Charlotte’s Web: My DIY MFA in Middle Grade Fiction Writing

{ June, July, August 2021 }

Assignments:

• Daily: 1000 words per day on SM or WIP
• Weekly: Revisions on SM (approx. read through and revise 20 pgs a week)
• Monthly: blog post about progress

Inspiration Novels: read minimum 4 per month

1. Babe
2. Hatchet
3. 100 Cupboards series – 100 Cupboards, Dandelion Fire, Chestnut King
4. Winnie the Pooh
5. Dragon Slippers series – Dragon Flight, Dragon Spear
6. Anne of Green Gables
7. The Borrowers
8. All of a Kind Family
9. The Secret Garden
10. The War that Saved My Life
11. Where the Red Fern Grows
12. Something Wicked This Way Comes

Craft Books: read 2 per month

1. This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosly
2. Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques by Elizabeth Lyon
3. How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey
4. The Plot Thickens by Noah Lukeman
5. Elements of Fiction by Walter Mosly
6. The Last Fifty Pages by James Scott Bell

~

I’ve decided to try to construct a DIY MFA in writing middle grade fiction for myself this summer. I’m a novice at fiction writing, but I have so enjoyed reading these middle grade novels to my children that it has given me the itch to write them myself.

I’m hoping that by the end of the summer, I will have revised the first middle grade novel I wrote earlier this year and have a draft of a new book. Most of all, I’d like to have a lot more knowledge about how to craft good fiction for children.

Expect weekly updates this summer on how I’m progressing!