Crash Course in Middle Grade Fiction

Instructor: John David Anderson
Date: Wednesday, June 14
Time: 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Location: IWC
Cost: $75 nonmembers, $48 members, $42 student members/teacher members/senior members/military members/librarian members

Somewhere in the space between The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Hunger Games lies the challenging and robust world of Middle Grade Fiction—with its lightning-scarred wizards and its lightning thieves and its promise of introducing young readers to rich worlds and action-packed plots. In a mere three hours we will explore the conventions of writing for those wide-eyed adolescents who make up the middle-grade market, contemplating questions of story construction, character generation, audience appropriateness, word choice, the merits of flatulence-related humor, etc. We will also discuss the current MG market, writing and publishing resources specific to MG, and the drawbacks of flatulence-related humor. Along the way we will look at a few examples of what works and what doesn’t, practice our hand at generating compelling young protagonists, and brainstorm ideas for the next bestselling series. Writers of all levels are welcome, provided they remember what it was like to be eleven.