came up with some real gems at this stage. Naomi had a beautiful first line. Turehou seemed to have a fully-formed story emerge in his head - how did he do that? Paul (a teacher) helped Piripi and Samuel by asking them lots of questions. I think that's how the 'battle with the dung beetles' cropped up as a scenario (lovely!)

Out at Manunui School, the kids are incorporating whakatauki into their stories. The kids have already brainstormed about what's involved in 'living well.' They came up with concepts like self-esteem, resilience, confidence, and the importance of friends and mentors. I read one of my favourite books to them - Officer Buckle and Gloria, by Peggy Rathmann. On the surface it's about a policeman who gives boring safety speeches in schools, until he gets an unusual dog called Gloria to help him. Deep down it's a story about how we all do better when we have a buddy. It's also a great example of how much sub-text there is in stories.

The challenge is how to write great stories that have deeper meaning about things like friendship. This isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm still learning about that myself. So instead of thinking about friendship, I decided to get out my story-starter cards, which have pictures on one side, and questions on the other. Jimmy brainstormed really fast about a Magical Tanny - a beast that looked like it had escaped from a Harry Potter or Percy Jackson story. Everyone ended up with great ideas splattered onto paper. There were watery portals, spy planes and evil rabbits. Now they need to figure out which are the ideas that they want to pursue and mould into a story.

Ideas and the shape of things may change when we look at structure and plot. Mine change constantly.