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| Keeping it in the family with the 100th anniversary edition. |
If you have had the pleasure of listening to Tristan Bancks speak about his writing you will know how committed and enthusiastic he is on connecting children and youth to the art of writing. This week, Tristan shares this passion with some insights into his writing techniques. Tristan Bancks tells stories for the page and screen. His books for kids and teens include Two Wolves, The Fall, Detention, the Tom Weekly series and Nit Boy. His books have won and been shortlisted for many awards, including a Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book, the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, ABIA, YABBA, KOALA, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and Queensland Literary Awards. His new release for 2021 is Ginger Meggs, a 100th anniversary book of brand new short stories based on characters created by his great-great uncle, Jimmy Bancks, in 1921.
Chatfield: Book trailer. [video] YouTube. https://youtu.be/AVimtYP2sNE
Writing fiction is a challenge for both kids and adults. Generating ideas, getting that first draft down, developing the plot, finding a satisfying ending. There are so many aspects to the process. And then the rewriting begins!
I began my career working in film and TV which introduced me to many tools that I now employ in the writing of my books like Two Wolves, Tom Weekly and Ginger Meggs. I’ve found that kids and teens also find these tools engaging and useful when approaching the creative process.
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| © Tristan Bancks |
As a children’s author, I have visited over a thousand schools in thirteen years, working with young writers. Over the past year, I have taken time to reflect more deeply on the creative process and I have broken down what I think are the most important aspects of writing and the best problem-solving tools for young writers. I share these teachings in Young Writers’ StorySchool, a 24x3-minute online video writing workshop for teachers to use in the classroom.
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| Bancks, T. (n.d.). Young Writers' Story School. Tristan Bancks' StorySchool. https://www.youngwritersstoryschool.com/ |
One of the key tools I focus on in StorySchool is the Vision Board – a place to gather images, video, music, maps and other transmedia elements in order to develop setting, characters and tone for stories. The Vision Board has become a core part of my writing process and it’s also incredibly useful in motivating and inspiring young writers. It allows them to act on their own volition, to find images and other materials that resonate, personally, and it makes the writing process more active, visual and fun.
Here is the Vision Board video from StorySchool which shows the board for my novel Two Wolves in action, then sets a writing challenge.
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| © Tristan Bancks Vision Board Video |
The videos live over at www.youngwritersstoryschool.com but, for this post, I’m making it available to you via Drive. I hope it inspires you to vision board your own stories and to introduce the tool to kids and teens. Good luck!
Tristan is offering readers of this post 10% off his Young Writers’ StorySchool should you wish to subscribe with the discount code TB10 at checkout. www.youngwritersstoryschool.com
Tristan Bancks
Blog / Site: www.tristanbancks.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/tristanbancks
Instagram: www.instagram.com/tristanbancksbooks
Facebook: www.facebook.com/tristanbancks
eNewsletter: www.tristanbancks.com/newsletter
YouTube: www.youtube.com/tristanbancks
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