KidLit Craft Podcast

In this mini-episode, we switch things up! Anne-Marie defines what a misbelief is, how it connects your character’s internal and external journey, and we see the concepts in action in Martine Leavitt’s YA novel, Buffalo Flats. Links: KidLit Craft website Martine Leavitt’s Buffalo Flats Writing exercises to explore a character’s misbelief Misbelief in Paul Acampora’s How to Avoid Extinction A diffe...

Martine Leavitt’s YA novel Buffalo Flats is full of desire. In addition to wanting to own a piece of land, the main character, Rebecca, also wants to become the person God wants her to be, and that means loving other people, most of whom she finds annoying or unlovable. Erin walks through how the desire is introduced, what standard Rebecca is holding herself to, and what internal obstacles there a...

Martine Leavitt’s YA novel Buffalo Flats is full of desire. The main character, Rebecca Leavitt, wants more than anything to own a piece of land near where her family is homesteading in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Erin traces how Martine introduces the external desire right from the start, where Rebecca runs into obstacles, and what the stakes are for Rebecca.   Links: KidLit Craft websit...

We’re three episodes in, and we’re taking a holiday break! Anne-Marie and Erin share how life is in podcast land and encourage you to read Buffalo Flats during the break. Starting in Episode 4 there will be spoilers. But the book is so rich that even if you listen first, you’ll have wonderful moments of discovery when you read the book. Links: KidLit Craft website Martine Leavitt’s Buffalo Flats T...

Erin takes us through the four scenes that make up the first chapter of Martine Leavitt’s YA novel Buffalo Flats. We talk desire line (both internal and external), character, setting, language, humor and more.   Links: Martine Leavitt’s Buffalo Flats "Making Your Character's Desires Concrete" by Anne-Marie "Crafting Character: Discovering Desire" from KidLit Craft Backstory, articles from KidLit C...

Erin takes us through the powerful opening scene of Martine Leavitt’s YA novel Buffalo Flats and examines how the elements of the first scene set up the entire novel–character, desire lines, themes, setting, voice, tone, humor, and more. Links: Martine Leavitt’s Buffalo Flats The Sound of Music Hadestown Six A tor Nerd term: limited omniscient A KidLit Craft post on an omniscient narrator that use...

At KidLit Craft we look at the mechanics of how writers do what they do, so we can improve our own writing. In this series, we’re taking a deep dive into Martine Leavitt’s YA novel Buffalo Flats. Erin has called this the perfect novel, so we’re tearing it apart to see how Martine put it together.  In this introductory episode, we cover how we met (at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where we both did...