Teaching Young Writers the Power of Surprise

After penning a poem during the first session of the  Summer Writing Camp, dozens of students returned for more last Friday.

“This summer camp is really cool,” says South Pasadena Middle School student David Seo. “I get to see authors and work on my writing with them. It’s great because I feel secure with their advice because they’re professionals.”

Sandra Moore, a seventh grader at South Pasadena Middle School likes the program so much that this is her second time at camp.

“I’ve always wanted to be a writer,” she says. “And this camp is really fun. There’s no pressure to do anything perfect. Nothing’s graded and there’s no homework. You don’t have to write an essay. You can just be creative and that inspires you to do more.”

If the students returned to the camp in search of fun and spontaneity, they certainly came to the right place. This week’s guest author was Amy Goldman Koss, the author of several highly praised teen novels, including The Girls, which won the ALA Best Book for Young Adults award.

Goldman, a Glendale resident, likes surprises. You can tell that much when she turns up at the South Pasadena Library’s Summer Writing Camp wearing a bright green shirt with matching green fingernails.

“I never plan anything when I write a novel,” says Koss. “I just sit down at the computer and it all just flows out. I am always surprised by where the story goes and how it ends up. That’s a big part of why I do it—for the surprise.”

Koss told the campers that she believes the best creative writing happens when you send your characters on the “less predictable path.” To test out her thesis she gave the writing campers the following story assignment.

Life-Changing Moments

First, she told the students to put their character in a life-changing moment. For example, she suggested starting your story with a line like this one:

“One morning I woke up and discovered I had turned into a . . . ,” or “One afternoon, I turned the corner and . . . .”

Second, she urged students to jot down three possible endings for the story. Then out of those three choices, she asked everyone to select the fate that surprised the most. She grouped students into clusters of two or three and had them brainstorm what could possibly have happened in between the premise and the ending of their tales.

Then the writers sat down on their own and began constructing stories. At that point, the pencils began flying across the notepads and the air in the crackled with so much creative electricity you might have thought we were at the DWP instead of the library.

Sandra Moore came up with this short story:

I turned a corner and fell into a pit. Just my luck that I was walking in the national park of pits. I always did have rotten luck.

"Great," I snorted.

My hands scrabbled at the sides, which were slimy with mud and decaying plants. Above me, the sky blazed a brilliant blue that was quickly fading to pink as the sun set. Dinnertime, I thought. A bird peeked over the edge of the pit and let out a shrill, mocking cry.

"Shut up, you," I snarled.

My clothes grew tattered and muddy and my hands gashed from rocks and some of the nails broken and chipped from roots.

And I sat there, for another hour, until I felt something cold soak my clothes. Staring down, I saw water seep from the sides of the pits, muddy water, growing steadily.

As the water flowed in constantly, it carried me up to the top and I clambered over the side. Stars twinkled in the sky and I was wet, cold, muddy, hungry and miserable.

So when I got home, I was grounded.

Whoopee.

Several students stood up in front of the group and read their narratives,  and the storylines ranged from one scribe turning into a seriously distressed chipmunk to another who was chased by the paparazzi. Surprising? You bet.

Want to spin out your own wildly creative and deeply astonishing tale at home? Try these five terrific tips Koss offered to aspiring scribes:

• 1. Read. A lot.
• 2. Turn off the TV.
• 3. Even though books with predictable endings do get published, choose the unpredictable ending for your story.
• 4. Finish something – get all the way to the end.
• 5. Follow the Mosquito Rule of writing. If a story keeps buzzing in your head, waking you up and bothering you, get it down on paper.