Author interviews can provide tons of creative writing hints.Patrick Jones offers some of his own creative writing hints to his readers in this young adult author interview. Click for Free Writer's Block Help E-Zine and Free E-Book Patrick Jones is not your average young adult author. A lot of the ideas he incorporates into his books came from his various experiences over the years, one of which was working in a detention center, along with creative writing hints he garnered from other authors. He also makes sure to allow his hometown of Flint, Michigan a cameo in almost every book he writes. He even started an underground newspaper at his high school, and ran off all the copies on a machine at Michael Moore’s office (that’s right -- the Michael Moore, of documentary fame). His first novel is titled Things Change. He got the idea for this story from one of the school visits he went on as a visiting author. He saw a girl in the hallway, and a boy was teasing her, kicking her books around, and being altogether mean. Or so it seemed. Before he knew it, the girl was kissing the boy, and all seemed to have ended well, despite the boy’s aptitude to come off as the most annoying creep that Patrick had seen that day. As Patrick writes more and more books, he asks students what the image of adolescence is to them. Think about this. What is adolescence to you? What gives you hope, tears you down, brings you joy, or sheds tears? These are the concepts Patrick says that the image of adolescence to him is, “a girl getting out of a minivan, fighting with her mom in front of the school. Then an Escalade pulls up with a bunch of kids pouring out of it while it blares music. The girl wants to have been in that car all along, rather than being with her mom.” This depiction screams out adolescence. It capitalizes on the horror and shame of being seen with a parent (at least some teens see it this way), and shows the other side of the coin (what the girl would much rather have been doing, or whom she would much rather have been seen with in place of her mother). Stolen Car is another one of Patrick’s novels. For this one, he felt the need to start off with an idea that would haunt his readers: ”I’m fifteen years old and I’m driving a stolen car.” This first line is only ten words. It grabs your interest though, doesn’t it? It is one of those great creative writing story starters. If you don’t know just where you would go with this line, there is no need to fret – at first, Patrick didn’t know either. It didn't offer him any creative writing hints to continue writing from that point. When he realized he needed 60,000 words to make up the entire novel, he needed to find where he was going with this first line. It’s interesting how some people have an easier time thinking of their first lines, but can’t seem to figure out where to go from there, while others know what they want their story to be about, but can’t find the best way to start it. Check out some more creative writing story starters and triple decker writing prompts to find a smoother way to help yourself get started in your own writing. His newest novel that is coming soon is called Cannibal Tears. The title derives from the fact that the main character looks like a human and is eating her own kind. It is about a vampire who doesn’t live on human blood, but tears. People have to have sorrow so that the main character can survive. He wrote this novel very quickly. He came up with the idea on one March 18th at three o’clock in the afternoon. He was driving from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Flint, Michigan, and by six o’clock in the evening he had the entire book written in his head. He says, “every once in a while on that drive, I would pull off of the road and write notes.” Otherwise, he kept driving and thinking about all of his ideas and how they meshed together. Patrick recommends writing with an outline of a book. It takes him about three months to get a book “out of my head onto paper,” so writing an outline to get him started, and seeing where the book is going from that outline is helpful in his writing process. After he gets his book written, he finds that sending it out to teenagers is a very useful tool in surveying his audience for feedback. One time, someone even mailed one of his books back with a CD of songs that they felt each character in that particular book would likely listen to and enjoy. So now Patrick makes sure each of his books has a soundtrack. Check out Patrick’s website for the playlists he has made up for some of his books, including: Things Change, Nailed, and Chasing Tail Lights. Even though his teen audience may enjoy his books, he says that “editors cut all your best lines”. Karen Tintori feels the same way, as she states in her memoir writing interview, and they both agree that you should have a trusted friend read your work, as they will be the best choice to help you edit and revise your writing. Another interesting tidbit of information about Patrick is that every other book that he writes has a girl telling a story. How did he get into writing from that perspective? He worked in a library around women, and worked as a school librarian for two years in an all-girls Catholic private school. Continuing on with some more creative writing hints, Patrick feels that the first line of a novel or anything you are writing is just as important as the first kiss in a relationship. It reveals everything. R.L. Stine, of Goosebumps fame, has a somewhat similar opinion to Patrick’s “first kiss” idea. He believes in writing the ending first, meaning you have a last line from the get-go as well, since the last line is usually the same or very similar to the first line. Karen Tintori says much the same thing in her interview. An example of how Patrick used this technique in his own way was in one of his novels when his first word was “homecoming,” and the last words of the novel were “I’m coming home”. Twisting your words and finding ways to elaborate on them and make them sound new and interesting is a truly helpful technique that these writers find extremely useful, thereby allowing you to find them helpful for yourselves in your own creative writing. Patrick’s publishers and editors would like a book a year from him, but he says that his writing process waits for “lightning to strike”. His computer is littered with started books, as he begins them and waits for inspiration, but when he doesn’t necessarily find it, he may begin something else. How many of you does this sound like? However, when he finds his inspiration, the writing flows so well, and completion doesn’t look so far off or unattainable anymore. When asked if there is anything he has ever refused to let publishers change, he responds, “Kids smoking. I don’t believe that mentioning it is going to be the cue for kids to start doing it.” He continues by saying that he feels that people who review books don’t know kids like he does. They are reading it from the perspective of wondering whether or not it would sell, but they don’t know what kids want or need like he does. They don’t talk with them, work with them, or interact with them regularly. These things are important to do in order to know your audience well and know what they most desire reading. “The cadence of the sentence is what’s important,” says Patrick. He also feels that emotional connections are important. They allow your characters to interact and find meaning with each other and everything around them. There are many authors from whom Patrick finds inspiration. Two of his favorite young adult authors are Chris Crutcher and Jackie Woodson. He also enjoys reading Christopher Paul Curtis’ stories, as he is another author from Flint, Michigan. When asked if he would like writing other types of novels, such as fantasy, he says, “I have enough trouble figuring out this world,” and obviously what he writes is not only what he enjoys, but it is what works best for him. The story that he is working on now is based on something he read in the Flint newspaper. So, check out some of his books, peruse his website, www.connectingya.com, and see if any of the stories you read about in the newspaper might just spark your imagination and break your writer’s block. You never know where you might find your own creative writing hints to get your mind brewing with ideas.
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