I just got back from a so-fun morning hanging with the 3rd and 4th grade GATE-ors at my Kids’ elementary school. (GATE is Gifted And Talented Education.) Our school has a great group of kids, and the cutest teacher ever.
She asked me to come in and talk to the kids about the “show, don’t tell” principle. Shall we let that sink in for a second? I had written 2 books before I ever heard anyone say those words, “show, don’t tell.” Well, okay, maybe not two whole books, but I certainly wasn’t nine. What a leg-up these little people are getting. I know what you’re thinking: And at such capable hands as yours, Becca.
Well, thanks.
So we talked about it. Then we wrote. It went like this. I wrote some sentences (very bad ones) on the board.
“Trevor was excited.”
“Meagan was tired.”
“McKinley was frightened.”
“Austin was angry.”
“Kelsey was happy.”
“Mrs. Pedersen was bored.”
Then I asked the kids to paint me a word picture, telling me about one of those sentences without using those words. Three or four sentences to show me those feelings. I did it, too. We wrote together in relative quiet for a couple of minutes, me with a clickable dry-erase marker (ah, LOVE) and them with furious pencil scratching on paper. I love me some furious pencil scratching. Then they read to me. They were awesome. They wrote what it looked like, smelled like, sounded like. They made up details. They put themselves inside a character’s head. They showed. For real.
Want to guess the sentence that nobody, nobody at all, chose to write?
Go ahead. Guess.
“Kelsey was happy.”
Not one. Isn’t that weird? I think it is. I’ve been remembering my high school English classes, specifically AP English with Mrs. Morris (who I am certain would never remember me) where I wondered out loud how come we never read anything with a happy ending. (Innocence and cheek, all at once.) She rolled her eyes at me from behind some really large, eyeball-distorting glasses and said something that was probably reflective of Tolstoy’s famous “Happy families are all alike.” So today, with this interesting (to me) piece of data, I was able to tell this pack of third-graders that you don’t have a story without some conflict. Character is most important, but no matter how awesome or adorable your character is, we don’t want to hang out with him until something troublesome/bizarre/dangerous/ironic starts to happen.
And they totally got it.
(But I still love me a happy ending.)
So thanks, Mrs. Pedersen, for having me come and play in your class. And see? I didn’t even burst into song. I keep my promises.
(22) Comments for this blog
That’s awesome, Becca! Sounds like a good time was had by all (what a cliche. Forgive me?). I’m really, really curious as to what my boy came up with. Quentin’s my son, and he has Asperger’s (did you already know that?), so I’m wondering if he had a really hard time with this exercise, considering his somewhat limited ability to understand and describe emotion. Did they get to keep the stuff they wrote?
That’s awesome, Becca! Sounds like a good time was had by all (what a cliche. Forgive me?). I’m really, really curious as to what my boy came up with. Quentin’s my son, and he has Asperger’s (did you already know that?), so I’m wondering if he had a really hard time with this exercise, considering his somewhat limited ability to understand and describe emotion. Did they get to keep the stuff they wrote?
See? Proof of your awesomeness! I’d come to any class you taught. (Oh, please teach one on emotion! You do that SO well!)
See? Proof of your awesomeness! I’d come to any class you taught. (Oh, please teach one on emotion! You do that SO well!)
What a great gift to give of your self. You are always welcome in my classroom to give some great life lessons to my kids. (I adore you).
G
What a great gift to give of your self. You are always welcome in my classroom to give some great life lessons to my kids. (I adore you).
G
Sounds like a wonderful day, spent teaching a valuable lesson. I definitely didn’t know about show versus tell, until I penned a few books myself.
In a way I think we need these forays of writing without rules to truly grasp the gift of storytelling. Only after we’ve learned how to do that, do the lessons begin to show up in our work.(Hugs)Indigo
Sounds like a wonderful day, spent teaching a valuable lesson. I definitely didn’t know about show versus tell, until I penned a few books myself.
In a way I think we need these forays of writing without rules to truly grasp the gift of storytelling. Only after we’ve learned how to do that, do the lessons begin to show up in our work.(Hugs)Indigo
Wow. Thank you for posting this. I may already be a published author but I am going to try doing this a few times. This sounds like a great exercise and I am actually very disappointed it isn’t done more often. Off to try a few times! I want each of my novels to improve so that overtime I can improve as an author and hopefully also as a person. For until then I thank god for editors. Wonderful post!!!!!!!!!
Sincerely,
Emma Michaels
http://EmmaMichaels.blogspot.com
Emma_Michaels@hotmail.com
Wow. Thank you for posting this. I may already be a published author but I am going to try doing this a few times. This sounds like a great exercise and I am actually very disappointed it isn’t done more often. Off to try a few times! I want each of my novels to improve so that overtime I can improve as an author and hopefully also as a person. For until then I thank god for editors. Wonderful post!!!!!!!!!
Sincerely,
Emma Michaels
http://EmmaMichaels.blogspot.com
Emma_Michaels@hotmail.com
What an interesting approach. And I bet you were the best guest!
What an interesting approach. And I bet you were the best guest!
What an awesome feeling that must have been for you, effecting that kind of change in children so young…still forming and budding and blooming. Awesome!
What an awesome feeling that must have been for you, effecting that kind of change in children so young…still forming and budding and blooming. Awesome!
What a delightful sense of humor you have! Chuckled over your fixation on ice cream on I Am a Reader’s blog.
What a delightful sense of humor you have! Chuckled over your fixation on ice cream on I Am a Reader’s blog.
Sounds like everyone had fun! Good for you…and the children, too!
Sounds like everyone had fun! Good for you…and the children, too!
That sounds awesome. I would’ve loved having someone come in my class like that when I was little. I’d actually probably still love it now in University 🙂
That is pretty interesting that no one picked ‘Kelsey is happy.’
Maybe they found all the other sentences more interesting, or even easier to write about. I know when I was smaller I’m pretty sure I didn’t know any synonyms for happy, so maybe they just didn’t know how to express it other than the original sentence…if that makes any sense 😛 lol
I bet you inspired some future authors right there though. Fun exercises like that make you love english class. 🙂
To bad you couldn’t sing…that would’ve been wicked 😉 lol
That sounds awesome. I would’ve loved having someone come in my class like that when I was little. I’d actually probably still love it now in University 🙂
That is pretty interesting that no one picked ‘Kelsey is happy.’
Maybe they found all the other sentences more interesting, or even easier to write about. I know when I was smaller I’m pretty sure I didn’t know any synonyms for happy, so maybe they just didn’t know how to express it other than the original sentence…if that makes any sense 😛 lol
I bet you inspired some future authors right there though. Fun exercises like that make you love english class. 🙂
To bad you couldn’t sing…that would’ve been wicked 😉 lol
Aw, shucks. This makes me miss teaching 8th grade creative writing. A lot. I bet you were awesome.
Aw, shucks. This makes me miss teaching 8th grade creative writing. A lot. I bet you were awesome.