This post is based on my personal notes while taking the InkVoices course. All videos, power points, and other material from the class are purposefully left out to preserve course privacy. A couple months ago, I was scrolling through the social media and I found a post about about a verse novel intensive course. I stopped in my tracks. (eeeerrrr!) Verse novel? That's what I'm writing right now. Taught by Rajani LaRocca and Chris Baron? I've read their books. Great! I signed up right away... Who is Rajani LaRocca? She is a talented MG (Middle Grade) and PB (Picture Book) author. Most notably, she wrote the award winning Red, White, and Whole, a verse novel about balancing life as an Indian American and finding solace in a family member's illness. I liked her book because of the running metaphor (blood) throughout the book, but also because of the simple and beautiful poetry throughout. Who is Chris Baron? He is also a talented MG (Middle Grade) author and poet. He wrote All of me, a verse novel about teen weight and learning to accept yourself. He also wrote, The Magical Imperfect, which is another verse novel about a boy who is selectively mute and a girl who won't leave her house because of a skin condition. I enjoyed both of his books and recommend you read them, too! What was the intensive course? The intensive course was online. There were two live-online workshops, weekly activities, and included two or more bonus "office hours" where participants could ask questions either before or during times the two authors were available. There were also opportunities to post your own poetry, based on the activities within the course, and ways to critique and meet with other poets and writes of verse novels. Totally worth it! Workshop 1: Writing a Verse Novel by Rajani LaRocca The first live (and recorded) workshop was about verse novels in general and how to write them. For the record--- because I asked--- you can say in "Novels in Verse (NIV)" or "verse novels." Both are acceptable in the community, although I've noticed verse novel more often. That might just be me, though! We reviewed some "basic" poetry terms, such as
We also talked about how poetry is like music! We have:
How do you write a verse novel? This is something we talked a lot about in Rajani's workshop, in the course, and during the office hours. A verse novel, a story told in a collection of poems, can be drafted in a lot of different ways. In general, though, writing a verse novel is like writing any other genre. You need a character. You need a conflict. So, brainstorming and developing setting, background, etc. are important to the process. For Rajani, she said she had a metaphor (blood), and wasn't sure how to make it into a story, so she wrote a bunch of poems until she found her voice. I loved when she talked about having a "key defining poem," or a keystone poem that helps you see the heart of your story. This can be especially useful if you end up drafting poems "out of order." Workshop 2: Revising a Verse Novel by Chris Baron The second live session was taught by Chris. He talked about revising, and one of the things I liked that he talked about was--- in response to the question about how to begin revising--- he said that most of us have already begun. We know we're supposed to revise after drafting, but he says, "how do you not?" revise as you go? So, yes, we need to write without revising, but there may be a bit of revising along the way. Finding our "Why" He also talked about finding our purpose for why we wrote our stories that we're revising. Understanding our why can help us home in on our themes or messages we were hoping to share but didn't know we were saying them while we were drafting. Common Revision Techniques Chris also gave a list of techniques we can try as we revise our verse novels, things like:
Looking at the "big picture" and "ask big questions" I think the advice he gave in this section is useful no matter what you're writing. Looking at the big picture and asking big questions means deciding if
Making hard decisions Chris says he's often asked about how to cut or how to make the hard decisions about what can stay, what needs to go, and what needs to be added. He says for All of Me, he had drafted 70,000 words, which is ridiculously long for this genre! He had to make hard cuts. Of course, talking to critique partners, his agent, and other trusting people helped him make a lot of those hard decisions, but ultimately, he had to do them himself. He had to make the cuts. For his second book, The Magical Imperfect, he said he had (almost) the opposite problem. He had to add in. Basically, every manuscript is different. You need to ask the big questions and make the tough calls. It's the only way your story will get to where it needs to be. Final thoughts on the course
I'm glad I registered and took this course! Yes, there was a bit of time involved, not only watching the workshops and doing the activities, but I feel like my confidence in finishing my verse novel is growing. In fact, I feel like I'm on fire! I wonder if I really can finish before the end of the year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |