Joanne Rocklin’s young adult novel, For YOUR Eyes Only is in the form of a young teen’s notebook. You can read an excerpt at Amazon.com to see how effectively the writing strategy evokes the main character and the world in which she is immersed.

Writing for the Children’s Book Insider, Joanne Rocklin provided tips for using letters or diaries as the organizational structure for stories.  The strategies she discusses are aimed at creating intimacy with readers and maintaining focus and thus apply to those of us writing memoir and personal essays.  Her instruction may inspire you to begin a young adult novel, and the prompts I’ve included that were inspired by Joanne’s thoughts will help you begin memoirs or a series of linked personal essays.

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Writing Middle Grade Novels in Journal or Letter Form
by Joanne Rocklin

This article was originally published in the Children’s Book Insider: The Newsletter for Children’s Writers in 1998

Some years ago I found some old letters, Written in my eleven-year-old’s scrawl to a best friend. “Do you think I’m too skinny? Tell me the truth! I think I can take it.”

Echoes of that funny, plaintive voice appear in my middle grade novels, especially those written in journal or letter form, as in For YOUR Eyes Only! This type of novel allows an immediate intimacy with the main character. It stretches the boundaries of story-telling in creative ways — letters and journal entries may include songs, jokes, artwork, mementos, and poetry. And the form allows a natural exploration of questions of identity so important to the maturing middle grader: Who am I? Am I lovable? What is my place in the world?

 My childhood letters, though often amusing, don’t make for a saleable novel. Real-life diaries and letters can be rambling and inconsistent. As Mark Twain said, the difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to make sense! Here are some ways to create interesting narrators relaying a compelling, coherent story:

• Hook the reader by giving your character a problem. Immediately! This problem, articulated clearly by the narrator, is most likely a reason for continuing the journal or letter-writing. In my novel Lucy feels the need for a mentor. Her best friend is unreliable, her divorced mother preoccupied, and her father has moved away and remarried. She invites her teacher Mr. Moffat, the journal’s reader, to fill the mentor role. There may also be a mystery involved which keeps us turning the page.

• Have your narrator address the letters or journal to an important person in her life, adding drama and poignancy to the story. However, this person must not know everything about her, thus providing the narrator an obvious reason to share personal information. In my novel, Mr. Moffat is a newly arrived substitute teacher.

• If the reader must stay inside the narrator’s mind throughout the book, it better be the mind of someone likable. Make your character active, funny, vulnerable, and especially, irreverent. Kids love to read about someone their age brave enough to question authority or stand up to unpleasant people.

• Create an authentic voice reflecting the time period, setting, and character’s age. Preteens are concerned with identity issues; Lucy experiments with a name change and different handwriting styles. She worries about her freckles and lovability, comparing herself to others. But your narrator’s voice must also be original. Create quirks and “tags” unique to your writer. Lucy loves to experiment with poetry. She expresses emotion by writing words in big capital letters. Her chatty journal contrasts sharply with that of the troubled Andy, a secondary character who loves to draw.

• Luckily, a prolific letter writer or journal-keeper is usually articulate and precocious. Give sparkling examples of the character’s interest in language, people, her inner and outer worlds. But remember – descriptions, anecdotes, even historical references must reveal character and move the plot forward.

• Have the length and structure of written entries mirror the development of plot and character. Long passages with dialogue indicate the importance of the scene to the narrator. Short entries reveal boredom, anxiety, or a lack of time to write because of the occurrence of an exciting event.

• Think of a device to simulate chapters, thus breaking up pages of uninterrupted text. Mr. Moffat places a poem on the chalkboard every Monday morning which Lucy reflects on in her journal.

• Show how your main character’s growth as a writer parallels her psychological growth as she enters adolescence. The recording of dialogue should become more sophisticated, the language richer and more vivid. Most important, show that sustained writing has inspired a closer observation of reality and greater self-acceptance. By the end of For YOUR Eyes Only! Lucy learns that “everything is a poem, if you see its own freckled self!”

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“Everything is a poem, if you see its own freckled self!” In addition to creating literature for youngsters, we can use Joanne’s perceptions for writing memoir and personal essays. Here are some prompts sparked by Joanne’s thoughts that should prove helpful for writing from personal experience:

Are there poems that have mattered to you during particular parts of your life? Can you start chapters of a memoir or a series of essays with them? You can describe where you found each poem and why it mattered.

What else has mattered to you from the experiences of your life? Have you pressed flowers between the covers of books? What books? What kind of flowers? From what occasions? Is there information in the answers that you can use to organize chapters or create a series of essays?

Are there passages from books that have inspired you? Can you start chapters or a series of essays with these passages, telling how you came to find the words, what your life was like when you found them and what you have done because of them?

Do you have letters from someone that span years or a season? Can you write based on passages of those letters? Can you write describing yourself and your life in several different seasons that correspond to the dates of the letters?

Can you gather photographs and then write the narration for how you decide to place them in an album?

Can you find or remember objects you have collected and imagine putting them in a trunk? Can you imagine pulling them out in random order and writing segments of a memoir or essay inspired by each of the objects? The title of the work might be “Hidden Away” or “Folded” or “What’s Been Stored.” Indeed, “Everything is a poem, if you see its own freckled self.”