Monday, September 8, 2014

Why Does an Author Write a Novel?

Today, we explored ideas around the essential question, Why does an author write a novel? We read a great interview with S.E. Hinton, in which she says that the success of The Outsiders, "inspired me so greatly that I was unable to write for four years...I love to write, but for four years, I could not" (32). This blows our minds as readers! Success and fame and money, as we discussed, are not internal reasons that propel authors to create novels, and sometimes the reception of those things can actually hinder the creative process.

As you each shared your own creative ideas for novels, we also explored other reasons for why authors write: to share a message, to process emotion, to look at something from another point of view, because it brings joy, to inspire, to entertain readers, and to face challenges.

Our word of the day was alliteration, which is the repetition of similar sounds in words close together.

Our quote for the day was, "Who knows? Maybe the root is the flower in that other world," from poet Mary Oliver.

The homework for tonight is to finish reading the interview with S.E. Hinton and annotate it as you read!

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