What can ELA teachers learn from a bestselling suspense novelist who begins writing without knowing who the villain is?
In this episode of Shifting Schools, Tricia Friedman speaks with Lisa Gardner about the habits, questions, and research behind her novels. Their conversation offers ELA teachers a fresh way to think about character development, suspense, inquiry, and the creative conditions young writers need.
Lisa explains that she does not begin with characters divided neatly into heroes and villains. She gives each person layers, contradictions, motivations, and a moral code. As the story develops, she allows the characters to reveal who they are. That process offers a useful alternative to writing instruction that asks students to plan every part of a story before they have had a chance to discover it.
Lisa also shares how she researches fictional crimes by speaking with police officers, medical examiners, and other specialists. She does not ask only what would happen. She asks what highly capable people would notice, what they would try, and why their best efforts might still fail. For ELA classrooms, her process models research as part of imaginative writing rather than something reserved for essays and reports.
The conversation also considers the role of walking, daydreaming, reading, games, puzzles, and unstructured time in creative thought. Lisa describes writing as an individual craft supported by a community of other writers, researchers, readers, and even her three dogs.
In this episode, ELA teachers will hear ideas for helping students:
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Create characters with competing motives and believable moral codes
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Move beyond simple hero-and-villain categories
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Use research to make fictional worlds more convincing
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Treat unanswered questions as fuel for writing
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Experiment with discovery writing before committing to an outline
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Build suspense by asking why an obvious solution would not work
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Use walking, conversation, and time away from screens to generate ideas
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Give and seek feedback while preserving an individual creative voice
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See reading, games, and puzzles as part of a larger writing practice
Lisa also introduces her latest novel, You'll Be Sorry, a suspense story involving a family that vanished 30 years ago, a small town filled with secrets, a mysterious couple who purchases the abandoned crime scene, and a dog who may know more than anyone else.
This episode invites ELA teachers to consider a different starting point for writing instruction: What might students create if they were not required to know exactly where their stories were going before they began?
Learn more about Lisa https://www.lisagardner.com/
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