NEWBERY MEDALIST JERRY CRAFT
This week, the American Library Association honored Jerry Craft with the Newbery Medal for his graphic novel NEW KID! To celebrate the first graphic novel to ever receive the Newbery, we're rebroadcasting our interview with Jerry from last year where he talked about his inspiration for the book and how he used real-life experiences to give authenticity to the story.
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A CHILDLIKE VOICE
Kids are far more discerning than many writers suspect. They know a "fake kid" when they hear one, so your dialogue must feel like real words spoken by a real kid. At the same time, it cannot include all the affectations (um, so like, um, what?) that might be part of real speech but would drag the story down. So how do you learn how to write real dialogue? Glad you asked. Here is a three-step process that will help you transform your dialogue.
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COMBATING THE BORING SPEECH TAG
Dialogue is the favorite part of story writing for many authors. In dialogue writing, the author is able to give voice to the people the author created. Tag we're going to dig into the bits that tag along with the dialogue: speech tags and narrative action. How important is that? And how varied? We'll be reading through examples so be sure to download this week's show notes here, so you can see the examples as you apply these techniques to your own work.
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INTERVIEW WITH KATE DICAMILLO
Kate DiCamillo's writing journey has been a truly remarkable one. She grew up in Florida and moved to Minnesota in her twenties, when homesickness and a bitter winter led her to write Because of Winn-Dixie—her first published novel, which became a runaway bestseller and snapped up a Newbery Honor. Since then, she has been a National Book Award finalist, won two Newbery Medals and was named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. She now has almost 30 million books in print worldwide.
In this interview, we dig into Kate's newest book Beverly, Right Here and talk about characterization through dialogue, including:
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REVISION: DON'T GO IT ALONE
When you’re about to begin revising a piece of writing, it can seem so daunting. So, today we bring you a rebroadcast of advice from author and IFW Guest Blogger Rita Reali. Rita's a freelance editor with advice on the importance of getting fresh eyes on your work before you revise.
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