Author Deb Lund tutored Century School students on the wizardry of storytelling this week.
"Create a character and get him in trouble," she advised. "If you don't have a problem, the reader won't turn the pages."
Lund, who spent her childhood years in Menahga and came to the "Big Town" (Park Rapids) "when we wanted something to do," has authored six children's books, with two in the works.
Century School PTA funded the Washington state resident's visit to the Big Town.
"I love writing for kids," she told her audience. "I can't imagine writing for adults."
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Her vivid imagination is the propulsion for her Dinosailors and Dinotrain adventures, giant reptiles the protagonists.
Lund spoke to the students about her imminent-sibling tale. "Tell Me My Story, Mama" is the account of her son's embryonic adventures, and her own "big" issues while pregnant. "I bumped into people... And Daddy pushed me up hills when we went for walks."
She advised her audience to pick up the pen, to begin to write, and then gave the children formal permission to write the "worst junk in the world.
"There, it's solved," she told her fledgling authors. "Now you can't talk yourself out of it.
"You have to write junk in order to get to the good stuff," she advised. "You have to dig to find the gems."
All good stories have a problem and characters to find the solution, she counseled.
"And all good stories are worth reading again," with Humpty Dumpty the possible exception.
She took issue with the poor old oval critter's finale. After taking a fall and attempts to reconstruct by all the king's horses and all the king's men failing, "they just left him there," she said of the desultory conclusion.
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Lund challenged her audience to compose a tale, the students called upon to add chapters to a yarn about a duck with a sight problem.
The students' conclusion: laser surgery.
"Please write," the former teacher and librarian told the students. "Follow your dreams, whatever they are."
