Dear Mr. Henshaw Literature and Writing Quotes

How many times have we dreaded doing something and the idea of it just got worse and worse until it seemed as impossible as nailing Jell-O to a tree? Then we finally begin, and we find out it isn't as terrible as we'd built it up to be.

A lot of books (i.e. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Tale of Peter Rabbit) were first told to a particular person before being written down or published for a wider audience. Imagine writing a letter to some random kid someone told you about versus writing a letter to your friend's kid brother. The first would probably be very vague and impersonal, the second specific and detailed. Maybe even fun, depending on how you felt about your friend's kid brother.

Good dialogue tells a lot about a person and makes a story more interesting for the reader. We can see Leigh's progress as a writer when his diary entries start containing dialogue. It makes that last scene with Mom and Dad even more dramatic because it's like we're right there with them.