MEMOIR OR BIOGRAPHY?
One of the most common ways to take real life experiences and turn them into stories or books is to tell the stories of our own life. In this episode, we talk about the difference between a memoir and an autobiography and how to decide which one might be best for telling the story you want to tell.
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BEING INSPIRED BY EVERYDAY OBJECTS
It's human nature to become attached to things. We connect specific memories to objects: when we received it, who we received it from, how we've used it. Also, objects are wonderfully concrete and specific, we feel the weight of them in our hands and see the effects of age on the object. As a result, objects can also make wonderful story and poetry starters.
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CREATING CHARACTERS INSPIRED BY REAL LIFE
One way to find great characters is to look in the world around you. This seems relatively simple but may actually be harder than it sounds. Why? Because the key to creating vivid characters is writing them objectively and letting the reader draw their own conclusions.
What does it mean to be objective when writing about your characters? In this episode, we work through an ICL exercise to help you see the world, and the characters in it, more objectively.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH JERRY CRAFT
JERRY CRAFT is an author and illustrator who has worked on numerous picture books, graphic novels, and middle grade novels. His newest book, New Kid, is a middle grade graphic novel that has earned four starred reviews, including one from Booklist Magazine that called it "Possibly one of the most important graphic novels of the year."
We talk about:
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