by Mary C. Long

​It's never easy to write dialogue, but once you start it IS easy to get lost in it. In class, kids were broken into small teams and given writing prompts from which needed to write an ALL dialogue back-and-forth between at least two characters (or running internal dialogue) and then discuss what could be improved in the story and why. The goal was to realize context was important, and breaking up the pace of the rapid back and forth with some character thoughts and setting not only advance the story, but keep the reader interested. Some kids took it a step further and revised their pieces, but the back-and-forths were fun to read, as most of the prompts were crazy. ​

by Mary C. Long

This is part of a series of classes I teach creative writers (kids ages 10-18) at my home each week.

​The activities can be adapted to meet them wherever they are on the writing spectrum. I'll be creating a separate piece with specific tips to help with those accommodations! I'm sharing the actual activity I write up for the kids and give them to read/refer to when they arrive. We go through it together as well.

​Fractured Fairy Tales Lesson

The hardest thing for most people when it comes to writing is finding a starting point. We’ll work on THAT another day, but today, with lots of new folks in the class, I wanted to work on something fun.
​
So today, I’m giving you a starting point and you’re going to focus on making an existing story your own, creating a fractured fairy tale. What’s a fractured fairy tale? It’s taking a fairy tale and changing it up. Here are some ways: