Nope, not a LIFE lesson. A WRITING lesson.

You know how kids can teach adults life lessons? Well the other day, my nine year old daughter taught a pretty darn impressive WRITING lesson.

She wrote a story called, MOM? DAD? IS THAT YOU? The story is about a fourth grade girl whose parents died at the dinner table when she was five. Simultaneous brain tumors, apparently. She didn't have other family, so she went to live in an orphanage. She kept that fact a secret so kids wouldn't tease her.

One day, though, a mean kid found out and told everyone. The MC was upset and ran home to an empty orphanage. Not a soul in site. She was a little freaked, so when she heard the knocking on the door, she was fairly relieved. UNTIL she opened the door and saw a couple of zombies! They knocked her out, apparently right before everyone else arrived back at the orphanage. She awoke to orphan casualties abounding and the zombies closing in on her. In the midst of the literal fight of her life, she noticed a certain familiarity about the zombies. She said, "Mom? Dad? Is that you?"

Yes, apparently it was.

My daughter gets the concept that when a person gets turned into a creature such as a zombie, it's no longer that person. Still, though, I wondered at her choices. We get along great! But was there some kind of parental issue I was unaware of that made her choose to have her MC fight her parents? So I asked.

Me: I love it! Why were the zombies her parents, though? I've gotta say, I'm a little weirded out by that.

Her: [In such a logical, thought-out voice] Zombies are bad. If I had just put that they were any old zombies, WHO CARES if she has to fight them? It would be just like any other zombie story. If it's someone that she recognizes, it's harder for her, and makes my story have SO MUCH MORE CONFLICT.

Yes, those were her exact words.

So there you go. Writing advice from a 9 year old. Make things harder for your characters, and you'll add more conflict to your story. And possibly impress your mom beyond words at the same time.

Early Warning

My parents made us go to bed WAY too early.

Not that I blame them. There were six of us, and the brother just older than me and the one just younger than me were certifiable geniuses / mischievous / full of ideas and energy. I can’t think of many more exhausting-to-parent combinations.

Or one more interesting and fun! Because lemme tell you– my childhood was nothing if not interesting and fun.

So my parents sent us all to bed on weeknights at 8:00. Of course we couldn’t go to SLEEP then. We snuck outside in the snow barefooted to dance in the light of the dining room light where my parents sat working on their own projects, unable to see us through the mirror the window became. Or we snuck into each other’s rooms and created gadgets, or painted things, or played games. All in silence so we wouldn’t get caught. I mean we were GOOD.

But my parents would randomly check on us. When I was in fourth grade and my brother was in sixth, he created an “Early Warning System.” He ran electrical wire along the ceiling the full length of the long hall that lead to all of our rooms, and wired two lights above each of our doors, one red and one green. My brother’s room was right next to the stairs, so he was the first to know if my parents were coming. He'd flip the switch that changed the lights from green to red, and we’d all scramble to our own rooms and fake asleep. (We were good at that, too.) Sometimes he’d hear a creak at the top of the stairs and switch the lights to red and we’d scramble, but it turned out to be nothing— my parents weren’t actually coming. Most of the time, though, there weren’t false alarms.

As writers, we have our own early warning system! We usually call them critique groups or critique partners. When there are things that are going to get us in trouble, they’re the ones who are going to warn us. Sure, there can be false alarms! Especially if we submit to them chapter by chapter, with very much time in between submitting. But for the most part, a great group / partners will let us know that if we continue doing what we’re doing, it’s going to land us into trouble before the end.

My critique group? I consider them lifesavers. There are lots of ways groups can work. We submit a chapter a week and meet together, because that’s what works for us. There are so many times their comments on one chapter tell me I need to tweak the next chapter before I even send it to them.

I think critique groups are invaluable. Irreplaceable. Worth their weight in gold.

How do you feel about critiques? Do you welcome them? Fear them? Have a great group or partners? Wish you had different partners? But more importantly, how do you feel about mischievous geniuses?
.