Years ago, I traveled to a library to talk about storytelling with a group of children. It was my first time, and I was so nervous. Why? Because children can be brutally honest. Unlike adults, they haven't had time to develop a filter to which they feed their opinions before spewing them out (though these days, a lot of adults have forgotten their filters, but I digress). I was worried the children would be bored or rude or want to be anywhere but in a library--on a Saturday afternoon no less. But I was wrong. As I approached a long conference table, I was met with a full house of children with wide eyes, stacks of paper, and pencils and pens at the ready. After I introduced myself, I went around the table and had the children introduce themselves. Many talked about why they loved writing. Some of them even wanted to be writers. We talked about their favorite stories, favorite characters. We talked about setting, plot, conflict, and other storytelling elements, and I...