Category Archives: English Writing Instruction

Writing well takes study and practice.

5 steps to nail a two-sentence fiction summary

Posted on December 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

Is it possible to summarize a novel in two sentences?  Yes, and here’s how.

Identify the five elements below to create a two sentence synopsis. They elements are

  1. A Hero/protagonist—Who is the main character?  Don’t confuse narrator with main character.  Dr. Watson is the narrator, but Sherlock Holmes is the main character.
  2. A Situation the protagonist faces—What problem does the protagonist need to overcome?
  3. A Goal the protagonist needs to achieve—What would mean victory for the protagonist? Usually it means returning life to the way it was before the inciting incident of the story.
  4. A Villain opposing the protagonist’s goal—Who or what is blocking the hero?  If the villain is personified, all the better.
  5. A Disaster happening if the villain succeeds—What disaster will follow if the protagonist does not succeed and the villain thwarts the protagonist’s goal?

The first three elements are written as a one-sentence statement, and the second two are written as a one-sentence question.

Here are two examples from To Kill a Mockingbird accompanied by an explanation of how the five elements apply to that fictional story.  (I use Mockingbird as an example in my blog often because most American middle school students are required to read this novel.)

Example one: In a small town in Alabama in the 1930s (part of the situation), a girl (the protagonist) and her brother try to lure their reclusive neighbor into the open (another part of the situation and the goal).  But can they overcome his extreme shyness and his brother’s violent control (villains) or will he remain a prisoner of his brother forever (disaster)?

Example two: A small town attorney (protagonist) must convince (goal) an all-white jury in 1934 Alabama that a black man did not attack a white woman (situation).  Can the attorney overcome the racial prejudice of his neighbors and the testimony of the woman and her father (villains) to paccused (disaster)?

Some tips on how to write this kind of summary:

Follow the story arc during the first third of the novel to find the information to include.

Write concisely.  Rarely use names, dates, locations or other details.  They will muddle the summary and confuse the reader.

Focus on action.  Skip themes.

For more on this kind of writing, see Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain.

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, fiction writing, summarizing

Making peace with AI, one word at a time

Posted on September 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

A student was writing about a vacation experience using an iPad.  As he lengthened words into phrases and phrases into sentences, corrections automatically appeared on his google document.  For example,

  • My student wrote, “We stoped at” but before he could write the next word, google’s AI changed “stoped” to “stopped.” My student did not need to think why his spelling was wrong or how to fix it.  AI subtly did that for him, allowing the student to focus on the content of what he was writing.
  • My student wrote, “but we couldn’t eventually see.” Google AI changed the word order to “but eventually we couldn’t see.” No explanation was given to my student for this change.  He probably didn’t notice it because he was finishing the sentence.

When I work in Microsoft Word, that software makes similar changes.  Right now, as I type the word “type,” over that word appears the correct spelling.  The software has guessed what word I want and has suggested how to spell it.  I don’t need to know how to spell.

As a teacher [teacher, teaches, and teaching just appeared as I wrote the word “teacher”], I realize my students are not forced to spell correctly, or to understand proper word order, or to remember that the pronoun “I” needs to be capitalized.  As long as they compose on electronic equipment in its default mode, they need not learn the nitty gritty of writing.

What is a teacher to do?  Allow AI to do its magic?  Or interrupt a student’s flow to ask why AI made a particular change?

My decision is to allow AI to fix my students’ work.  My students will likely be writing on a computer or tablet or phone for years to come, and will avail themselves of these fixes outside of class.  So why not in class?  Kids used to take pencil to paper to write; now they take fingers to a keyboard.  I see this situation as similar to allowing math students to use calculators, or letting my phone remember phone numbers, or letting GPS direct me on vacation.

I have another student taking an AP course.  Soon she will need to take a test requiring her to write several paragraphs in longhand.  Without AI to correct her, her poor grammar skills will show.  Even if her thinking is flawless, if she cannot write a coherent sentence to show her thinking, her grade will disappoint.

Yet looking at my students’ futures, how often will they be required to write in longhand?  Is the teacher requiring longhand for a test being realistic?  Writing in longhand is becoming passé.

I suspect this blog will seem ridiculous to my grandchildren when they are my age.  Technology will have changed so much by then.  And the changed technology will change the expectations of teachers and students.  Better they learn to use technology than how to spell “stopped” correctly.  Their future depends on technology, not on correct spelling.

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Posted in AI or artificial intelligence, English Writing Instruction

Pantster or plotter? What kind of writer are you?

Posted on September 9, 2025 | Leave a comment

Writers come in two classes:  panster and plotter.  Which are you?

A pantster is a writer who doesn’t like to plan, someone who likes to write by the seat of their pants.  A pantster likes to discover his story as he writes it with plot twists he didn’t anticipate until he started writing.

A plotter likes to plot his stories before he writes them.  Some plotters write with minimal plots figured out before they start.  Other plotters anticipate every scene, setting, character, dialog and surprise in the outline.  They want to know what happens before they write.

Is one better than another?  It depends on the type of writing you are doing.

Essays require organization, a strong thesis statement, a development of that one idea, and a conclusion.  They require at least a minimal of plotting.

Biographies require some kind of plotting–usually chronological.

Whodunits require a murderer who is one of the characters.  Readers today don’t accept villains who come out of nowhere.  So plotting backwards is inevitable.  I can spot mysteries whose villain has not been well integrated into the story.  I feel cheated by these endings.  I have invested all this time into reading, and I expect the writer will respect me by providing a clever ending.  That takes careful planning.

Some fiction is comprised of self-contained short stories with one factor in common, such as a location or a character.  There might be an arc showing development, or there might not be.  Individual stories  might require some plotting, but the novel as a whole might not.  Or the story arc might be vague, such as a little brother annoys his big brother, and the big brother doesn’t like it.  These are more pantster than plotter.

Journey stories can be well written by a pantster.  You start the protagonist on his way, and then you add one difficult situation after another until he has faced enough perils.  Then you end the story with victory.  The order of the obstacles doesn’t matter.

The pantster does an awful lot of rewriting.  The plotter rewrites too, but not as much because so much writing was done in the planning stage of the story.  The plotter seems to finesse his writing while the pantster chucks page after page of irrelevant material.  Or maybe he saves it for another book.

Which we are—pantster or plotter—might depend on our personalities.  Detail-focused writers might prefer plotting to be sure all the details are included and in the right order.  Freedom-focused writers might prefer pantster’s lack of restrictions.

Perhaps the best-loved writers are a little bit of both, using sophisticated plotting paired with imaginative, surprising events.

Which kind of writer are you?

 

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, pantsters and plotters

The “write” way to stand out from the crowd on LinkedIn

Posted on August 12, 2025 | Leave a comment

On LinkedIn, standing out from the crowd is vital.  So how do you do that?

Don’t just “Like” a post.  Respond to a post in writing.  A written response, at a minimum, tells the writer of the post that you have read the post.  At a maximum, a written response will resonate with the writer of the post and develop a conversation, an introduction, a network, and who knows, work.

So what kinds of comments are good?  The kinds that engage you with the writer of the post will make you noticed.  If you want to be visible among the hundreds of thousands of social media users, you need to engage.  You need to take a step beyond the ☺ or the “Like” icons.  You need to say something meaningful to the writer of the post or to readers.  Noting that you “Like” a post does no good to anyone, including you.

Here are suggestions for good comments:

Quote part of the post and say what you think about it, what it brings to mind, or why you disagree.

Ask a question about the content.  Not all posts are clear.  Saying you’d value clearing up a confusing part shows you have engaged.

Supply a pertinent quotation from a well-known expert in the field.  Make a connection others might not.

Supply a witty quotation from a someone well known for their retorts.  Supply humor if you can.  Everyone loves humor.

Provide current news on the topic–the more up-to-date, the better.  And if the news is not generally available, tell where you found it so others can check for themselves.

Provide a counter point of view–respectfully.

Add a new angle, an insight, or an analogy.  Further the discussion with information which will extend the point made in the post.  Name a research paper, a book, an analysis that readers can find if they want deeper knowledge.

Involve yourself in the conversation if you want to be noticed.

 

 

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, LinkedIn, writing tips

Find the flaw

Posted on August 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

All of the following sentences have the same minor flaw.  Can you find it?

  • On the drive into the city from the airport, we encountered an accident.
  • The teacher scowled after she saw the robot.
  • The bird stopped singing as soon as it saw the cat.

Here’s the flaw.  In each sentence, the writer puts the later action first and the prior action second.

  • Which happens first, driving into the city or leaving the airport? Leaving the airport, right?  So the sentence is better written as “On the drive from the airport into the city. . .”
  • Which happens first, scowling or seeing the robot? Seeing the robot, right?  So the sentence is better written as “After she saw the robot, the teacher scowled.”
  • Which happens first, stopping singing or seeing the cat? Seeing the cat, right?  So the sentence is better written as “As soon as the bird saw the cat, the bird stopped singing.”

The flaw in all three sentences fits under the umbrella of “clarity.”  A sentence should be understood on a literal level during the first reading.  A reader should not need to reread a sentence to figure out in what order things are happening.

One way to gain clarity is by using chronological order.  We think in terms of what happens first, next, later and finally.  Our sentences should contain what happens first, first;  what happens next, next; and so on.  Reversing the order of telling can confuse readers.  [Reversing the order comes first; confusing readers comes second.]  Why take the chance?  Make your writing clear during the first read.

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Posted in clarity, English Writing Instruction, writing tips