Suck or Slap! How does your story start? by Kitty Griffin

Beginnings 

We know how important story starts are. If you can't catch them at the beginning------------you've already lost.

Continuing with our theme this month--beginnings, here are six story starts to ponder.  

It's time to eat some words. Chew them. Swallow them. Learn from them. See how they taste.

Might as well be award-winning words, right?

There are two ways to start a story. 

One. You can slowly draw the reader in. You can suck them in. Your words have to be powerful though. Don't bore them.

I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier

I am riding the bicycle and I am on Route 31 in Monument, Massachusetts, on my way to Rutterburg, Vermont, and I'm pedaling furiously because this is an old-fashioned bike, no speeds, no fenders, only the warped tires and the brakes that don't always work and the handlebars with cracked rubber grips to steer with. A plain bike--the kind my father rode as a kid years ago. It's cold as I pedal along, the wind like a snake slithering up my sleeves and into my jacket and my pants legs, too. But I keep pedaling. I keep pedaling. 

Has Robert Cormier hooked you? Has he pulled you in? 

Do you want to know what happens next?

Two. Ready for a slap? Some stories whomp you right upside the head. The author has no pity. You are drop-kicked right at the start.

What Jaime Saw by Carolyn Coman

When Jaime saw him throw the baby, saw Van throw the little baby, saw Van throw his little sister Nin, when Jaime saw Van throw his baby sister Nin, then they moved.

Ka-pow. That's a smash. I read that the author, Carolyn Coman, wanted to show how when someone is frightened that their words often come out in a repeating stammer.

Do you want to know what happened to the little baby, Nin? Would you keep reading?

Look at the next four openings and decide. Suck or slap? Which one appeals to you? Why?

 

The Goats by Brock Cole

     When he came back to the beach with wood for the fire Bryce grabbed him from behind. The firewood scattered, bouncing off his knees and shins.

     "Okay, Bryce," he said. "Cut it out." He tried to sound unafraid, even a little bored.

     Bryce pulled his elbows back until they were almost touching. The boy tried to look up at the other kids. They turned their faces away, squinting out over the lake or frowning up into the trees above the beach.

     "Hey," Bryce said. "Do I have to do everything?"

     For a moment no one moved, and then Murphy shrugged and knelt down heavily in front of the boy. He was frowning, as if he had to do something disagreeable.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

     There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife.

     The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. if it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately.

     The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by  Stephen Chbosky

August 25, 1991
Dear friend,
I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn't try to sleep with that person at the party even though you could have. Please don't try to figure out who she is because then you might figure out who I am, and I really don't want you to do that. I will call people by different names or generic names because I don't want you to find me.

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

     In the beginning there were thirty-six of them, thirty-six droplets of life so tiny that Eduardo could see them only under a microscope. He studied them anxiously in the darkened room.

     Water bubbled through tubes that snaked around the warm, humid walls. Air was sucked into growth chambers. A dull, red light shone on the faces of the workers as they watched their own arrays of little glass dishes. Each one contained a drop of life. 

   

There you have it. Six openings. Six notable books. 

Suck? Slap? 

Which one draws you in? 

How about your writing? Can you decide if your opening is a suck or a slap?

Beginnings. If yours doesn't drop-kick the reader in, if it doesn't hook them and pull them in then WHY NOT! 

 

Reluctant Readers and The Doodles of Sam Dibble

By Judy Press

In elementary school I was the class comedian. I had a short attention span and blurting out a funny comment was a great way to gain attention and distract from schoolwork. In high school I excelled in art and in college and graduate school I earned a degree in art education. I had found my true calling! Over the past twenty years I wrote twelve art activity books for Williamson Publishing (an imprint of Ideals Publications.)

Sam Dibble is a student much like myself. He struggles in school and at home. It’s Sam’s doodles that help him to thrive and succeed, in the same way I found art. The “Doodles of Sam Dibble” series is geared to ages six to ten. Sentences are short and easy to read, perfect for the reluctant reader.

When I submitted a hard copy of my manuscript I broke the cardinal rule to NEVER submit with illustrations. I rationalized that in my case it was okay since Michael Kline (mikey@dogfoose.com) had illustrated several of my art activity books and I felt his work was a perfect fit to convey Sam’s personality through his doodles. My gamble paid off and Penguin sent Michael a contract to illustrate all four books! Today is the official release day for the first two books in the series, here’s how you can find them: 

“The Doodles of Sam Dibble” can be found on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/The-Doodles-Sam-Dibble-1/dp/0448461072/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359035570&sr=8-1&keywords=the+doodles+of+sam+dibble) and on Barnes & Noble: (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-doodles-of-sam-dibble-1-j-press/1111945496)

Ta-Da! Presenting THE DOODLES OF SAM DIBBLE!

By Judy Press     I haven’t blogged in quite a while and I’ll tell you why. Last spring I received a call from Bonnie Bader, the executive editor at Grosset & Dunlap (Penguin Books For Young Readers.) It seems that a pre-pubescent associate editor (okay, she was a little older but this was her first job after graduating from college) pulled my manuscript from the slush pile. Convinced she had found a gem, she pitched it to Bonnie, who after getting the green light from acquisitions made her call and offered me a contract.   Here’s how I reacted while on the phone with Bonnie: I peed in my pants, laughed hysterically at anything she said, babbled about how I loved to doodle (a lie) and offered her my first born grandchild.   Now fast forward to January 2013 and here’s what has happened since: I have gained seven pounds, the name of my character was changed from “Ben” to “Sam,” I decided that writing is harder than giving birth and learned that a deadline is no joke.   How did I manage to get not one but four books published? The answer is simple: it was perseverance, timing and hard work. I pitched that sucker of a manuscript for five years and accumulated reams of rejections. I complained the whole time to my writers group (bless their hearts for putting up with me) and threatened to go back to my day job (which doesn’t exist.) But in the end it was sending out the very best version of my story (and believe me there were many) to the one publisher who was looking for a strong plot line, engaging main character and farts, burps and other kid-centric references thrown in for good measure.   So here they are: The Doodles of Sam Dibble. Books One and Two (Double Trouble) will be released Thursday, Jan. 24th. The third and fourth books in the series come out this summer. Am I proud of my accomplishment? You bet I am!!

 

Sarah Dessen is a Total Sweetheart

By Kelsey Ramaley

Sarah Dessen packed the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall on Friday night.

Hello writers!  My name is Kelsey Ramaley and on January 18th my mother Jenny and I attended a reading at the Carnegie Lecture Hall featuring YA author Sarah Dessen (Route 19 Writers Fran and Carol also attended!).  I am currently a senior studying at Penn State University but I hightailed it back to Pittsburgh when I heard that Sarah Dessen would be lecturing in Oakland. Throughout middle school, I tore through a number of Dessen’s books including “That Summer”, “This Lullaby”, and my personal favorite, “Dreamland”.  To me, Dessen presented books that were both relatable and intriguing and I admired her honest, “no fuss” writing style.  Her books were easy to read and yet at the same time, laced with subtle details that propelled forward some pretty heavy plot lines.  Upon entering the lecture, it was clear that about a hundred other college aged girls shared the same enthusiasm I did regarding Dessen’s books.  

Dessen gave about an hour long presentation, beginning with a brief lecture, followed by a reading from her latest book, “What Happened to Goodbye”, and finished with a Q&A session.  Dessen herself can be described as nothing less than a total sweetheart and a literary force to be reckoned with.  Throughout the lecture, Dessen touched on her approach to the writing process and advised young writers to “be disciplined” and make a clear effort to write for at least two hours every day.  She also explored topics such as managing social media as an author, literary inspiration, and publishing. 

My favorite part of the presentation was the Q&A session in which Dessen handled questions ranging from “Where do you come up with your characters names?” to “What advice do you have for young writers looking to be published?”.  At one point, a young audience member stood up and thanked Dessen for, “helping her survive high school”.  Dessen was an excellent presenter and it was wonderful to see her audience so engaged in her writing.  Dessen sold her first book in 1994, was first published in 1996 and continues to churn out successful books while maintaining a loyal fan base.  I am confident that every writer who attended her presentation left feeling excited and inspired about writing, I know I did. 

Two Delightful Books to Read to Two Delightful Children

This is Cecelia. She's very enthusiastic. We call her "Squeals" because she screams when she's happy. She screams when she's mad, sad, glad...yep, she's a loud one. But recently, and to her MaeMae's delight, she sits and listens to stories.

This is Arthur. When he isn't running he's hopping. Or jumping. Or rolling. Or squirming. He's Mr. BusyPants. But lately for his Mitzi (right, one calls me MaeMae, the other Mitzi--don't ask, because I don't know. I just go with the flow) he will sit and listen to stories.

     The day is coming when I'll be able to read a long story to them. So, I've started going through my collection and I'm putting special books aside.

     Here are two that are on the top of my list.

Tumtum & Nutmeg  Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall by Emily Bearn and illustrated by Nick Price

         
This lovely book comes to us from England. Rose Cottage is the setting for this charming collection of adventures that involve two very creative and caring mice and the two children they've decided to help.
     Here is how the first chapter ends--
     "The Nutmouses had been concerned about Arthur and Lucy for some time; and the colder the winter became, the more their concern grew. And there comes a point at which a concern grows so big that something has to be done about it."

   The gentle rhythm of Emily Bearn's writing and the delightful illustrations by Nick Price have so impressed me that this will be a book I read to my Arthur. I think he'll enjoy the daring mice and the creative ways they find to help the children. There's enough action to keep him interested and characters he'll want to know about.

     Here is where the mice have come together to rid the house of Aunt Ivy, a mean-spirited and dreadful woman who is making life miserable for the children.   

    " "A capital plan!" he said ebulliently. "We will overwhelm the enemy with numbers! We will conscript every mouse in the village who is young and fit enough to fight, and we will charge as one!" The General banged his stick on the table, feeling very pleased with himself. This might go down in the history books as his cleverest battle plan yet!"
 
   Adventure, friendship, battle plans, inventions...the list goes on. A grand book for my grandson.

The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz illustrated byAngela Barrett

     This book will be for my pirate ballerina screamer, Cecelia. She already loves fairies. She loves looking at pictures in fairy tales. She loves dressing up and wearing feather boas. Of course she will fall in love with little, tiny Flory. Cecelia will be captured by the first paragraph-- "Flory was a night fairy. She was born a little before midnight when the moon was full. For the rest of her life--and fairies can live hundreds of years--that hour, a little before midnight, would be the time when her magic was strongest." Oh my.
    This little book about a tiny fairy is ripe with beautiful imagery, transformations, and stunning illustrations. Can you tell I fell in love with it? As Flory changes from a rather selfish little thing, to someone who reaches out to help others I can just imagine Cecelia studying the pictures and asking me to re-read certain pages.
  Oh I can't wait!

New Beginnings - A Great Place to Start

by

Dave Amaditz

In keeping with our theme for the month of January, new beginnings - a great place to start, I want to give a few tips about something not usually associated with beginnings - revision.

Where do you start when it comes to revising your manuscript?

Your first draft, or possibly your fifth or sixth or more, is finally finished. Now, as some say, the real work begins. Here are a few suggestions, based on my own personal experience as well as things I've picked up through conferences and professional reading, that may help ease you into the process and make your final product better.

1) Hide your manuscript in a drawer and forget about it for a while, a week or longer, or as long as six months. When you look at it again, you will see it with a set of fresh eyes. You will notice things that need to be changed. Passages you once thought were fantastic might stand out to you as being from that of a beginner.

2) Give the manuscript to a trusted reader or two, individuals who can come at your story with a set of fresh eyes. Allow them to make comments, but more importantly, listen to what they have to say and don't be afraid to implement their suggestions.

3) Read your manuscript out loud. This will let you hear what your story really sounds like. It will let you catch so many more mistakes

4) This one is obviously tedious, but when trying to catch typographical errors, read the manuscript from ending to beginning. This will force you to read one word at a time instead of skimming over sentences or passages you assume are correct (be careful here for synonyms that might be spelled correctly, yet might not fit properly into the passage.)

5) Ask yourself when reading passages or scenes... does this really contribute to the overall theme of your manuscript? Does it have bearing on the plot? In these sections, you may have done some fantastic writing, and because of that are hesitant to put it on the chopping block. As one friend often reminds me, "Don't be afraid to kill your darlings."

6) If, when reading over your manuscript, you question whether a passage should be included, the answer is that more than likely it should not be. It could be that once again you are just hesitant to cut something that is really well-written.

I'm interested to hear some other tips on revising, as my approaches to revising are by no means the only way to do things. Or, if you use any of the approaches above, which ones do you use?

Meet Jan Scheuermann, A Writer Who Really Uses Her Head

It is with great pleasure that I share this post from a recent Baldwin-Whitehall Patch with all of you. Jan is my cousin and not only a storyteller, but an amazing story herself.  Though the article ran before Jan appeared on 60 Minutes this past December 30, all of the rest of the information is current and, well, amazing.

Editor Robert Edward Healy, III robert.healyiii@patch.com


Jan Scheuermann has killed more than 250 people—and gotten away with it. But that's not what makes her extraordinary.

No, it's Scheuermann's ability to move objects by using only her mind that makes her life so incredible.

OK, so neither of those statements are entirely true, but Scheuermann, 53—a south Baldwin Borough native, one-time Californian and current Whitehall Borough resident—is well on her way, at least with the mental capabilities. Though, she'd love to get back to killing soon.

You see: It used to be Scheuermann's ability as a fiction writer and murder-mystery-parties host that was her claim to fame, first in south Baldwin and then later in California. And she'd like to write some more. But whether she's ready or not, this 1977 graduate of the now-defunct Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Roman Catholic High School on Route 51 in Baldwin is making international news as the subject of a groundbreaking brain-computer interface study, the findings of which were recently published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

And very soon—perhaps Sunday—Scheuermann's study will be featured on an episode of CBS' "60 Minutes."

 ...

Truthfully, it's a robotic arm that Scheuermann has been using to move objects, but the amazing catch is that the arm is remote-controlled only by Scheuermann and only by her thinking of where she wants the arm to go.

Appearing at a feel-good press conference on Monday morning at UPMC Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh's West Oakland neighborhood, Scheuermann showed off her personality and her gift for storytelling by describing how "Hector"—the name that she gave the robot—allowed her to feed herself chocolate for the first time in 10 years.

Stationed alongside doctors and researchers from UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh as well as earlier research participant Tim Hemmes of Butler County, Scheuermann also explained how her disorder—spinocerebellar degeneration—which came onto her suddenly in the mid-1990s after she had started a family with her husband in California, does not define her.

As she told Monday's crowd at the start of the press conference through a pre-recorded video, "I've always said, 'Except for this walking thing, I'm in great health.'"

For fear of, frankly, dying far away from her Pittsburgh relatives, Scheuermann moved to a Whitehall home in the late '90s and has remained there since. And in an odd way, despite the disorder that has claimed the use of everything below her neck, she almost seems to have never been happier.

"I think I'm very blessed that this (study) came into my life," she said during Monday's conference. "In this role, to be able to give something to society—to science, to medicine—is very, very personally fulfilling. I feel like I get much more out of the study than the study gets out of me."

Scheuermann has also shown the ability to keep things in remarkable perspective. Before the press conference, she told WPXI's Jennifer Abney, "Some people are sadder people. Be a thankful person. I don't have my legs; I have my brain. I'd rather have my brain."

As part of the BCI study, UPMC neurosurgeon Elizabeth Tyler-Kabara, M.D., Ph.D., placed two quarter-inch, square electrode grids with 96 tiny contact points each in the regions of Scheuermann's brain that would normally control her right arm and right hand movement.

The electrode points pick up signals from individual neurons, and computer algorithms are used to identify the firing patterns associated with particular observed or imagined movements, such as raising or lowering one's arm and turning one's wrist, explained lead research investigator Jennifer Collinger, Ph.D., in a news release. That intent to move is then translated into actual movement of the robotic arm, which was developed by The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.

Two days after the electrode grids operation on Scheuermann, a UPMC research team hooked up a computer to two terminals that protrude from her skull.

"We could actually see the neurons fire on the computer screen when she thought about closing her hand," Dr. Collinger said in the release. "When she stopped, they stopped firing, so we thought, 'This is really going to work.'"

Within a week, Scheuermann could reach in and out, left and right, and up and down with "Hector," giving her three-dimensional control that had her high-fiving with the researchers.

Coincidentally but very fittingly, Scheuermann learned later that "Hector" means "to grasp."

"It just looked like a 'Hector' to me," she said with a sense of humor all her own.

Before three months had passed, Scheuermann added to her arsenal by flexing Hector's wrist back and forth, moving it from side to side, and rotating it clockwise and counterclockwise.

She was also able to grip objects, which led to the best moment for Scheuermann so far—feeding herself chocolate.

And that gripping, combined with everything else that Scheuermann has been able to help the research team to achieve, may lead to even better things for other quadraplegics.

"We are learning so much about how the brain controls motor activity, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our trial participants," senior investigator Michael Boninger, M.D., said in a news release. "Perhaps in five to 10 years, we will have a device that can be used in the day-to-day lives of people who are not able to use their own arms."

The next step for BCI technology will likely be a two-way electrode system that would not only capture the intention to move but also stimulate the brain to generate sensation, potentially allowing a user to adjust grip strength to firmly hold a doorknob or to gently cradle an egg.

After that, "We're hoping this can become a fully implanted, wireless system that people can actually use in their homes without our supervision," Collinger said. "It might even be possible to combine brain control with a device that directly stimulates muscles to restore movement of the individual's own limb."

As Scheuermann said after taking her memorable bite, "One small nibble for a woman, one giant bite for BCI."

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