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JOIN US IN EXPLORING OTHERS' CRAFT AND BUILDING OUR OWN
Kristi Wright shares highlights from the latest season of the KidLit Craft podcast and its focus on theme in Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis.
This season, Erin Nuttall and Anne-Marie Strohman are diving deep into Kayvion Lewis’s YA novel Thieves’ Gambit.
The story that I hadn’t been ready to tell for the first edition, became my guide for the second. The question was, where to begin? The first edition was like a locked house—I needed to find a way in, rearrange the furniture, and tear down some walls without burning the house down.
I have been in critique groups on and off for most of my career. I’m here to tell you that they can be wildly helpful and bracingly unhelpful–the trick is how to make them work for you.
In this second part of our interview with Martine Leavitt, the author of Buffalo Flats, she tells us about the mountains that inspire her, how to put emotion on the page, what the heck an objective correlative is, and much more, including what she’s working on now. Links: KidLit Craft website Martine Leavitt’s Buffalo Flats […]
Today we’re focusing on the main character, Rebecca’s external desire, the obstacles that get in the way, and what will happen if she doesn’t get that desire.
Episode 13: Martine Interview, Part 1 In this episode, we interview Martine Leavitt herself! She talks to us about her inspiration for Buffalo Flats, the painful process of writing it, and her secret to sticking with writing when it’s hard. Martine had so much wisdom to share that we split the interview into two […]
We’re here today to tell you that we are going to be taking a little break over the holidays and partly that’s because there are holidays, and partly it’s to give you a chance to read Buffalo Flats if you want to, before we get to the episodes where there are spoilers.
First chapters have a really tricky job. They introduce readers to a character in their world, they set up what’s going to come after that, and the best ones have forward movement in them. It’s not just a plain description telling you the state of the world. Something’s actually happening in the first chapter. And I would put the first chapter of Buffalo Flats in this best ones category.
This is a perfect book. I just really wanted to tear it apart, use it to help me figure out how to make my own writing better. I think anyone who wants to write better any type of writing actually and while it will definitely be focused on kids, and this is a YA novel, I think if you want to be a better writer period, there are things to learn from Martine.
