Dear Kimberly

It's been a while since I posted a new blog entry... but a student named Kimberly, whom I met in May at Joliette High School inspired me to write today's blog entry. That's because I got an email from Kimberly yesterday, asking me for some writing advice. I figured I might as well turn my reply to Kimberly into a blog entry that might be useful to other aspiring writers too! So here goes...

Dear Kimberly,

Thanks so much for your email. I've been spending most of my days this summer at the computer working on a new book project, so it's fun to hear from a real live person (I've been hanging out mostly with imaginary kids!!).

You said you are interested in writing a chapter book and you wanted to know how many chapter it should have and how long the book should be. You also wanted some tips for beginning and ending a story.

A good idea when you start a project is to go the library or bookstore and check out the section that has the kind of books you'd like to write. There are many kinds of chapter books and their lengths vary. In the spring, I finished my first chapter book. It is aimed for readers who are around eight years old and it has about 8,000 words. There are about 15 chapters -- which is about 500 words per chapter.

As for where to begin, the most important advice I can give you is to begin some place INTERESTING. You can start with a funny moment or a suspenseful moment, or with intriguing dialogue. The point is to catch your reader's interest from the very start. As for where to end, I usually figure that out as I go along. I often tell my students that when I was a kid, stories often ended in a "happy-ever-after" way. Today, most stories don't end with everything wrapped up perfectly. My favourite stories end with the sense that the characters have grown in some important and meaningful way.

I hope this advice proves useful. You've got over a month before you go back to school. Use that time to get cracking on your chapter book.

Best wishes from Monique