KidsWriting Genre Workshops: Comic Strips and Flash Fiction: Writing Tiny Stories with Thais Vitorelli

For Young Writers, Ages 9-12

How do you write a whole story in half a page? How about three sentences? Or maybe six  words? In this workshop, every word matters! We’ll talk about short stories and what makes them so powerful.

April 9: Landing the Punch Line
In this workshop, we’ll learn how to craft a fun and impactful comic strip by practicing build-ups and twist endings. We’ll create our own captions for famous cartoons, then we’ll work on our own comic strips!

April 16: Less is More: A Flash Fiction Challenge
Can you tell the same one-page story in just six words? Together, we’ll go over the anatomy of a microstory, then work on fitting your entire beginning, middle and ending into increasingly shorter formats.

April 23: Show, Don’t Tell: Creating Illustrated Stories
By combining words and illustrations, we’re able to communicate further with our readers. In this workshop, we’ll practice finding that powerful balance between the two, from crafting full stories using only emojis, to memes, comics, and even picture books!

April 30: Uncovering Hidden Stories  
Could the coin lost under the cushions of your couch tell a story? What about your library card? Or your wisdom teeth? In this workshop, we’ll write stories from unique points of view, and learn how these unusual characters and their universes could have more in common with us than we think!

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Enrollment supports our KidsRead / KidsWrite programming which annually serves 2,500 students from under-resourced New York City public schools in grades 3 through 12 with author-led reading and writing events and workshops.