Novel Study

Hi, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I just wanted to say that our grade 5/6 class is going to read your book Shiloh. I would also like to know how to create books, because I would like to know how to write books. I would really like to write books like you.

You start out writing short stories before you write books.  And a short story starts with a seed–an idea–something that happened to you, maybe, or that you heard or read about, or just a funny idea that came to you in the middle of the night.  You think about it some more.  Change it a little bit.  Make it happen to someone else.  Make it start differently.  Make it end differently.  Make it funny.  You just keep trying different clothes on your idea, changing, erasing, adding this and that, till finally you have an interesting character, an exciting or funny situation. you can hear that person talk in your head, and you revise your story again and again and again and again until you think it’s perfect.  And then you revise some more and let someone read it.