What Does Your Character Want?

Guest Post by Claudia Mills

            One of the most powerful questions for launching a story is: what does my main character want? So simple and obvious - and yet even experienced authors can forget this.

          

            As I was writing my most recent book, Nixie Ness, Cooking Star, set in an after-school cooking camp, at first I focused only on Nixie’s predicament. Now that her mother has a job outside the home, Nixie has to attend an after-school program, which means she’ll no longer be spending afternoons at home with her best friend, Grace, which means Grace will be spending afternoons instead with Nixie’s nemesis, Elyse. But what should happen next? I was stuck until I asked the crucial question: what does Nixie want? Well, she wants her life to be the way it used to be. But this is such a vague and hopeless desire. The story came into focus for me when I gave a different answer: Nixie feels she is losing her best friend, and she wants to get her best friend back again.

            Once we know what our character wants, the plot is driven by what she does to get it. If her first attempt succeeds, we have a very short and skimpy story. But if her first attempt fails, and her second attempt fails, and even her third attempt fails, her ultimate success is much more satisfying.

            If your students are stuck for a story idea, encourage them to think of what a character might want. They might start by thinking about what they want. A bike? A dog? A sleepover with a friend? A special family vacation?

            Then lead them in brainstorming how someone could try to get this thing. With brainstorming, even preposterous ideas are welcome. Remember it’s good if the first ideas end up failing! One of Nixie’s failed friendship-saving ideas is to get fame and fortune by starring in the cooking-camp video. Another is to bribe her friend with yummy camp-baked treats. A third is to pretend to be sick at camp in order to guilt her mother into quitting her job.

            For young writers, simple wants, simple strategies, and simple failures can work best.

            Your character wants a bike.  How could he get a bike?

1.     Find a job and save up money to buy one.

2.     Win one in a contest.

3.     Get a friend to trade his bike for something he wants even more.

Then, the really fun part: How could each of these ideas go wrong? Failure can be one of the most comical things to write about – and one of the saddest. And then the success that follows is sweeter still.

Nixie ends up keeping her best friend, but in the process she realizes Grace can still be her friend even if Grace is now friends with Elyse, too. It’s fine if a story ends with a character coming to a new understanding of what she wants.

But knowing what your character wants is where a story begins.

Claudia Mills is the author of almost 60 books for young readers, including most recently the Franklin School Friends series from Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and her new After-School Superstars series from Holiday House.  In addition to writing books, she has been a college professor in the philosophy department at the University of Colorado at Boulder and in the graduate programs in children’s literature at Hollins University in Roanoke. Visit Claudia at www.claudiamillsauthor.com.

Animals As Characters/Subjects: Pushing Against Gender Typing

by Mary Quattlebaum

Starting March 1^st, we’re celebrating Women’s History Month with 31 days of posts focused on improving the climate for social and gender equality in the children’s and teens’ community/industry.  Join in the conversation on Twitter at #kidlitwomen or on Facebook at https:www//www.facebook.com/kidlitwomen (which includes all the posts this month).

Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry.  Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.   I read these novels multiple times as a kid. I adored the fierce mare, Phantom, who cared for her domesticated foal until Misty could live on her own, and then returned to the wild.  I cried over the trials of sensitive, observant Black Beauty, the male horse in the 19^th century bestseller that galvanized the movement for more humane treatment of animals.

Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight. The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.  No matter their sex, the animal characters in these books were, by turns, loyal, cooperative, intelligent, kind, sturdy, afraid, vulnerable, and angry.  They had personality strengths and flaws.  They fought, strategized, searched for food, and cared for their young.  They persisted.  They triumphed, in different ways.  They were the heroes of their stories.

Growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s, I remember very, very few books with strong human girl and gentle human boy characters.  I didn’t even realize what I was searching for until, as an adult, I examined my favorite books more closely. Yes, I had been a country kid, a lover of animals and the natural world, but even deeper than that, I think I was hoping for depictions in books that better reflected some of the change I was glimpsing in the wider world. The realistic, slightly anthropomorphized critter-characters in these novels pushed boundaries. They brought nuance to, and even subverted the traditional gender-assigned roles and traits of the times.  (Interestingly, for picture books, almost the opposite is true.  In her research, children’s author/scholar Jennifer Mann discovered that anthropomorphized animals—especially parents, teachers and other adults--tended to remain gender typed, especially in terms of clothing.)

In the blog post that opened this #kidlitwomen discussion, Shannon Hale asked us to deeply consider how we as creators and as teachers/librarians/parents present books to young people.  Do we or others unconsciously label or have expectations of a book as being “for girls” or of a particular author as appealing primarily to boys?  How might we work against this?  In their posts, Susan Van Metre, Meg Frazer Blakemore, and Elizabeth Dulemba further explore ideas and possibilities around re-shaping the cultural narrative.

As a writer of nonfiction about/fiction with animal characters, I’ve tried to be alert to my own shortcomings, blind spots, and expectations (with full awareness of how much I still need to learn/unlearn)—and those of the larger society.  And I want to present my work—and that of others—in a way that encourages kids to think more deeply and critically about these issues too.

For a nonfiction chapter book about Hero Dogs, I wanted to broaden the narrative about heroic animals beyond the usual stories about military/law-enforcement dogs and the single act of bravery, so I included true stories about a female detective dog who has found hundreds of lost pets; two female “nurse” dogs at a wildlife sanctuary; and a male Dalmatian who is a fire-safety educator.  At schools, I ask kids to think about the term “hero” and what it means to them—and we talk about examples of heroes in history and their lives who may exemplify a range of heroic traits.

Mighty Mole and Super Soil depicts the real-life superhero of the animal kingdom, a female mole with super strength, super speed, and a super appetite.  Mighty Mole is like Wonder Woman, I tell kids.  Only she has fur and claws and teeny-tiny eyes (and no bustier, I might add, but that’s the subject for another post).

Many kids love reading and talking about animals.  Since #kidlit women encourages solution-based discussions, I want to ask:  What’s your favorite book about animals that works against gender typing?  And/or your favorite book about/with animal characters by a woman?

My choice: Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly.  So much love for this year’s Newbery Medal winner!  I especially admire the characterizations of the gentle boy and his beloved guinea pig and the fierce Nature-loving deaf girl who helps to rescue them.

www.maryquattlebaum.com

CHARACTER DOODLES

by Joan Waites

A fun and simple art project to create with your students is a page of character doodles.

Starting with a blank sheet of paper, randomly draw with a permanent black marker, shapes, swirls and varied lines till the page is almost filled. If desired, leave one larger white space to be used later for writing. To make the project more challenging for older students, have them draw with their non-dominant hand, or with their eyes closed. 

Next, fill in the shapes created on the page using various colors. Use a medium that can be drawn on top of when dry such as watercolor, markers, acrylic paint or colored pencils rather than something waxy like oil pastel or crayons.

Once the shapes are filled in with color, ask students to look closely at the art. Can they see a face or an animal? A funny creature? A building or perhaps a tree? Using black or other colored markers, have students add facial details, designs, and embellishments to the characters and objects that emerge on the page.

To add a writing exercise, have students use the large white space on the page to compose a short story, poem, or character study about one or more of their characters.

Happy doodling!

www.joanwaites.com

Crafting a Creative Character Description

by Mary Amato

When introducing a character, many writers begin and end with a list of the physical traits of the character: eye or hair color, height, etc. Try a different approach: direct commentary. Say something about this character’s effect on the world around him or her.

Illustration by Eric Brace
Please Write in This Book

Listen to Roald Dahl capping off his description of the formidable Miss Trunchbull in Matilda: “Thank goodness we don’t meet many people like her in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush—climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away.”

In The Whipping Boy, Sid Fleischman doesn’t tell us what the prince looks like. Instead he says: “The young prince was known here and there (and just about everywhere else) as Prince Brat. Not even black cats would cross his path.

For your next personal writing project, choose one character to receive special treatment. Ask: How do others see or respond to this character? Write a sentence or two about the character’s effect on the world.

If you're a teacher, here's how to approach this lesson.

1. Read the above examples first.

2. Choose a character from a book you've all read and brainstorm commentary about the character. If your students are too young to understand the concept of commentary, try using the term "gossip." If you were gossiping to someone else about this character, what might you say?

3. Ask your students to do this with a character in one of their own stories.

Have fun coming up with surprising ways of making characters come alive.

http://www.maryamato.com/

DIALOGUES AND TWO PERSON POEMS

by Mary Quattlebaum

Have you ever read dialogue that feels rambling and flat?  (Ha, sometimes I’ve written such dialogue and then, of course, had to revise.)  To help students think more carefully about the point of and voices in a piece of dialogue, try this:

*Have students make up one big and one very small character (for example, seagull and tiny crab, child and ant, cat and mouse).  One wants something that the other has (for example, the gull might want to eat the crab; or the ant might want child’s cupcake crumb).  What do they say to one another?  How are their voices different?  (For example, the gull might be rude and the crab very polite.  Or the ant, though tiny, might be very bossy and the child apologetic.)  What happens and how does the dialogue end? 

*Once students have written and revised their dialogues or two-speaker poems, have them pair up with someone in class and speak/perform the part of their two characters.  Have fun!

Below is an example of a two-speaker or dialogue poem. In “Encounter,” a girl and firefly have an imaginary conversation about their different experiences of firefly being caught by girl and then released.

                                Encounter

     Girl                                       Firefly

                                                                                                   

Quick leap,

turned wrist.

Bright dot

in my fist.

                                                  Night wide—

                                                  sharp snap!

                                                  I flicker

                                                  in a trap.

Gliding spark,

quiet flash:

go forth,

go fast.

                                                  Sudden window

                                                  opens high;

                                                  warm wind

                                                  whispers “fly.”

                    --by Mary Quattlebaum, Cricket magazine

www.maryquattlebaum.com

PLOTTING A VIDEO GAME

by Pam Smallcomb

As the mom of three boys, I know that getting a boy to read a book can sometimes be a challenge. Getting some boys to write, well, it might be easier to just go outside and move a mountain. I have found one topic that has never failed to excite interest when I talk to boys: gaming. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that most boys over the age of six are well versed in the gaming culture. They not only know the games out there, but are playing a good deal of them in their spare time.

So how can you translate this excitement for gaming into a writing experience, while limiting explosions, weaponry and other assorted violence?

How about having them design a game setting? Defining the setting as a stand-alone task has its advantages. It takes the narrator/character out of the writing (and the weapon temporarily out of his hands). By focusing the writing on describing the world of their imaginary game, they will learn the valuable skill of creating a story ‘bible.’ There are many appealing aspects to video games. Their scenes are richly landscaped. There are distinct cultures and hierarchies. Different realms operate by different rules. Just ask anyone who plays WOW (World of Warcraft, for the uninitiated).

Some questions to ask your students about their gaming environment could include:

Will there be any environmental obstacles that your characters will have to overcome?

What kind of lives do the different characters live (different professions, etc.)?

Do the characters live in different realms? What are they?

Are there any traditions? Taboos?

If I were to walk into a market or meeting place within your game setting, what sounds would I hear? What would people be eating?

What does it look like (the actual landscape)?

Where are we in time?

Do they have any magic? How does it work?

What scientific gizmos do they have? For example, can they teleport?

Within every game, there are groups of characters, or ‘tribes’ that need defining. Some questions about the general characters that inhabit the different gaming realms could be:

What do the different groups of characters look like? What is their temperament?

Any monsters among them? What kind?

Are some characters  ‘more equal’ than others?

Are there grudges and prejudices among the different characters?

What skills are valued?

Are there rules that must be obeyed?

Are there boons to secure? Missions or quests to complete?

And the one they will like best: How do they protect and defend themselves?

Once the general game setting has been written, you can then ask your students to continue their gaming ‘bible’ and define the specific characters who will take the lead in their game, and of course, describe the point (or story) of their game.

As the student defines his gaming world, hopefully the story of the game will become clearer. If this sounds like the steps you would take to plot a fantasy or a science fiction novel, that’s because it’s very similar. But the good news is, your gamer doesn’t have to know that.

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/index.html