Write Small : Reveal your ideas through specific details to make them come alive. Example:

1. Crafting Your Story • Write Small: • Reveal your ideas through specific details to make them come alive. • Example: • The day I moved to Ohio, my best friend Greg gave me some weird stuff he collected. • The day I moved to Ohio, my best friend Greg gave me his prize collection of decapitated piñatas.

2. Crafting Your Story • What about the details you can’t remember? • Don’t try to alter the main idea • Add realistic details that you can’t remember

3. Crafting Your Story • Invigorate Your Verbs: • Avoid over-writing sentences using too many adjectives. • It’s not the adjectives and adverbs that make vibrant writing, its VERBS. • NOUNS create pictures, VERBS make them move

4. Invigorate Your Verbs Example: On August 19, at five AM, my dad got me out of bed to go deep-sea fishing. I didn’t want to go (I don’t like anything nautical) but he asked me nonstop until finally I said okay. After all, it was his fiftieth birthday. The wind was making a small chop, and a series of small waves hit the bow of our boat as we went toward Georges Bank, where the big fish are.

5. Invigorate Your Verbs Example: Notice what happens when the verbs are upgraded: On August 19, at five AM, my dad dragged me out of bed to go deep-sea fishing. I didn’t want to go (I detest anything nautical) but he badgered me nonstop until finally I caved in. After all, it was his fiftieth birthday. The wind had kicked up a small chop, and a series of small waves spanked the bow of our boat as we steamed toward Georges Bank, where the big fish roam.

6. Crafting Your Story • Create Your Characters: • Must be interesting characters to engage readers • Built-In Danger: • Because your characters are familiar to you, you might get lazy– don’t assume your readers know them too. • Actively create characters as if you were writing fictional • Use dialogue, gesture, telling details

7. Crafting Your Story • Wake Up Your Narrator: • YOU are the most important character! • VOICE- try to write the way you speak • Dual Role- telling and reflecting • Essential for readers to see you doing: • Reacting to Events • Expressing Emotion • Interacting with Others • Balance writing with “outside story” (what you do) and “inside story”: (how you feel) (example Pg. 53)

8. Interview with Jerry Spinelli Page 57

9. Start Drafting Ideas • Select most important ideas • Beginning: • Introduce idea • Include people and setting • Middle: • Describe idea using descriptive details • Include dialogue • Make importance to you obvious • End: • Conclude with outcome and importance to you • Present your feeling about the incident/idea

10. Writer’s Notebooks 3/18/2010 • Pick 1 of your family stories and write a detailed paragraph retelling the story.