A few short story collections from my bookshelf.

I have long been on a quest for the perfect short story anthology, some book I can point my students to and say: “this is the only short story book you’ll ever need.”  I’ve even tossed around the idea of someday putting an anthology together myself (a project which comes with its own host of problems, since I have a hard time narrowing down my list stories to something that could actually fit in a book.)  I may never find that “perfect” short story collection, but in the meantime it’s given me an excuse to sit in the anthology section of Barnes & Noble and page through many of them.

So far this week, we’ve heard why reading and writing short stories is important, and we’ve looked at the short story as a stand-alone piece of literature.  But what happens when we start putting different stories together?  Reading short stories as part of a whole can lend a new light on the individual stories themselves.

As I see it, there are two ways you can compile short stories: in anthologies or collections with stories by multiple authors, or in collections of stories by one individual author.  Within each of these categories, though, there is a lot of room for play, and that’s what I’d like to look at today.

Anthologies with Multiple Authors

In anthologies with multiple authors, you can have everything from a straight-forward compilation from the short story masters, to something based around a theme.  A classic example of the former, of course, would be the Best American series where each year a guest editor selects his or her favorite stories from publications across the country.

Personally, I happen to think the collections based around a theme are a lot more fun.  You see a lot of this in short story collections for the teen audience.  Zombies vs. Unicorns, for instance, addresses that all important question “Which is cooler, zombies or unicorns?”  Geektastic is filled with stories from some big name authors in the teen literature world and celebrates all facets of geekdom, from trekkies to band camp nerds.

The straight-forward-style anthology tends to consist of stories reprinted from another source, so the person compiling the anthology culls through existing pieces of writing that have already been published.  In the latter type–the anthology centered around a theme–it’s much more likely that these authors wrote their stories specifically for the anthology.  After all, who has random zombie or unicorn stories just lying around?  (Actually…)

In both types of anthologies, though, the strength lies in variety of the voices represented.  The beauty of these collections is that we can hear from authors with very different writing styles, and it’s the contrast and complementary relationship between the stories that lend the collection its artfulness.

Collections by One Author

Sooner or later, authors who write a lot of short stories will have enough to fill a book.  The question, of course, is how to choose which stories go in the book and how these stories relate to each other.  Of course, you can do a “Complete Works” type of collection, which is lovely if only for its completeness, but some writers like to get more creative than that.  Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino is a fabulous collection of stories, all tied together under this theme of a “comedy in the cosmic realm.”  In his collection Past Perfect, Present Tense Richard Peck groups his stories according to theme, lending structure to the collection that ties it all together.

Why Collections are Important

I’ve heard it said by people in the book business that short story collections don’t sell as well as novels.  I wonder, though, if there isn’t a way to turn this bias against short story collections on its head.  In some ways, short story collections can be far more versatile and valuable to a reader than a novel.  In the novel, there’s only one way to read the story: you start on page 1 and read to the end (OK, maybe if you’re reading Pale Fire by Nabokov, that might not be the case, but in most novels you read from start to finish).  In a short story collection, however, the order you read the stories can affect your view of the other stories around it, making it a different reading experience every time.

Maybe someday I will make that anthology and when I do, I know exactly how I’ll put it together: with multiple tracks where readers can choose different ways of reading the collected stories so that they can experience the stories in a new way each time.  Because it’s not just about the individual stories, it’s about how the stories relate to one another.

For the Master Class Series on Short Fiction, I knew right away who I needed to interview: Julie Duffy, the mastermind behind StoryADay. What is StoryADay?  It’s a month-long writing challenge where writers commit to writing–and finishing–one story every day for the month of May.  It’s also an awesome website, filled with daily prompts, forums and other goodies to help writers through the challenge.

And look!  It’s May 1st, the first day of the StoryADay challenge.  If you think you’re up for an intense and exhilarating writing challenge this month, head to the StoryADay website and sign-up.  But before you do that, here’s the video interview with Julie Duffy to tell you a little more about StoryADay.

In the interview, Julie tells us how the StoryADay challenge came about.  She also shares some stories about what it was like doing the challenge herself and techniques she used to find ideas for stories or to find time to write.  Just in case you don’t have time to watch the video right now, I pulled my three favorite tips that Julie shares in the interview.

1)  Don’t worry about running out of ideas.  You don’t have to hoard your ideas before the challenge, worried that you’ll “use them all up” and have none left for the month of May.

One of the best things I got out of the challenge was to learn that creativity feeds creativity.

2)  To do a challenge like this, you have to make writing a priority.  You may have to give some things up to do the challenge and you may have to make discriminating choices in how you use your free time.  But that’s OK.  After all, it’s only for a month.

Two things I would say I learned are to write first and to write fast.

3)  Ideas for stories are all around you.  Contrary to popular belief, hiding away in a cabin in the woods can actually be hazardous to your writing.  Going to work or taking the kids to school, while it may cut into writing time, also forces you to be out in the world and can help you spark ideas.

As you’re walking around every day, write down three story sparks…  You will find yourself starting to see things like that all the time.  I just encourage people to write them down when they see them.

What are you waiting for?  Head on over to the StoryADay site and join the challenge.  Just click the banner below and sign up.  Then let us know in the comments so we can cheer for you.  Write on!

Emma Komlos-Hrobsky was one of my very first friends at the MFA program I attended.  We served on the staff of the Writing Program literary magazine (LIT) together and I could tell right away from her comments while evaluating submissions that Emma had an eye for awesome fiction.  We both graduated in 2010 and Emma has since gone on to work at Tin House magazine, as an editorial assistant.  When it came time to line up the roster for the Master Class on Short Fiction, I knew I had to get Emma to guest post.  Without further ado, here’s Emma’s take on why short stories matter.

It felt serendipitous when Gabriela invited me to say a little about what we as writers can take from writing short stories because it’s a question I’ve been mulling over for many years now, and because the answer hasn’t always been clear to me.  Let me explain.

It is with some sheepishness I confess that I didn’t always know I what reading short stories had to offer me, let alone writing them.  The most immediate reason was that until college, I hadn’t met very many.  No one had ever introduced me, and the way I imagined them wasn’t particularly flattering.

At the great family reunion of literary forms, where Trade Paperback is the father-in-law manning the barbecue and Free Verse Poetry is the hippie aunt leading noncompetitive team building activities, I saw Short Story as the gangly teenage cousin camped out on the sidelines in an oversized sweatshirt, clearly pained by the thought of seeing and being seen by her family and doing a stellar job pretending to be engrossed in her Ursula LeGuin novel.  (That’s right–in this extended metaphor, books read other books!)

I wanted to like her.  I maybe even felt a little pity for her.  But I couldn’t quite bring myself to saddle over to the picnic table and say hello.  I wasn’t sure where she fit in.  Instead I stuck to the novels I already knew I loved, ones rich with characters and finely-charted worlds and masterfully drawn plots, all things I presumed would be diminished in the awkward Novel Lite I imagined the short story to be.

It wasn’t until a writing workshop with Steve Almond that I was introduced to the first short story I came to love, and that I now count amongst my best friends in the textual world.  The story was “The Barber’s Unhappiness” by George Saunders, and if you haven’t read it, there is nothing else you should be doing right now.  “The Barber’s Unhappiness” is everything I’ve ever wanted from a piece of writing.  The story is carried by the voice of the wildly, lovably, pathetically delusional barber.  Its writing spins and riffs with its language, doing the snarkiest kind of mimicry of the faulty way we think and speak.  And above all, it’s hilarious while it stomps all over your heart.

If I ever needed to be convinced that a short story could move me in the way that a novel did, this one did the job and then some—and it did it all in a miraculous 38 pages. (Okay, so not all that short, but a far cry from the 1,463 of Les Miserables I was also meting out to myself in 25 page dosages that semester.)  The rest of the short stories we read that fall, and the ones I started searching out on my own, and the ones I’ve loved since, confirm the particular magic of short fiction—its suckerpunch, the way can hold a saturation that a novel would struggle to sustain, the power of that much compressed energy and heat and smarts.

From the other side of an MFA, time served wading through the slush of four literary magazines, and a job that means spending most of my days blissfully marinating in short fiction—not to mention that short story manuscript tucked my proverbial top drawer—it’s strange now to think there was a time I wasn’t ever sold on the short story as a form.  Whether or not the short story is the genre that your work is ultimately going to take, it’s absolutely worth reading, and absolutely worth trying on for what it can teach you about craft.  In some capacities, they really aren’t so different from the awkward teenage cousin at the picnic, but in ways that turn out to be pretty great:

1) Short stories have short attention spans.  When you’re trying to build a piece of fiction in such a short burst of pages, there’s no room for treading water.  You have to know what your story is about, and you have to merciless about writing that and only that with those pages.  There’s more room to hide in novels; there may be more ways to obfuscate any authorial flailing in poetry.  But just like that sarcastic teenager, short stories will call your bluff here. There will be atmosphere, there’s scene-setting, sure—but with particular focus and a mind on the story’s trajectory forward.

2) Short stories are all about their hard-earned independence.  The best ones are scrappy and rebellious and sure of who they are, even if they can barely reach the gas pedal.  They pack a whole slice of a world onto a smallish piece of turf, and there’s an urgency in their need to let you into that world from which it’s impossible to turn.  This is that saturation I mentioned before.  Short stories want–need–to stand on their own, and that fills the best one’s every ounce, every line, with the essence of who they are.

3) Short stories have a lot of feelings.  And this is the thing about short stories that gets me about them in the end, again and again.  Short stories are driven by real people, real feelings.  We may only meet them in passing, but in that time, they show us what’s most essential about them, the passions and embarrassments and psychic wounds and fever dreams that drive them stumbling forward.  We get to know all their secrets. Then we realize they’re also ours.  You don’t have to be as nosy as I am to find this, to find the short story itself, irresistible—you just have to be human.

Emma Komlos-Hrobsky’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Hot Metal Bridge, The Splinter Generation, The Story Collider, Verbal Pyrotechnics, and Dreamboat Literary.  She received her MFA from the New School and was a finalist for the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers.  She currently serves as an editorial assistant at Tin House. 

This week’s prompt is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.  In fact, it’s pretty tough to do.  For one week, commit to writing every day.  Notice that there are no stipulations as to quantity or quality of the writing.  You can write as little or as much as you like, for as long as you like, and it doesn’t have to be that good either.  The important thing is that you’re writing.  Every day.  We’re not focusing on the product of your week’s work, we just care about the commitment you make to the process.  Whatever you write–long or short, good or bad–just make sure you write something.

Prompt: Write Something

Next week, write something every day.  It could be a poem or a short story or section of your work in progress.  It could be a to do list of all the things you want to write.  What you write doesn’t matter, what matters is that you write.

Some ground rules:

1. Social medial doesn’t count.  Let’s face it, we all fiddle around way too much on social media and then call it “writing” so for the purposes of this exercise, email and Twitter/Facebook/etc. don’t count.  As for everything else, anything goes.

2. Don’t judge, just write.  Don’t worry about quantity and definitely don’t fret over quality.  Just get the words down on the page as quickly as you can, then put it away and get on with your day.

3. Reserve your best time for writing.  We all have times of the day when we feel at the top of the world and other times when we drag along by sheer force of will.  Maybe you’re a morning person, and if so try to write first thing when you wake up.  If you’re a night owl, do your writing during those productive hours of the nighttime.  It may not always be possible to reserve your best time for writing, but try to do that whenever you can.  After all, writing every day is hard.  Give your writing a leg-up by doing it when you feel refreshed and energized.

Also, if you can, try to write by hand.  I’m a huge fan of writing by hand for a few reasons.

• It’s portable.   Yes, laptops and tablets and smart phones are portable too, but something about tucking a notebook into your pocket just seems easier.  There are also downsides to writing on your laptop/tablet/phone.  Ever have the battery die on you just when you make a breakthrough?   Notebooks and pends don’t need batteries.
• You avoid verbal spillage.  Most of us write slower by hand than at a keyboard, which can actually be a good thing.  By the time the thought has traveled from your brain all the way down your arm and fingers to your pen, you’ve had a chance to think about it and work through it in your head a few times.  When you type, whatever nonsense that comes out of your head goes straight to the page.  Writing by hand forces you to think.
• It connects you to your writing heroes.  Writing by hand may not always be practical (ever notice how a fountain pen has a tendency to explode when you use it on an airplane?) but I do it anyway.  Why?  Because when I’m scratching at the unlined pages of my notebook with my fountain pen, I feel almost like I’m channeling Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, Jane Austen or any of my writing mentors of old.  Sure, my notebook might have a hot pink cover and my fountain pen may be neon blue, but something about putting pen to page makes me feel connected to other writers in a way that writing on a computer just doesn’t seem to do.

This week, commit to writing every day.  Remember, it doesn’t matter what you write, how long you write, or even if it’s any good.  Just make sure you’re writing.  And if you’re on Twitter, use hash tags like #writingsprint or #amwriting to share your progress with other writers who are doing the same thing.

So, who’s with me?  Who’s writing every day next week?

Not everyone can find long blocks of time for writing because real life often gets in the way.  If you are one of those writers who can set aside large chunks of time for your writing, that’s fantastic!  Still, even if you’re a with tons of time on your hands (…and don’t tell us if you are because we might be jealous!), you can still benefit from learning to write in short bursts.  To get more writing done, you need to train yourself to squeeze your writing into small pockets of time.  None of that “waiting for inspiration” or “warming yourself up” for a writing session.  You have to learn to dive in, scribble down a few sentences, then get on with your life.

I’ve had to learn this technique the hard way.  With a 3-month-old son at home, life has become one big series of Pomodoro sessions, only instead of 25 minutes for each spurt of productivity, I never know how much time I’ll have before he starts crying and wanting attention.  Sometimes it’s 20 minutes.  Sometimes it’s 2 minutes.  Sometimes it’s no minutes at all.  Regardless, I have had to learn to make every minute count.  Here are five pockets of time I’ve discovered, pockets of time I never knew I had.

1)  Standing in line.  How often do we wait in line for things?  At the post office or the bank.  At the cafe while we wait for our lattes and cappuccinos.  At the supermarket or the drug store.  In those moments, I pull out my pocket notebook and scribble a few thoughts.  Maybe all I get is a sentence, but it’s still one sentence more than what I had before.

2)  Waiting in doctor’s offices.  One of the things you do a lot of when you have a newborn is wait around in doctor’s offices.  I used to dread those long waits but now I look forward to them.  With the little guy asleep in his stroller or carrier, I can enjoy those moments as prime writing time.  Parents with older kids probably have similar pockets of time available while they sit through a piano lesson or soccer practice, or they’re waiting to pick their kids up at school.

3)  Public transportation.  I love riding buses and subways because they always give me a solid chunk of time either for reading or writing.  I’m especially a fan of subways because they’re underground and there’s no internet so I can’t be tempted to check Twitter or log onto email.  Sometimes I’ll even take the long way home so that I have extra commute time during which to write.

4)  The first and last 15 minutes of your day.  One great way to sneak in an extra half hour of writing each day is to squeeze fifteen minutes in first thing in the morning and last thing before you turn out the light.  You always hear writers talk about waking up at 5am or working until the wee hours of the next day.  Frankly, I find both those scenarios unappealing; I don’t know about you but I like my sleep.  On the other hand, squeezing in an extra 15 minutes at the beginning and end of my day is manageable.  Even though it’s just 15 minutes, those little chunks of time can add up.  By the end of a week, I’ve logged in an extra 3 and a half hours of writing.

5)  Writing breaks.  I periodically take myself out on very short writing breaks.  I’ll grab a quick lunch and while I hold my sandwich with one hand, I scribble a few sentences with the other.  When I’ve finished the sandwich, writing time is over.  I’ll do the same by going to a cafe and ordering a cup of coffee.  I have only the time it takes to consume that drink to write.  It’s not enough to cut into my day in a major way, but still lets me jot down a few paragraphs.  Consider using your lunchtime to do this or take a short coffee break.  Even if you can’t do this every day, if you can sneak in two half-hour writing breaks throughout the week, that’s a whole extra hour you gained right there.

Take-home Message:  You never know when you’ll get a pocket of writing time, so be prepared and always carry a notebook.  I have a pocket-sized notebook and a pen with me at all times.

I love hearing writers talk about process and learning about new tools that can help my writing.  I’m especially a fan of things that lend a festive and fun element to my writing.  (Because let’s face it, a lot of the time writing is HARD.  Might as well make it fun.)  In this post I compile three favorite objects that I never (OK, hardly ever) write without, and three favorite writing apps for computers and devices.  The best part is that most of these things are affordable or even free!

My Favorite Writing Stuff!

Brain Book:  It took me a long time to find writing apparatus that both worked for me and was portable.  The latter is key because I do a lot of my brainstorming and writing of rough drafts on the go.  After grad school I was going through my things from high school and came across this gray notebook cover, precisely the right size to fit a medium-sized moleskine or ecosystem notebook.

I’ve since dubbed this my “Brain Book” and outfitted it with colored fountain pens and stickers (the latter I use to reward myself for good writing sessions).  The Brain Book is great because it allows me to grab-and-go with my writing, and I know that no matter where I am, I’ll have a notebook and pens along with a few little creature comforts that make me feel like I’m writing at home.  The Brain Book is like having a portable office.

Creative Whack Pack:  This deck of cards is filled with different creativity prompts that can help you boost your creativity and shake up rigid thinking.  There’s no one way to use the cards–make up the rules as you go!  Every so often, I’ll pull these cards out and start using them to see if I can get a new perspective on a given project.

Droid Flash Drives:  These adorable flash drives from mimobot are a great way to back up your writing and store files.  I have two (C3PO and R2D2) that I use to back up all my writing work.  Yes, these drives are a little pricier than the budget (and boring) versions you can buy at the office supply store, but let’s face it… flash drives this cute make you want to back up your files.  I got two so I would have one for on-the-go writing and one to keep at my desk at home.  Besides, how could I choose between my two favorite droids?

Pomodoro:  This neat little app for your computer or iPhone (and other devices) is nothing more than a to-do list matched with a timer that helps you focus for 25-minute bursts of activity.  The idea behind the Pomodoro technique is simple: you do one thing for 25 minutes, then take a five minute break.  But one thing for 25 minutes is tougher than it sounds.

Using the Pomodoro technique means if you’re writing for one 25-minute burst (called a “Pomodoro”) you can’t do anything else.  That means no checking email, no replying to tweets or Facebook comments, nothing but writing.  When I’m doing a Pomodoro I won’t even let myself pause to adjust the volume or skip a track on my iPod.  One thing means one thing, and for those 25 minutes that one thing is writing.

Evernote:  I love Evernote and don’t use it nearly as often as I should.  This app works on your computer, phone and tablet and synches everything together so if you make updates in one place, those updates carry over to your other devices.  What I love about Evernote is that it isn’t just a note-taking app you type on, you can include pictures and even sound.  It also lets you organize your notes in different notebooks so you can sort notes according to project.  For someone who loves organization, this app is fantastic.

Scrivener:  This is my all-time favorite writing software, and just when I thought Scrivener couldn’t get any better they go and launch version 2.2 which is fantastic.  Now they even have it available for Windows (it used to be Mac only) so everyone can reap the benefits of this great tool.  What I love with Scrivener is that it allows me to separate my writing projects according to scene or section of the manuscript and shuffle pieces around easily.  It has a cork board function where you can represent each scene with an index card and you can easily reorder scenes or sections by moving the cards around.

The outline feature is also great for organizing your story and seeing the “big picture” at a glance.  And if you want to write in Scrivener but like sharing documents with other writers, fear not: you can easily export your work to other formats.  My only quibble with Scrivener is that I wish it had a version for the iPad because these days I do a lot of my rough drafts on the go and a tablet is much easier to carry around than a computer.

What makes something a verse novel?  Simply speaking, a verse novel (or novel in verse) is exactly what the name implies: a novel that is told in verse rather than prose.

It’s a bit more complicated than that, though.  Why aren’t works like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid called epic poems and not verse novels?  After all, they are novel-length stories told in verse but epic poems and verse novels are not one and the same.  Epic poems are poems on a grand scale, but they are still poems nonetheless.  Verse novels, on the other hand–whether they are written as one long poem or a collection of shorter poems–must combine poetry with story.  Perhaps the best definition I’ve found comes from Michael Symmons Roberts, who says:

A verse novel can only be written in conscious awareness of the novel as a form.

To write a true verse novel, you have to be aware both of the musicality of the poetry and how the narrative structure works.  This means that an an epic poem is still a poem, not a verse novel.  Nor does “prose-with-line-breaks” count as verse novel material.  Virginia Euwer Wolff (author of the Lemonade Trilogy) said in an interview with The Horn Book (2001):

Writing my prose in funny-shaped lines does not render it poetry. And there’s nobody more aware of that than I.

Which is ironic because Wolff insists her own trilogy (one that reads like poetry) is actually prose-with-line-breaks and the books cannot be called verse novels.  As she says, poetry is more than just prose rearranged with line breaks in funny places.  In fact, poetry has an element of surprise and a musicality that differs from prose.  In my mind, prose emphasizes character and story before language whereas poetry puts imagery and language first.  The line breaks in poetry serve as parallels to breath and rhythm, whereas prose with line breaks must focus first on telling the story.

Which leads me to an important question: who decides if a something is a verse novel?  The author?  The reader?  Some poetic authority from above?  I’m not sure.  What is more, if an author does not consider his/her work as verse, can we the readers appropriate it as such?

Again, I’m not sure.  If an author says his/her work is prose then I feel that I must read and accept it as prose, even if it looks like verse.  But what if the author set out to write prose and somehow it morphed into verse, with all the musicality and imagery that goes with it?  Is it possible for an author to misplace their work as prose when really it’s poetry?

Some argue that poetry and prose exist on a spectrum, that while certain books may clearly reside at one extreme or the other verse novels live somewhere in between.  After reading several verse novels, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that for something to fit that category, it must be both verse and novel.  Verse novels are not watered-down versions of each genre shoved together into one book.  The verse novel must, in fact, do double-duty, having all the elements of of both genres.  This means a verse novel must have the music and imagery that we find in poetry and at the same time character development and story structure of a novel.  Verse novelists must write good poetry and a good story, and they must combine the two seamlessly in order for the verse novel to work.

Interested in checking out some verse novels?  There are several great lists on the web to get you started.

• Sarah Tregay’s List of Novels In Verse (Middle Grade / YA / Adult)
• Novels in Verse (Adult) – Lib Guides at Mohawk Valley Community College
• Goodreads: YA Novels in Verse
• Connected Youth: Novels in Verse

Continuing with our Master Class Series on Poetry and Verse Novels, today I’m thrilled to host an interview with Sherry Shahan.  She is the author of several books–both fiction and non-fiction, books for kids in preschool and books for teens–including a novel in verse.  Purple Daze is a fascinating story, giving a snapshot of the year 1965 from the points of view of six different teenagers.  Each of the story lines has a distinct arc and weaves between the other story arcs.  As you’ll see in the interview, Sherry drew on history, interviews and even personal experiences to capture the vibe of that turbulent year in history.

In this interview, Sherry gives some great insights on the writing and revision process.  Not only does she share how she developed the idea and shaped the draft of Purple Daze but she also gives great tips on receiving feedback and reading like a writer.  Sherry has an MFA from Vermont College and she shares ideas for how DIY MFA writers can build aspects of the MFA experience into their writing lives.

In this video, you’ll hear about…

• How a tattered shoebox of letters led to a story told in verse.
• Some amazing real-life details that made it into Purple Daze.
• What challenge helped motivate Sherry’s most recent novel.
• What a writer really needs to do in order to get that MFA experience.
• Why Sherry chose to do an MFA.
• …and much more!

Without further ado, here’s the newest installment in the
DIY MFA Master Class Series.

Capturing History in Verse:
An Interview with Sherry Shahan

Today I’d like to welcome Caroline Starr Rose back to DIY MFA.  Caroline and I met through the blogsphere in 2010, when she hosted a Verse Novel Challenge on her blog.  Being a fan of verse novels, I joined the challenge and have had the pleasure of following her writing and publishing journey ever since.  When I decided to host a poetry and verse novel series here at DIY MFA, I knew I had to get Caroline in on it.  She’s written a marvelous post that introduces verse novels, and goes through the nuts and bolts of reading and writing them.  Without further ado, here’s Caroline’s take on verse novels.

Verse novels are stories told through un-rhymed poetry. It’s a format that can be intimidating to some readers, so to make the genre feel more accessible, I thought I’d try to demystify them a bit. Here are some things verse novels usually have in common:

Subject matter must be right for poetry.  Some topics lend themselves more easily to poetry than others. Some subjects refuse to be written as prose. Many times an author will use verse to mimic the rhythm of the story. Here are a few books that come to mind:

• Sharon Creech’s HEARTBEAT, about a girl who loves to run
• Karen Hesse’s OUT OF THE DUST, where the spare language reflects the stark Dust Bowl setting
• Lisa Schroeder’s FAR FROM YOU, about a girl who sings and and writes songs

Protagonists must be right for poetry.  Often (though not always) verse novels are told from a very close first-person point of view. Such writing calls for a lot of introspection on the protagonist’s part.  Other times verse is used as a way for multiple voices to be heard, almost like a Greek chorus. Here are some examples:

• Thanhha Lai’s INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN, about a Vietnamese girl’s efforts to understand her new American home
• Karen Hesse’s WITNESS, where the Ku Klux Klan moves into a quiet Vermont town, and citizens reflect on the change they bring

Poems should be able stand alone.  Each poem in a verse novel must capture one moment, scene, idea, mark of change in your character’s life. Poems should also be able to function separately from the rest of the story.

Poems must contribute to the whole.  When I worked through my own verse novel, MAY B., I kept a quilt in mind, treating each poem like its own square of fabric. Each patch had to be able to function separately while at the same time move the story forward. I trusted that if certain patterns and shades in my story quilt were repeated (think themes or story strands), eventually the interconnectedness would surface — a much more organic approach than is normally taken with prose.

Varied poem lengths.  Some scenes flow, some end abruptly. Some thoughts wander, some jab. Without the structure of chapters, verse novels are simultaneously abrupt and fluid — poem lengths can be jagged yet aide the plot in moving through scenes swiftly. It is often difficult to find a place to stop reading, as one poem often bleeds into the next.

Varied line lengths.  Verse novelists play with key phrases or words they want to bring to their reader’s attention by the way they arrange words on the page. Line breaks can be used to slow down reading, to draw the eye to important phrases, and to best “speak” the poem.

Emotion and structure.  The structure of a poem often communicates to readers a character’s emotional state. How might fear look structurally?  A verse novelist might use little punctuation or words tightly packed together. Maybe the language of the poem will unfold in short bursts, reminiscent of a child peeking into a darkened room and quickly slamming the door.

Poetic form.  Some verse novelists use specific types of poetry (sonnets, for example), as Pat Brisson did with her book, THE BEST AND HARDEST THING. In writing about Sylvia Plath in YOUR OWN, SLYVIA, author Stephanie Hemphill chose to mirror the format of several of Plath’s poems, giving her readers a sense of the poet’s style, subject matter, intensity, and character.

The visual and the aural.  When I was a teacher, I used to tell my students that poetry should be seen and heard. There is something special that happens when a reader experiences seeing, hearing, and saying a poem all at once — the fullness of the poem is discovered this way.

If you ever feel stuck with a verse novel, find a private corner and try reading it aloud.

Verse novels aren’t books with strange line breaks. They are stories best communicated through the language, rhythm, imagery and structure of poetry. Don’t be afraid to give books in this unique genre a try!

To show you some of the techniques mentioned above, I’ve included a sample poem from my verse novel, MAY B.

I play a game inside my head,^[1]

counting plum trees that dot a creek bed,^[2]

rabbits that scatter at the sound of wagon wheels,

clouds that skirt the sky.

For hours, that is all

and grass

always grass^[3]

in different shades and textures^[4]

like the braids in a rag rug.

 

Miss Sanders told us that lines never end,

and numbers go on forever.

Here,^[5]

in short-grass country,

I understand infinity.^{[6] [7]}

Caroline Starr Rose is a former middle school English and social studies teacher. Her middle-grade novel, May B., a historical novel-in-verse, releases January 10, 2012  (Schwartz and Wade / Random House Children’s Books).

I’m guessing that after a week of reading about how great poetry is, you might be ready to dive in and read or write some poems of your own.  But where to start?  With all the literary resources out there, where do you go to find resources on poetry?  Here follows a list with some of my favorite poetry resources and books.

Online Resources

Poets.org
A great website from the Academy of American Poets, with tons of poems, essays and information on craft as well as biographies of poets.  Looking for a poem on a specific theme or topic?  This site also has a great search engine.  What I love about this site, though, is the wealth of resources they have for beginners.  Check out their Poetry 101 section for tips and articles on how to read poetry, book recommendations and more.

The Writer’s Almanac
The website for NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac presents a different poem each day, plus facts about poets and writers, and a podcast.  A great RSS feed to subscribe to.

Poetry 180
A poem per day for the 180 days of the school year.  That’s the concept behind this fabulous website, which includes 180 poems, plus other resources as well.

Poetry Foundation
Another association dedicated to poetry and a great website.  You can search through their database of poets and poems, or read articles and listen to podcasts.

Poetry Society of America (PSA)
And yet another poetry association with a fantastic website.  I’m especially a fan of their collaboration with the MTA (and now public transit systems across the country) called Poetry in Motion, where they place poems in buses and subways to raise readership of both new and established poets.

Suggested Reading

Poetry and Poetic Forms
Ordinary Genius by Kim Addonizio
The Making of a Poem by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland
Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms edited by Ron Padgett
Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse by John Hollander

Poetry Collections and Anthologies
Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry by Billy Collins
Good Poems by Garrison Keillor
The Poets Laureate Anthology by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry by Alan Kaufman and S.A. Griffin
How to Eat a Poem: A Smorgasbord of Tasty and Delicious Poems for Young Readers
by American Poetry & Literacy Project, and Academy of American Poets