Writing Middle Grade: How to have your MG characters respond emotionally

Kids go through a lot of emotions as their world expands and they try to find their place in it. Sometimes it can feel like they’re being pulled between wanting the safe and known of home, and wanting the vastness of the universe.

Photo credit: gifbin.com
(Heehee! Get it? Being pulled between two things?)

So let's talk about the kinds of emotions that middle grade-aged kids face. These are the kinds of things you need to be aware of as far as your readers are concerned, and it's also something you need to be aware of to make your main characters as authentic as possible.

Emotions in Middle Grade Kids

• They have a strong sense of moral justice. (Which is why they feel so offended if everyone else their age gets a cell phone and they don’t.)
• They care deeply for things and people. (I've got a theory that says that's why 5th grade begins the age of drama. It's because they care so deeply about their friends, and feel the need to defend them on every. little. thing.)
• They like to do together activities, like clubs and team sports (and not just organized clubs-- many make up their own).
• They're not afraid to take a risk. (This doesn't necessarily mean jumping off a cliff or exploring somewhere dangerous / off limits. (Although it totally can. I've mentioned how big of a fan I am of jumping off a cliff, right? ;)). A risk can be things like daring to trust a new step-parent, to make the unpopular choice when  their friends aren't, or defending an unpopular friend.)
• They are intensely curious, and have a huge thirst for knowledge.
• They like to take action and get involved in things. They also have believable motives for why they do. They want the characters they read about to have believable motives, too.
• The why of things is extremely important. (That’s because they have transformed into reasoning explorers. They want things to logically make sense.)
• And something really important to remember:

Middle grade kids feel life is just so ordinary. What they wish
for MOST is for their life to be extraordinary.

photo credit: Malabooboo via photopin cc

So do what you can to give them that extraordinary-ness in the books you write for them. :)

Next Monday, I'll talk about what your main character needs to have middle grade readers root for them, which is SO. VERY. IMPORTANT.

Have a great week, everyone!

A Beneficial Misunderstanding

You guys have heard of The Bookshelf Muse, right? (If not, click on that link, then make a button for it on your browser's bar. Because holy great resource, Batman! Seriously. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it. Especially when you find your characters expressing emotion with the same body language ALL THE TIME. Not that I ever do that or anything....) Anyway, I am so excited to have the co-author of not only the Bookshelf Muse but also of the book THE EMOTION THESAURUS, Becca Puglisi, here to share her knowledge.

Take it away, Becca!

My daughter started Pre-K in August. I’m still adjusting, but she’s loving it and doing really well. She’s very peer-oriented, but she’s a little bossy and a lot opinionated, so I knew this year would be more of a social experiment for her than an academic one. I found this to be true when she came home a few days ago, upset that one of her friends had said she didn’t want to play with her.

I took the news well (WHAT LUNATIC TODDLER DOESN’T WANT TO PLAY WITH MY ANGEL??!) It was a sad little crisis, though not unexpected. Girls will be girls, especially at the ripe old age of four. But after talking it through, I realized that the other girl wasn’t saying she didn’t want to play at all; she was just tired of the game they’d been playing every day at recess for weeks—the reenactment of some story my daughter made up about two little bats being chased by a giant “comtagious” bat named Maleficent.

Like many creative geniuses, she clearly isn’t being recognized in her own time.

Once I’d ferreted the truth out of this tangle, we talked about how friends should share and take turns choosing what to play. And since then, the sun has returned to shine upon the toddlers of Room 30. It was just disappointing that my daughter’s feelings were hurt over a simple misunderstanding.

And that got me to thinking. Misunderstandings are the culprits behind a lot of our real life problems. As such, they’re perfect for our stories—an ideal vehicle for creating conflict, which leads to tension, which creates heightened emotion in both the character and the reader, which leads to awesomeness all over the page. So, while we want to avoid misunderstandings in real life, we should look for ways to develop them in our stories. Here are a few natural ways for misunderstandings to take place:

Things Not Said. In my opinion, this is the most common reason for communication mistakes. People either deliberately leave things out, or just don’t articulate their thoughts clearly and important information is lost. In Princess Academy, Miri is frustrated and hurt when her father won’t let her work in the quarry like the other girls. She assumes it’s because she’s weak and small and worthless in his eyes, so she doesn’t discover until she finally confronts him at the end of the story (*spoiler alert*) that her mother was killed in the quarry and he can’t bear the possibility of losing her, too. If Miri had brought this up earlier, that plot line would’ve come to an end, throwing the whole story out of whack. To maintain tension, don’t let your characters confront. Keep them assuming and stewing and simmering until the story’s climax, when everything is finally made clear.

Things Overheard. How often have you walked into the middle of a conversation and gotten confused about who or what was being discussed? This scenario can just as easily lead to misunderstandings on the part of your hero. When he jumps into a conversation, or overhears two friends talking without knowing the context, he’s left to make all kinds of assumptions—ones that can easily be incorrect. This is an easy way to frustrate your hero, build conflict between him and the other characters, and lead the reader astray.

Misinterpreted Actions. It’s been said that up to 95% of our interactions as humans are nonverbal, so a large part of communication involves interpreting the actions of others. When a person misreads these clues, it leads to problems. In Hate List, main character Valerie is as shocked and horrified as everyone else when her boyfriend opens fire in their school cafeteria. As she reviews the past year with Nick, she begins to see clues that she missed. Her flashbacks provide a great example of how one person can misread another’s actions, in this case, with devastating results. To ramp up the conflict in your story, make sure you include some clues about what’s really happening, but in such a way that they can be misinterpreted by others.

Misperceptions. So much of the conflict in our world is a result of misperceptions. People look a certain way, so we assume they are a certain way. Someone makes one bad decision and we jump to the conclusion that this is who they are. Prejudice, guilt by association—these things are a result of making snap judgments about someone’s character or personality. In The Wicked and the Just, when Cecily and her father move to Caernarvon in Wales, she assumes that all of the Welsh are uncivilized, untrustworthy, and ungrateful. This misperception leads to big-time trouble. As much as we don’t want to be prejudiced, to some degree, we are. Apply this common fault to your characters to create difficulties and give them room to grow.

So, apparently, misunderstandings can be beneficial. If you’re looking for ways to increase conflict or stretch out the tension over the course of a story, hopefully these tips will help.

BIO:

Becca Puglisi is one half of The Bookshelf Muse blogging duo, and co-author of TheEmotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression. Listing the body language, visceral reactions and thoughts associated with 75 different emotions, this brainstorming guide is a valuable tool for showing, not telling, emotion. The Emotion Thesaurus is available for purchase through Amazon, Barnes& Noble, iTunes, and Smashwords, and the PDF can be purchased directly from her blog.

Fabulous advice, isn't it? Thanks so much for joining us, Becca! 

So what about you guys? Have you used The Bookshelf Muse as resource before?

Cashing in on Emotion

You know how sometimes you write a scene that was SO FULL of emotion when you wrote it, but when you read it later (or when CPs / Beta Readers read it), there doesn't seem to be nearly the emotion you thought was there? I'm hanging out at Writing With Shelly and Chad today, talking about one of the ways to increase emotion. Come on over!

Also, I just found out that I'm up today on the fabulous blog, Ink and Angst, on a series called Gatecrashers, where several authors debuting in 2013 talk about crashing the publication gate.



And huge thanks to Patrick Stahl at Into the Ravenous Maw for the Fabulous Blog Ribbon Award!

G is for Great Writer!

This is my first time EVER posting on a Saturday. So what kinds of things do you post on a Saturday? Funny things, of course! I know this joke has been around forever (so long, in fact, it's near impossible to figure out who to credit for it), but it still makes me laugh a big hearty laugh every time. Here's hoping it will get a chuckle out of you, too, even if you have heard it before.

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer.

When asked to define great, he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

Happy weekend and Happy Easter! May all your eggs be colorful.



Also, huge thanks to Lyla Lee at Lyla Writes at for the One Lovely Blog award!

Quotes and Cookies: Unable to say

For those of you who asked to know how it went last night when I talked to Brandon Sanderson's class, it was awesome, surreal, and SO MUCH FUN. I want to go do it again today! But alas, it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime kinds of deals.

My writing group went with me, since that's where most of us first met. (We've been meeting together ever since Brandon put us together three years ago.) After I spoke, we found a table and benches in the lobby, and had our weekly critique group meeting. One of our members has since moved to another state, so he Skyped in. The volume on the computer has to be loud, so even those of us on the other side of the computer can hear, and we have to talk loud so he can hear.

I didn't think anything of our volume, though, because we were FOCUSED. Just like a good little writing group should be. Anyway, toward the end, someone came up to us and said, "Excuse me? Um.... What are you guys doing?"

"Oh. writer's group. We're critiquing each other's stuff."

He looked SO RELIEVED. "Oh! That makes so much sense! I was wondering why you guys were talking about whether you have enough motivation to assassinate people!"

It has already been etched in my brain under FAVORITE WRITING GROUP MEMORIES EVER. Good times. Good times.

And onto the quote!

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say,
but what we are unable to say."

~Anaïs Nin

Sometimes I'll write a scene that has a ton of emotion in it. I cry writing it. I think it might possibly have evoked more emotion than anything else I've ever written.

Then I walk away. Sometime later, after it's been long enough to forget everything I went through right along with the character, I read it again, and I don't get taken back to that same place! That place where I went with my character that made me swell with emotion. And I realize that I didn't capture those feelings. The things that most people are unable to say. The things that, as writers, we need to know how to say. Even if it's REALLY HARD.

And that's the trick, isn't it? To truly express the things even our characters were unable to say. No matter how many passes it takes for us to get it right.

Because it's still February and because I love Valentines cookies especially, more heart cookies! Go ahead and take one. They turn your tongue fun colors.

Photo credit: Delish.com

Have a fabulous weekend, everyone!

Quotes and Cookies: Unable to Say

There was a problem with this post, (I heart you, Blogger! Really. Even when you do crazy things.) so I had to repost it above, exactly the same. (If you had a way to move these comments to that post, I'd love you even more, Blogger. Just sayin.')