REVIEW | By Patricia Anne McGoldrick

With its shiny blue highway cover photo, Heather Wright’s slim volume, Writing Fiction: A Hands-On Guide for Teens invites teens to pick it up and take a look inside. The experienced educator’s self-published handbook invites teen readers to tak e a road-trip through the writing process clearly outlined in the Contents list.

In a conversational tone, Wright addresses her reading audience with tips on Setting Goals and Editing. The workbook style format provides templates for student input: writing goals list; Brain Dump bubble diagrams for start-up ideas; detailed character sketch outlines; random writing prompt lists; hero comparisons grid. Dialogue and setting tips are illustrated with actual examples to reinforce teens’ comprehension of their effectiveness.

Wright walks through the writing process with aspiring writers, and adds some “professional” advice for teens about contacting visiting writers and writers’ organizations, even connecting with peers to organize a local group of like-minded individuals.

Strategies are offered to teens for cultivating everyday awareness of sights, sounds, and people to provide Inspiration for writing along with regular reading, journaling, and peer interactions about their writing.

Strengths of Writing Fiction: A Hands-On Guide for Teens are the “hands-on” approach plus the use of frequent mentions of popular fiction characters and stories such as Harry Potter and Star Wars, drawing on teens’ probable knowledge. Wright's website with working links and downloadable resources is a positive feature along with an extensive list of References.

In an interview about her book, Wright commented that, overall, she was “pleased with the process” of self-publishing as there were “no surprises”.

Similarly, whether used in classrooms, in libraries, or by individual teen writers, there will be “no surprises” for those who are reading and using strategies from Heather Wright’s Writing Fiction: Hands-on Guide for Teens.

• Writing Fiction: A Hands-On Guide for Teens, Canadian edition is published by Bloomington: iUniverse, 2010, 56 pages. Price $13.14 at Amazon.