Yesterday we announced the Alphabet Soup Creativity Award—for outstanding work published in Alphabet Soup magazine in 2012. Today we welcome Dee White to share some ideas for what to write about, and to tell us about the prize she has donated for the winner in the Most Outstanding Story category.
Over to Dee!
A House Can Tell A Story
There are so many potential stories hidden inside your home.
You just have to use your imagination and look for them.
- What if you opened a drawer and found a secret letter hidden there?
- What if something in your house came to life and started chasing you or wanted to be your friend?
- What if your house could talk and told you a story about the people who used to live there before you did?
- What if your house got blown away like Dorothy’s in The Wizard of Oz and you ended up somewhere completely different?
- What if there was a treasure chest hidden in your garden?
- What if there was a secret compartment in the wall of your bedroom and it led to another world?
One of my favourite things to do when I can’t think what to write about is to look around a room in my house and pick an object. It could be a wall, a door, a light switch, anything.
Next I imagine what it would be like to be that object sitting there day after day. I think about what that object can see and do and how it might feel. Then I write a piece about it.
It’s fun to do this with a writing friend and see if they can guess which object in the room you are writing about.
This excerpt is from Dee’s new e-book, 10 Top Writing Tips For Kids: What to Write About.
Dee is donating a free copy of this book and one hour’s mentoring (a manuscript appraisal) to the winner of the Most Outstanding Story category of the 2012 Alphabet Soup Creativity Award.
THE MENTORING
Here’s how it works.
The winner will send a 500-word piece of writing to Dee. If it’s part of a longer story they’ll need to also send in a plot summary or information about what happens in the rest of the story. Dee will give tips on how to improve the piece of writing and the winner’s skills in general. She’ll also answer questions they might have about the piece or writing in general.
ABOUT 10 TOP WRITING TIPS FOR KIDS
Dee has written this series to encourage and inspire kids who love to write. 10 Top Writing Tips for Kids: What to Write About was released in November 2012.
Other books in the series coming in 2013 are:
- 10 Top Writing Tips For Kids – Heroes and Villains
- 10 Top Writing Tips For Kids – Want to Be a Writer?
- 10 Top Writing Tips For Kids – Make Your Writing Sparkle
More about the 10 Top Writing Tips books can be found at http://10topwritingtips.wordpress.com
—
ABOUT DEE
Dee White has worked as an advertising copywriter and journalist, but wanted to be an author from the time she was seven. Her first book for young adults, Letters to Leonardo, took more than ten years to research and write. Dee’s other titles include Hope for Hanna, A Duel of Words and Harry’s Goldfield Adventure.
Dee is passionate about encouraging young readers and writers, and her blogs Writing Classes for Kids and DeeScribe Writing are full of career and writing tips for students and new and emerging writers.
She runs writing workshops for primary and secondary students across Australia with sessions focusing on story ideas, plotting and character development. She also runs them online at Writing Classes for Kids.
She is honoured to be providing the prize for the inaugural Alphabet Soup Creativity Award, and hopes that it will help encourage young writers.
For more information on the 2012 Alphabet Soup Creativity Award, visit the Award page (there’s a tab at the top of this blog).
alphabetsoup.net.au 