HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

I am busy celebrating with my family,
and I'm eating lots of these -->

so there will be no new posts for
a few weeks.

In the meantime, make one of my cookies come to life in a story!
If you need a lead, use mine:
Cam the snowman didn't want to be green.

WIT will return January 5th.
Get those pencils sharpened and be ready to WRITE.

MERRY, MERRY!
: )
N

I'm Interrupting Your Regularly Scheduled WIT...

Hey there,
I just want to take a minute to wish you a safe and very happy holiday season.
I also want to let you know I'm giving away books!

Dear Elementary School
TEACHERS!
PRINCIPALS!
LIBRARIANS!
MEDIA SPECIALISTS!

It's time for Nancy Viau's ROCKIN' NEW YEAR'S DAY GIVEAWAY!

Win 1 of 5 SAMANTHA HANSEN HAS ROCKS IN HER HEAD books.
To enter, send me an email via my WEBSITE. (http://www.nancyviau.com/) Tell me who you are, where you're from, and why you'd like to win.
EASY PEASY.
Open to teachers, principals, and librarians/media specialists in the USA.
Giveaway winners announced January 1, 2012.

LET'S ROCK THE NEW YEAR TOGETHER!

Aliens have Landed!

YOU are a newspaper reporter, and you are sent to write a feature about an alien who has landed on the school's playground.
YOU have to create an exciting lead (see last week's post) that offers up a summary of the story right away and immediately captures interest.
Tough to do? Yup.
GIVE-AWAY Leads or SUMMARY Leads--the kind reporters use--tell us up front what has happened. No guesswork, like in other leads. But Summary Leads can make your reader curious and dying for the details.

Try this:
*Answer the old Who, What, Where, When, and How questions. It's a way to involve your reader and get out important (alien) info briefly. Yes, briefly. WRITE TIGHT, as we writers like to say.

*Ditch all the extra stuff that doesn't matter in a news story. We don't need to know if Mrs. Fartsky gave out homework that day or Principal Purplelips yelled at a student.

*Delete or rewrite sentences that offer up your opinion, like:
I think...
I wonder if...
I bet he'd like...
Maybe he came from...

* Delete or rewrite sentences with personal pronouns ("we" or "he", etc.)

* Tell the whole story.

WRITE IT!

One Thing Leads to the Next

QUESTIONS:

You've got a great idea for a story, but...

1. how can you capture a reader's interest and

2. how can you KEEP that reader reading?

ANSWER:

You need good leads, or what I call GREAT Killer Hooks!

A great Killer Hook...

1. Gives the reader a hint about what kind of story follows. (Is it funny fiction, an essay, a historical novel, science fiction, fantasy?)
2. Doesn’t tell the reader too much at once.
3. Leads the reader to what comes next.
4. Suggests what’s to come. 
5. Keeps the reader wondering.
6.  Surprises the reader.
7. Appears at the beginning, end, or in the middle.

EXAMPLES:

It turns out I do have a talent—a talent for getting even. Tomorrow night That Kid will be very sorry he was mean to me.

SAMANTHA HANSEN HAS ROCKS IN HER HEAD by ME, Nancy Viau/novel

Where’s Papa going with that ax?

CHARLOTTE’S WEB by E. B. White/novel

I love being fancy.

FANCY NANCY by Jane O’Connor/picture book

Now, it's your turn. Really, really, reallllllly think about the sentences you are writing. Can you change a few words in those sentences to make them leads?