Research is a huge part of the writing process, not only for authors of nonfiction but also for those of us who write fiction. Historical novels, for example, involve extensive study of the time period in which the novel is set so that authors can make sure every detail is accurate to that historical period.

p: loungeri via photopin cc

But what about novels set in the future? How do you research something that hasn’t happened yet? Building the worlds of futuristic and fantasy novels involves a process called world building—the careful and detailed construction of a new world, with all the elements that a realistic world must include.

My 2011 futuristic weather thriller, EYE OF THE STORM, is set in the year 2050, in a world where climate changes have led to severe and catastrophic global weather patterns—and where corporations that have mastered weather manipulation use technology to protect their friends and destroy their enemies. And before I wrote a word of the story, I spent many hours and many, many pages creating that fictional world. It has to be real for me before I can make it feel real to readers. To fully understand my fictional world—and the characters who live there—I need to know not only the details of that world but also how it got to be the world it is. How did it come to this?

So when I’m working on a book like this, I spread my desk with colored markers and huge pieces of paper, and I map out my future world. Writing the future, for me, begins with a close, thoughtful look at the present. I started with the news of the day. What implications will these headlines have in ten years? Twenty years? Fifty years?

I sketch out a timeline and try to include everything that affects a society—wars and shifts in international relations, breakthroughs in technology, cures for old diseases and the emergence of new ones. And I ask lots of questions. How might our current environmental policies evolve in a way that leads to a global climate crisis? What nations will rise as world superpowers, and what nations will fall? What kinds of leaders will these nations have?

So I map out my world. I choose my future leaders, sketch out their policies, and then play the whole thing out like a movie. If this happens…what might be the backlash. If that happens…what would we expect as the result? And what might the unexpected consequences be?

The answers to these questions help to drive the plot of futuristic novels like EYE OF THE STORM, THE HUNGER GAMES, AMONG THE HIDDEN, and DIVERGENT. Students can deconstruct these novels to get a great sense for how authors build worlds. Most dystopian and other futuristic novels grow out of a seed in our modern-day newspapers. THE HUNGER GAMES, for example, imagines our modern issues with class differences, reality TV, and insensitivity to violence, taken to a whole new level, while EYE OF THE STORM amplifies our current concerns about climate and resulting weather patterns to create a frightening future scenario in which the weather controls almost every move a person makes.

When students are reading futuristic fiction in class or in their literature circles or book clubs, ask them to consider questions like these:

• What modern-day issues do you think may have sparked the author’s idea for this novel?
• What would have to happen for our current world to evolve in a way that makes this setting and its plot a real possibility by the time the novel takes place?
• What do you think might be a more realistic scenario with the issue at stake, and what variables might affect how that issue plays out in real life?

From here, students can go on to create their own worlds to use as possible settings in futuristic stories. One way to approach this activity is to start with a big pile of newspaper front pages. Ask students to choose an issue discussed in the headlines and journal about the possible futures that might be associated with it:

• What do you see as the current concern regarding this modern day issue?
• What’s your best guess about what this issue might look like in the year 2050?
• What would a worst case scenario look like in the year 2050?
• What events/developments/human choices could cause this worst case scenario to develop?
• If that happened, what would the world look like as this issue got worse? What might happen within ten years? Twenty years?
• What would a best possible scenario look like for this issue, if things were to improve?

From here, students can create timelines outlining what happens between now and the future date they’ve targeted as the setting for their stories. Ask student writers to imagine not only the particular issue on which they’ve chosen to focus but also what other issues might look like in the future. Remember that our world includes many interconnected elements, both natural and manmade.

I’ve created a world building guide for writers that has dozens of questions to prompt this kind of thinking. It’s long, and available online in three parts:

http://www.katemessner.com/dystopian-world-building-worksheet-part-i/
http://www.katemessner.com/dystopian-world-building-worksheet-part-ii/
http://www.katemessner.com/dystopian-world-building-worksheet-part-iii/

For more ideas and sites to share in the classroom, visit my EYE OF THE STORM RESOURCES board on Pinterest:

http://pinterest.com/katemessner/eye-of-the-storm-resources/

Once students have a solid world created, they should begin to have ideas for some of the problems that world might present for its characters, and that’s where the plots for their stories really begin to take off.

And finally, an added bonus to all this study of futuristic darkness, talking about world building often leads students to the realization that we are engaged in this practice every single day—not when we’re writing, but when we’re making the day-to-day decisions that shape our current world.

Often, studying worlds gone wrong prompts students to begin an even more important conversation. How can we best work together to build a world gone right?

For more advice on using EYE OF THE STORM in your classroom, check out this Teacher's Guide.

Kate Messner is a former middle-school English teacher and the author of E. B. White Read Aloud Award-winner THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z., SUGAR AND ICE, EYE OF THE STORM, CAPTURE THE FLAG, the Marty McGuire chapter book series, and two picture books, SEAMONSTER’S FIRST DAY and OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW. She lives on Lake Champlain with her husband and two kids. When she’s not reading or writing, she loves hiking, kayaking, biking, and watching thunderstorms over the lake. Visit her online at www.katemessner.com.



Karen Hesse (SAFEKEEPING) Writes the Future

How THE HUNGER GAMES Got a Whole School Reading

A typical problem I see with my ninth graders is differentiating between a specific detail and a general statement. I would imagine a couple grades above and below show similar problems, so this lesson should work for multiple grade levels.

This lesson takes some initial prep time, but once you set it up, you’re ready to go for all your classes this year and probably several years to come. In class, the students take the lead. Aside from a little guidance, they work together to figure it out themselves.

I use this activity to help teach the theme paragraph. It has a definite point to prove, but it is short enough that we can focus mostly on details. For an example here, I used a chapter from Robert McCammon’s BOY’S LIFE, “Old Moses Comes to Call.” However, you can easily adapt it to suit your assignment.

Time frame: One to two class periods.

The basic activity:

Step 1 (Prep)

Pick out ten or so specific detail sentences from a story or text you are studying. Then make up another ten not-specific detail sentences. Type them, print them out, and copy them so you have enough for everyone in your class. Click here to download a sample.

Next, cut the sentences into strips, so each sentence is on a strip. I use card stock, so the strips last longer. NOTE: You may want to number the strips before copying them to make your life easier in Step Three, or in case the papers get mixed together.

Step 2 (Group Time)

Put students in pairs. Give each pair a complete set of strips and tell them that their first mission is to sort the strips into details and non-details. I recommend pairs not only because it’s more engaging than solo, but also because if this skill is a weakness, the students will need the help.

Step 3 (Back to Full Class)

Bring them back together and go over their answers to explain why the specific ones are specific and the not-specific ones are not so. This is where the numbers on the strips are useful. I like to throw in overgeneralized examples with words like “always” and “everyone” in order to discuss that pitfall.

Step 4 (Back to Groups)

Students return to their groups. Each has a simple graphic organizer with the topic they must prove and two boxes. In one box, each student will copy three specific details he/she will use to support the topic. In the second box, each student will rewrite one of the non-specific details to make it specific.

My example has three boxes because they could also choose which theme they wanted to prove. Here, students have to sift through the examples and select ones that best support their topics.

Step 5 (Individual Time)

From this point, students construct their rough draft in whatever manner suits your needs.

Tech it up:

If you have access to a computer lab, you can put these words in a program like SMART Notebook, which is free, and you do not need a SMART Board to use it. This way the kids can treat this activity more like a computer game where they drag the details to the appropriate column. And for you, you will not have to run to the copy room or cut out hundreds of strips.

Click here to download the one I use; feel free to change some wording and steal my format. NOTE: You’ll need to download the SMART Notebook Interactive Viewer to be able to open the sample file if you do not already have this program.

If you click split screen (the icon at the top that looks like a windshield wiper), the kids will be able to drag the specific details into the graphic organizer. (Again, my example has an extra box so the kids could choose their topic.)

Cross that curriculum:

Certainly science and social studies assignments can utilize this same information, whether it’s for classifying types of rocks or contributing factors of the bubonic plague or the Civil War. So, adapt away!

Tony Varrato teaches English at Sussex Technical High School, in Georgetown, Delaware. He serves as Membership Chair on the Sussex Council Board for the Diamond State Reading Association and helps plan local literacy events. In addition, Tony is the author of several novels for teens, including FAKIE and OUTRAGE, both of which were selected for YALSA's Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers lists.



Making a Point with a View

Digging for Details that Make Historical Fiction Delicious

Just because people experience the same situation, it doesn’t mean they have the same responses to it. We know this very well. We’re identical twins (Jennifer’s six minutes older! Julia is an inch taller!) Other than the six minutes Jen was on earth before Julia, we shared the same room, school and life throughout childhood.

But through very different points of view.

Even though we look alike, if we were main characters in a book, our stories would have different voices, flavors and feel. Think about the old adage of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes: We wear different kinds of shoes both literally and figuratively: Julia is likely to be in wedge heels; Jennifer in cute ballet flats. We’re sitting in a mall right now, and we asked ourselves what we’re noticing this very moment.

Julia is noticing the woman with the cute baby and cute tangerine dress and the people at the next table cracking up. Jennifer is noticing the scent from the pretzel place, the cute baby (but not the woman’s dress) and the song that reminds her of tenth grade.

Every person has his or her own unique point of view in a given situation, even if you’re sitting next to each other (and are close as sisters).

When you write fiction, it can be a challenge to write from a character’s particular point of view. This is particularly true of kids, who tend to automatically write from their own point of view. (Adult writers aren’t immune; you’ve probably read books where the teen characters sound—golly gee—like a grownup.) It’s important to help young writers become aware that if you can capture a character’s point of view, you help your reader connect to the character and understand his or her personality, motivations and emotions.

We write a book series about identical twin seventh-graders who—just like the authors—look like but see things from very different points of view. The books shift perspective between social Payton (trendy wedges) and mathlete Emma (well-worn sneakers and cute but comfy ballet flats.)

One way we show the difference between our characters is to use sensory details. You want your students to walk through the story in their character’s shoes. But, what kind of shoes? Well-worn sneakers? Roller skates? Sky-high heels? Or do they even wear shoes? (They may have hooves or paws or gangrenous zombie stumps.)

Student writers often focus on action and dialogue. While those are obviously crucial to a story, they often leave out an important component: sensory details. What is the character seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing and yes, even tasting? Fiction is descriptive and sensory details add a richness and maturity to students’ writing. (Even the ones about the zombies.) Learning to add sensory details will help writers bring the story to life from their narrator’s unique viewpoint. In TRADING FACES, sometimes we follow Payton and Emma as they experience the exact same situation. However, while the situation is the same, notice the differences in their characters:

The twins walk into a classroom:

Payton sees:

• The empty seat in the back where she can hide from teacher questions
• The people who are watching her walk in, self-consciously
• The trendy coral shoes of the girl in the front row

Emma sees:

• The empty seat in the front where she can best capture the teacher’s attention
• The assignment written on the smartboard
• Her academic arch nemesis already taking notes

Payton hears:

• The whispers of people gossiping

Emma hears:

• The voice in her own head prepping for class

Payton touches:

• The gooey lip gloss as she reaches into her backpack for her pencil

Emma touches:

• The sharp compass point as she reaches into her backpack for a pencil

You can see how sensory details add to our understanding of our characters who, on the surface, seem exactly the same.

Now, things can get pretty creative if the main character is a supernatural being or a historical character. A zombie might walk into a school and see people as food and smell brains (and depending on the graphic writing proclivities of the student, taste them.) The vampire sees necks and smells blood. The historical character might see baffling lights from electricity and computers and the strange wardrobe of students.

Here’s a writing exercise to demonstrate the value of sensory details by introducing and identifying sensory details from their own point of view.

Tell students to imagine they’re going to the mall. Ask them to write down the first place they would go to. They might identify a clothing store, video game outlet, food court, or bath and body shop.

Next have them write down five sensory details they would experience in this setting. Students might write about the vivid colors of the clothes, the noisy beeping of the games, the citrusy, perfumey bath gels, or the rich scents of the food court with all of its different potential tastes.

Have students share their responses with the class. Point out the difference and similarities between their choices of sensory details they “experienced.” This shows how different people have their individual points of view.

Some students will also note they focused on different senses from their classmates. Some people are more naturally visual, others auditory, and others kinesthetic. We see this in our characters Payton and Emma:

“We need signature colors,” Payton said. “Mine is hot pink. What’s yours?”

I knew Payton wouldn’t drop the subject until I chose a stupid color. “Gray,” I told her.

“You can’t have gray!” she squealed. “It’s so blah! So nothing!”

“It’s the shade of my mechanical pencil,” I said, holding up the pencil I was writing with.

“Just pick something else,” she sighed.

“Fine,” I said. “Blue.”

“Baby blue? Greenish-blue? Aquamarine?” she asked. “Turquoise?”

Payton is very visual, which is a common sensory focus. Help students explore all the forms of sensory details with another writing exercise.

Here’s a second exercise you can try:

Student writers need to be able to step out of themselves and put themselves into other characters not only writing, but for literary analysis. So the next step is to have students identify the sensory details that fit their characters.

Have students fold a piece of paper in half, then in half again. Unfold it so there are four blank boxes. Have them label one area: SEE, the next HEAR, then SMELLS LIKE and FEELS LIKE. Explain that these are four of the five senses, and taste is less commonly used in this instance.

Ask students to close their eyes and imagine they have ‘become’ their main character. Now, they should open their eyes and look around. Then ask them to stay ‘in character’ and write down what they see in the classroom. Then what they hear, smell, touch.

After students have had the opportunity to explore their surroundings on paper, invite them to share their characters’ impressions of your classroom. Compare and contrast the different answers.

If we walked into your classroom or library for an author visit, you and your students would see two people who look very much alike and share the same profession. But, you’d soon learn we have different personalities…and styles of shoes.

However, one thing we absolutely have in common is our enthusiasm for students to enjoy writing and to learn to express themselves. And that is a shared point of view that we both share with you.

Julia DeVillers is the identical twin sister of Jennifer Roy. Her book HOW MY PRIVATE, PERSONAL JOURNAL BECAME A BESTSELLER was adapted as a Disney Channel Original Movie, and she is the author of the Liberty Porter, First Daughter series.

Jennifer Roy is the identical twin sister of Julia DeVillers. Her book YELLOW STAR was named an ALA Notable Book and School Library Journal Best Book.

Together, they write the Trading Faces series about (what else?) identical twins. The most recent installment, DOUBLE FEATURE, comes out in paperback on December 18th; TRIPLE TROUBLE will be released in hardcover on January 1st.



Beyond the Notebook: Sparking Ideas for Student Stories

Beyond the Notebook: Start with a Transcript