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My son (8) wants to be an author and asked if we can start writing a story together

SciSarahTops

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Very cute, but I'd love some guidelines about creative writing for young children that I can work with. I want to inspire and guide rather than dictate what we write about.

Love to hear about any resources you've found please.
 

Brightdreamer

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Check your local library. There are books on writing for every age, from picture book on up. (Gail Carson Levine does a fun, exercise-filled one, Writing Magic, and there's another by two children's book authors called Spilling Ink - Ann Mazer and Ellen Potter. Also, if he likes sillier tales, there's actually a fair bit of writing information in Pseudonymous Bosch's Write This Book: A Do-it-Yourself Mystery. Technically, that one's an unofficial part of his Secret series, but I read it alone and it worked fine, and as a bonus he demonstrates how the same story can be told in three different genres... plus there are several bits that those of us who are older and have more experience with writing and procrastination may find funnier than kids.)

Consider starting reading with him as a writer - preferably stories he's already read and enjoyed, so it doesn't interrupt the flow. Show him the parts: here's where you meet the main character, here's her goal, here's where things go wrong, notice how it makes things more interesting when things go wrong than when they go right all the time, short sentences vs long sentences, etc.

And for a real-life adult/child collaboration that made it to press, look at Zizou Corder's Lionboy.
 

Chris P

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My biggest word of advice: HAVE FUN!!!!!!

When the middle child was 11 she got interested in writing. Amazing father/daughter time even if we never actually finished a single story. She's hard headed and independent like me, even if she's not bio-mine, so trying to be wise old teacher rule monger dude was not going to work. The trick, and the fun part, was to let her run with whatever idea she had until she asked for help. Leading questions were great, such as "So what did the main character's sister think of that?" "Did she have a dog? What did the dog do when the ghost walked in?"
 

BenPanced

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Jeff Kinney, creator of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, released The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book (an earlier edition is Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book), which has fill-in-the-blank writing exercises for things such as "Have You Ever...", "Five Things Nobody Knows About You BECAUSE THEY NEVER BOTHERED TO ASK", "The Biggest Mistakes You've Made So Far", and even comic strips to complete. The second half of the book is blank so kids can write their own story, even providing space to design a cover.

NaNoWriMo also has a Young Writers Program so under-18s can participate during November. They have a section on age-appropriate resources for kids and educators, which offers workbooks on things like plot, character development, setting, etc. The workbooks are available for purchase in hard copy but downloadable PDFs are free (registration is free but isn't required to obtain the workbooks).
 

Snowstorm

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Your post reminds me of a writers group I belonged to in our tiny mountain town. We decided, as a fun project and an exercise in creativity, to write a novel together. We didn't collaborate, but instead, one member started a story all on her own, a surprisingly serious story of a kidnapped woman tossed into a dark basement. She passed on that first short chapter to a second member. At the next meeting, we learned what she did with the story, which was passed on to a third member. We never gave the next writer any direction. Each writer could take that story wherever they wanted.

When we first started our little writers group, we met once a month. After a few months of this project, we were so excited to see what would happen in the next installment, we changed to every other week! We worked this story for months. In the very beginning, the piece was limited to one page. Quickly, we tossed that requirement and just let the writer write, however many pages it went.

The twists and turns the story took were dramatic. Once, for my chapter, I continued the vein of the story and wrote that our female sheriff's deputy, despite being poisoned herself, saved the lives of three women. My chapter ended with the deputy deathly ill. The next installment he killed her off! I bawled. That was years ago and I'm still mad!

Our creativity blossomed and it taught us to pay attention to the previously facts of the story and how to write our own installments to keep the story going with a common sense and exciting narrative.

This could be a great joint and bonding project between you two and really work the creativity and to learn how to study and write a story arc. Perhaps he can kick off the first chapter, with you taking the second.
 

neandermagnon

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My 8 yr old is writing a story on her laptop (in Word). It's about a child who turns into a wolf. I'm encouraging her, nothing more, in terms of input at this age. She's also written "books" aka folded a few sheets of paper in half, stapled them together at the fold and written her story on the pages, and drawn pictures.

Ask him what help he wants from you. He might already have some great ideas of what to write and how the two of you will work together - go with that. One possibility is letting him tell you the story and you write (or type) it down if he doesn't want to write it down himself - kids this age may find the process of writing the words laborious and it gets in the way of them thinking about the story. Don't worry about things like plot or structure just let him tell the story. If he's got no idea how to begin, have him start by drawing the main character and telling you about the main character. (You can use prompts to get him to make one up if he hasn't already, e.g. "is the main character a human?" "what does the main character like to do?") He might prefer to write a story about a character he likes from TV or a book.

The BBC does a 500 words story competition for kids every year and they have a lot of resources for helping kids to plan their 500 word story. It's done by BBC radio 2 and is called "500 words" - not sure if they will have resources up on their site at present because it runs later in the year.

My school teacher when I was 7 used to say "a story has a beginning, a middle and an end" and that was it in terms of structure. She would do writing prompts for creative writing exercises in class, such as a picture and some questions to think about or a sentence to start us off. She had a box of writing prompts that we could go to if she told us to write a story but we couldn't think what to write. I didn't use to use the box all that much because I had my own ideas.

One teacher when I was 8 gave us a prompt "I woke up one morning and found I'd turned into a..." which I remember because she got angry with me because I had chosen an non-human object for my story and not an animal. Which is a bit stupid if you ask me (then and now) - don't do this of course! (I'm sure you wouldn't.) Let your child's imagination run free. (ETA: it's still a great prompt though)

You'll probably find that his teacher in school has done creative writing with the class already so you can ask him what he learned at school and go from there (if he's stuck), but encourage him to just be free with his imagination and not tied down to unnecessary rules. Teaching rules too early can stifle creativity, but some teachers do this anyway. There's loads of time to learn rules and publishing guidelines in the future. Help them if they get stuck ("what happens next?" "how does the story end?")
 
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mccardey

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I'd be re-thinking this. One thing if you and the child like writing stories together for fun, but if it's because an 8-year-old Wants To Be An Author, I'd think the very, very best thing you could do is read books with, discuss books with, read poems with, discuss poems with, read plays with, discuss plays with the child. Also articles and short stories. An author is a one-person thing (and very rarely an 8-year-old thing, although hello Daisy Ashford, who was 9 when she wrote one of my fave books ever.) If your child wants to write (not unusual for bookish 8-year-olds) I'd still be inclined to step a long long way away from too much hands-on, and just help by introducing other books and writers and the whole idea of critique. If your child is wanting to share your enjoyment of books and writing that's wonderful - and the same advice would apply. Just my 2c worth

ETA: it's worth more than 2c, though.
 
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SciSarahTops

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Wow, I knew I would be getting some prime advice here but this is more than I could have hoped for. Lovely to hear some of your experiences helping children, and about the many resources avaliable out there.

macardey, I think the "I want to be an author" bit was misleading on my part since he also wants to be a pilot, an artist, a scientist, a teacher and any other wild and wonderful thing that he thinks of. Also if people ask he says "I don't know yet." (Yes Son!)

I don't it's a career plan rather an ambition "I want to author a book". We already read novels together and discuss the stories (but not articles, or short stories and rarely poems) but what I don't want to be is overbearing -or- even too enthusiastic (he's 8 going on 18 and full of eye rolls).

He is very clear that he wants us to colloborate on something, he has specifically asked for us to work together. I've told him we can when we've finished our bedtime read (mainly to buy myself time t work out how to do this!)

ChrisP I think you've hit the nail on the head, it does need to be fun. Neander, I love the advice of asking him where he wants to start and what help he needs. He's computer literate to a point. And it may all fizzle out to nothing but I can at least try and start well.

Thank you all, it means so much to have your advice!
 

mccardey

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I think the "I want to be an author" bit was misleading on my part since he also wants to be a pilot, an artist, a scientist, a teacher and any other wild and wonderful thing that he thinks of. Also if people ask he says "I don't know yet."
Oh god, he sounds gorgeous :)
 

Jason

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Heh, at the ripe young age of 48, I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, so this is a healthy attitude he has. I think the advice here has been wonderful, and my only thought was to emphasize the "fun" part more than anything. The minute people at any age see that there's actual "work" involved, the interest level wanes considerably faster.

My only independent thought here was to maybe say something like:

"Hey, why don't you pick the start of teh story and write until your thoughts are on paper. Then, I'll pick it up and add a few sentences to see where things go from there. " That way you're letting the child go hog wild, while also helping them before any serious writers block kicks in. I'd also guess that younger authors tend to get less blocks as their minds are constantly absorbing new ideas and perspectives of the world. Don't worry about edits either (which I think someone already said), and just go hog wild with him.

It is supposed to be fun ya know! :)
 

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It's funny. I wanted to write at eight too. It wasn't until I was in high-school that I realized I didn't have to be a grown up with a fancy degree to write the novels in my head. Duh.


So I'm glad your kid figured it out. Have fun with this.
 

rwm4768

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It might be fun to bounce some ideas off him too. Kids always seem to have a lot more creativity than most adults. Some of the ideas might be completely out there, but let him have some fun with the project.