The Mark of Magic
In November 2024, the concept of "The Mark of Magic" was born, though at that time it was nothing more than a main character and an image meant to spark creativity in my sixth graders.
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To teach creative writing, I focused heavily on the importance of the main character's agency, and I demonstrated this by creating a character named Kya who lived in a small village beside a misty mountain. Together, the class discussed Kya's life, and after a full class period, she was a neglected medic's apprentice with uncontrollable magical powers and a scar across her face to mark herself as a magical person to the fearful village folk.
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Her only ally, we decided, was a lonely goatherd. Yes, Gruff's character was completely inspired by the song from "The Sound of Music." With our main characters taking shape, we sent them off on a quest to the top of Nowayman's Bluff to find the legendary Magic Giver.
We would begin every class discussing the plot points we needed to address, and the students decided how to move the story forward. I did my best to keep pace with them while writing the prose, and sometimes I'd come to school the next day with questions or suggestions regarding what I'd written based on their plot. We had a good foundation for the story.
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It took me a long time to finish the third act, and the students never did hear the end of the story. Instead of paying a small fortune to print copies of the book for each of them, I decided I might as well spend a smaller fortune to publish it! Here we are, a year later, and "The Mark of Magic" (which our class had just called "Kya and Gruff") is ready for its debut. My goal for this book is to be accessible to all the students who helped with its creation as well as to show them some behind the scenes as to what goes into the publication process.
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My favorite memory from our time writing this book together was after I had started writing act 1. I told the class, "We have a girl character, and a boy character, so I need to know... Is this a romance?" I was expecting a lot of pushback to this idea (I had a lots of boys in that class), but after a little discussion, they decided, "Yes, it's a romance. But no kissing!"