Middle School Adventures in Novel Writing, Day 1
Boxing our Inner Critics
“Are you my club?” I asked, smiling as I walked into the classroom at Alta Vista School.
Five middle school boys looked up at me expectantly, “Yes!”
“And it’s all boys!” Quertynorris* exclaimed. He was the sole boy in my club last year, along with 12 girls.
“It is all boys!” I responded. “Can I be an honorary member of the boys club?”
They agreed, without hesitation.
The boys are scattered around the room. “How many of you have done Improv, or know what it is?” I asked. Five hands raised. “We’re going to start with some Improv games, because you know each others’ names, but with the exception of Quertynorris, I don’t know yours.”
We played one of my favorite games to start, Name and Signature Movement, where each person says their name accompanied by a physical movement. I jumped and said “Julie!” My club mirrored Julie and the jump back to me. We continued around the circle, until I knew all their names.
We played a few more games, which I hoped would reduce some of the restless post-school energy, then sat down at one table in the room while I passed out workbooks. We took turns reading aloud sentences from intro page of the workbook, then turned to the Inner Editor Containment Button page.
We talked about our inner editors and inner critics. All of us acknowledged the existence of this non-helpful being. I took out blank pieces of paper and packs of markers.
“Let’s draw the boxes where we’ll put our inner critics for the month of November.” Five pairs of eyes looked at me, startled and happy, then started drawing immediately.
“Now, write what your inner critic says to you on this page,” I said, offering, “mine tells me ‘You suck at writing! Go wash dishes instead!’” They laughed, and had no trouble writing the caustic words their inner critics say.
“You suck.”
“$&^%@”
“You can’t do this. You’ll never get this. Just give up now. You got _____ wrong. You misspelled ______.”
“What is this?”
“It doesn’t look good! I hate it! Delete it! Stop! Give up!”
I got tears in my eyes as I heard these all too familiar words. Our inner critics share the same caustic dialogue. I asked my boys (because they’ve become “my boys” already) to hand me their drawings, and I put them in a manila envelope. “Draw a trash can on it!” McMuffins exclaimed.
While I had all their attention for a fleeting moment I said, “Now, on the Inner Editor page in your book, write what you are going to tell your Inner Editor when they rear their head during the month of November.”
“Go back to your box!” I wrote on my page.
We moved to the next page in the workbook, choosing a book we like or have read recently. The chatter diverged quickly into what we’re writing.
“I’m going to write fan fiction,” Penguinstar said. “Is that allowed?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. With NaNoWriMo, I say yes to practically everything, with abundant enthusiasm.
“I don’t know what I’m going to write yet,” Silver Knight shared, concerned.
“Neither do I,” I smiled, conspiratorially. His shoulders dropped a centimeter as he relaxed and smiled back.
The cross-chatter grew as we talked about characters, and central conflict.
I anticipated that chaos was around the corner, and appreciated the efficiency of teachers maintaining control over their classes. I offered, “Who has read the Percy Jackson series?” Six hands shot up, including mine. I guided the conversation to this series we share. “Who are the main characters? Who are the villains?”
We chatted for a minute or two before the question appears:
“When can we start writing?” more than one boy asked. “If we don’t want to be part of NaNoWriMo, can we start writing now?”
“Why did we start the club in October if the event starts in November?”
These are hard questions for me to answer — do we start writing now, or do I honor the NaNoWriMo challenge start date? Do I share that we’re doing this now to prepare? I don’t have them start writing now, but file that away for next time. They want to write. They are excited to write. This is fabulous.
I felt their restlessness increasing, “Who’s hungry?” I offered, pulling out bags of snacks. “Me, me, me!”
“Thank you for bringing snacks!” more than one boy told me. Score, I think, next week I’ll bring more snacks.
I shifted back to Improv games, looking at the list I wrote for ideas.
“We’re going to play a game, where we each say a boy’s name, in alphabetical order, going around in a circle. I’ll start. Abe.” Then I looked at the boy on my left. “Feel free to make up a name!”
We repeated with girls’ names, which was harder for them. Then we took 30 seconds to write down all the names we could think of on the inside cover of their workbook.
We shared our list of names, rapidly. One boy said one of his names was profane, but was so excited to share it I said, “You can whisper it.” I heard two syllables, one of them is the “s” word. I laughed on the inside.
“Now you have a list of names to pull from when you’re writing,” I said. I could feel the energy getting more restless. “Let’s stand up and do another Improv game.”
We played a few rounds of One Word At A Time Story, but it wasn’t interactive enough for this crowd. I shifted to Dress Your Partner, and chose partners. “Now, imagine your partner is in a costume; describe the costume to them.” I went first, dressing my partner in shining silver knight’s armor. My partner, Penguinstar, dressed me in a bee keepers suit, chased by killer bees.
We each took 15 seconds to speak as our characters.
We’re out of time — incredulously. 90 minutes flew by faster than I imagined.
“We didn’t do much writing today,” one boy said, “we just did a bunch of Improv games.”
I didn’t share my vision in weaving novel writing and Improv games is because I feel there is an intrinsic connection between the live creation of stories in Improv and they dynamic story creation of NaNoWriMo on the page. That I am convinced Improv games will fuel us with ideas, especially in mid-November when the challenge can become challenging. It is my secret weapon to get our writing un-stuck.
*My boys chose the name they want me to use on this blog, except Silver Knight, which I chose for him.
