Good Stuff! The audio production of Lockwood & Co.

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I’m excited to share the Lockwood & Co. series by Jonathan Stroud. It’s a delightful audiobook experience for the whole family.

Nellie introduced me to it on our road trip to Yosemite last October.

And, oh my gosh, how we’ve enjoyed listening.

They’re young adult paranormal thrillers with a good dose of humor and English charm.

Yes, Netflix, launched a show based on the books, but Nellie and I tried it, and the Netflix productions don’t hold a candle to the audiobooks.

It’s not even close.

If you’re going to do this series, listen to the audiobooks or read them.

The story is set in England in, I’d say, the 1980s, before cell phones and the internet became a thing. The problem is that ghosts, specters, tommy knockers, etc. are appearing all over the place and causing havoc. Because, in this world, when you’re touched by a visitor from the other side, you can easily become ghost locked, basically put in coma, or die.

And while the ghosts can touch anyone, children and teens are the only ones who can see them. And so it’s children and teens who must fight them. Of course, large ghost protection agencies are formed, but our story is about Lucy Carlisle, who joins a tiny agency run by a daring young man named Anthony Lockwood.

There are five books in the series, which translates to about fifty-nine hours of delightful listening. Perfect for the long road trips, cleaning, fixing dinner, walks, etc.

Miranda Raison is the reader for the first book, Katie Lyons the second, and Emily Bevan for the final three. And they’ve all been a joy to listen to.

I’m not normally a paranormal kind of guy, but this is making me reconsider. We loved Stroud’s Bartimaeus series. And he brings the same fast action, interesting characters, and wit to these. 

If you enjoy delightful characters and derring-do leavened with some humor, give these a try. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Your single biggest challenge writing novels

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I’m about to put together a brand-new novel writing boot camp, but before I do that I want to know what would be most helpful to YOU.

So if you want to write novels, my question to you is this…

When it comes to writing novels, what’s YOUR single biggest challenge, frustration, or concern?

Please CLICK THE LINK to tell me.

Click here.

As a thank you, those that answer the question will get a seat at a virtual, 1-hour training session I’m putting on where you discover 3 key principles of keeping your readers hooked.

I look forward to the insights.

You’re awesome ?

The Little Secret that Propels So Many Blockbuster Plots

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I was invited to present a master class at the 2022 StoryMakers conference in Provo, Utah.

We all want to develop plots that delight readers. Maybe we have ideas for the characters. Maybe we have ideas for the setting. Maybe we even have a couple of scenes.

But a novel needs 40, 50, 60 or more scenes.

How do you figure out what happens next, and do it in a way readers love?

There’s one tool that can help.

Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Da Vinci Code all had it. So did Star Wars, Raider of the Lost Ark (1, 2, and 3), Taken, James Bond, The Wheel of Time, and thousands of other stories, TV episodes, and films.

It’s what I call the wanted object, sometimes known as the MacGuffin.

A good MacGuffin will not only make your plotting easier, it can also inject a wow factor into your story that readers love.

In this session, the writers learned what a MacGuffin really is and how you can use it to propel the plot and keep readers turning the page.

Here’s a PDF of the presentation.

2022 john brown – the secret that propels so many blockbuster plots2

And here’s the PDF of the handout.

2022 john brown – the secret that propels so many blockbuster plots handout

Enjoy!

All you need is a little beating and robbery

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Mrs. Brown, my wife, teaches language arts for the 7th and 8th grades as well as reading comprehension. She’s big on reading. She wants to provide every opportunity for kids to not only get good at it, but also learn to love it.

And so her walls are lined with bookshelves full of awesome books teens love. She reads the first chapters of books to her classes to let them sample various stories. She features their book reports. She has them paste the covers of the books they’ve read on pages displayed around the classroom. And the school’s awesome librarian supports with her own programs.

The 7th and 8th grade students at Rich Middle School are marinated in a big celebration of reading.

In Mrs. Brown’s class, it’s fairly straight forward to get an A on reading, which is a huge part of your grade—all you’ve got to do is read.

But how much reading do they need to do? How do you track it? And what books should they read?

Check this out.

First, she tests each student to see what his or her reading speed is.

Next, she takes the number of hours they’re supposed to be reading each week for homework (I think it’s 2 or 2.5), then does the math to get a feasible reading word count for the trimester for each student. She may adjust it a bit, depending on the student’s ability.

Third, she presents that number to the student, and the two of them set a word count goal for the trimester. Talk about an individualized goal.

If you want to get an A in reading, all you have to do is reach that word count goal.

How do you know how many words a book has?

The Accelerated Reader program provides that information.

But how does she know that they’ve read the books?

She uses the Accelerated Reader tests. And if there isn’t one, the student can write a report.

And what books do the students read?

Any dang book they like.

I love this. The kids get to select their own books and just read, read, read.

Another part of this is that she pings each student once a week to ask them what book they’re reading, what page they’re on, and what they think of the book. This weekly check-in provides the more frequent accountability students of that age need.

Yesterday, she received this report from one of her 8th grade boys who is reading Prey, the first book in The Drovers series.

Oh, yeah.

I’ll take that any day (grin).

Rock on, budding reader.