Synopsis
Lies About Writing Your Life Story
- You have to be a famous celebrity.
- You must have an amazing life.
- You can't write your life story until you're old and gray.
- Nobody will read it, so what's the point?
School Library Journal
Gr 4-7 Fletcher gives readers and educators many practical and supportive tips. To get started, he suggests a few exercises, including having budding autobiographers write about their names and draw a map of their neighborhood. From there, writers must find a focus, keeping readers in mind as they write. He explains that the gist of the story should be honest, though dialogue and sometimes even characters might be invented for literary flow. He addresses telling embarrassing facts about oneself; similarly, he gives examples of times when writers reveal unflattering truths about friends and family. Interspersed within the text are interviews with Jack Gantos, Kathi Appelt, and Jerry Spinelli, along with passages from the author's own memoir, Marshfield Dreams (Holt, 2005). Add this title to Fletcher's Poetry Matters (2002) and How Writers Work (2000, both HarperCollins) for the budding writers out there looking to improve on their techniques.-Debbie Whitbeck, West Ottawa Public Schools, Holland, MI