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.

Writing with Wordless Picture Books

by Joan Waites

Having just received my copy of (three time Caldecott winner) David Wiesner's  new book, Mr. Wuffles, I started to think of how I could incorporate wordless picture books into my teaching and school visits. Students of all ages sometimes struggle to come  up with ideas for a story, even if prompts and suggestions are given. A wordless picture book is one way to visually inspire a student to come up with a story based on the illustrations in the book. No two students will interpret the pictures and story in the exact same way.

Using  a wordless picture book as a prompt, have your students write (or tell) about what they see happening in the pictures. Who are the main characters? Where is the story taking place? What challenges do the characters face and how are they eventually overcome? For older students, a vintage photograph, a travel shot, or picture from a garden magazine could be used in the same way to help stimulate story ideas.

Using an already written story (a familiar tale or a student created work) as a prompt, have students draw the story in pictures only. Challenge students to incorporate as many details of the story as they can--not only the physical traits of the characters and the setting, but the mood, emotion, and the interaction between characters based on what is happening. Have students share their wordless picture books with the class and ask other students tell the story as they see it.  How closely does it match the author's vision? Even for older students, this can be a useful exercise to help develop a story before writing it down.

There are many wordless picture books to choose from, but some of my favorites are:

Flotsam,  by David Wiesner

Tuesday, by David Wiesner

The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney

Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad, by Henry Cole

www.joanwaites.com

CHALLENGE YOURSELF

by Joan Waites

It happens to the best of us. We sit and stare at the blank page, wondering if we will ever come up with another great story idea or artistic masterpiece.

As easy as it would be to give up when we hit a wall like this, sometimes taking small baby steps towards the bigger picture helps to get the wheels turning.

For example, last November I participated in “PiBoIdMo” or “Picture Book Idea Month” an on-line challenge started by children’s author Tara Lazar. The premise of the challenge is to motivate both published and unpublished writers to come up with one picture book “idea” a day for one month. Not a whole manuscript, but a title, unique character, or a rough outline…just a little something written down that might jump start a future story idea. It seems like a daunting task, but just taking minutes a day, I was surprised at how much you can accomplish. Of course not all these ideas will be worth pursuing, but the hope is that one or two, or a combination of several of these ideas will eventually become a polished manuscript ready for submission.

http://taralazar.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/piboidmo-official-sign-up-starts-today-right-here-right-now/

Another challenge (going on right now), is the 12 x 12 in 2012: Picture Book Writing Challenge. Participants are challenged to write one picture book manuscript for each month of the year in 2012.

http://writeupmylife.com/2011/11/30/12-x-12-in-2012-picture-book-writing-challenge/

If Novel writing is more of what you are interested in, consider participating in National Novel writing month, another thirty day challenge:  http://www.nanowrimo.org/

For those wanting an artistic challenge, you can participate in “Illustration Friday.”  A weekly word prompt is given out and participants may then post their work each Friday in an on-line gallery. This is a wonderful way to experiment using a different style, medium, or technique, as well as a great way to freshen up a portfolio with new work.

http://www.illustrationfriday.com/

Many of my colleagues have also given themselves a self-imposed challenge of a small illustration or sketch a day (based on a particular theme) for one month. Each illustration is then posted on Facebook, sometimes with a contest at the end of the month to win a piece of original art. It’s a great way to build a following while giving you the push to create new work. Some themes I’ve seen featured are monsters, fairies, and Christmas doodles during the month of December.

Participating in a challenge like one of the above could also be adapted for use in the classroom.  Both writing and artistic challenges could be conducted for a week instead of a month. At the end of the week, have students choose one story idea or one illustration to develop further for the final project.

The next time you are faced with that blank page, challenge yourself one step at a time. Those baby steps just might lead you to the right destination!

http://www.joanwaites.com/

Why Did Humpty Dumpty Have a Great Fall?

by Joan Waites

While planning out an upcoming class session, I pulled out many of my favorite picture books, fairy Tales and Mother Goose collections for inspiration. The class is titled “Story Art” where students will learn about the art of children’s book illustration, and how to illustrate an original story of their own.

The job of an illustrator is to not only depict what is written in the story, but to offer  the reader a visual surprise-a twist, a hidden element or another parallel story happening in the illustrations so the child will want to come back to the book over and over again.

Using the above concept, have your students try their hand at illustrating a short Mother Goose rhyme.  In most classic Mother Goose books we see an image of Humpty Dumpty sitting perched on a wall, or perhaps broken in pieces after he tumbles down.  But how and why did he fall? Was he pushed? Was he dancing a jig on the ledge and slipped? Trying to ice skate? There are limitless possibilities for your students to imagine and have fun drawing.

What about Little Bo-Peep? Where did those sheep go when she was trying to find them? What were they doing? Why did Jack jump over the candlestick? What was he trying to reach on the other side? Are the characters in the rhymes human or animals?

Expanding on this idea even further, have students write an original story to go along with the art they have created for the rhyme. A perfect example of this is the picture book And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel  Harcourt Children's Books; 1st edition (May 1, 2001). Each night in the story, the rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle is performed. Dish and Spoon return after they run away, and the characters complete the rhyme in the same way over and over again. But one night, Dish and Spoon run away and don’t come back, leading the other characters on a desperate chase to find them.  We are lead through this humorous tale of what happened to them and how their friends come to the rescue.

Have students share their illustrations and stories with the class. Perhaps the mystery of why Humpty Dumpty had a great fall will be revealed!

http://www.joanwaites.com/

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PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: STORY IDEAS FROM FUNNY FAMILY STORIES

by Pam Smallcomb

A common complaint from kids (and adults, for that matter) is “I can’t think of anything to write!”

Trying to help a group of kids come up with ideas for stories is a little like trying to catch smoke with a net. The more you try to explain the different ways to generate story ideas, the murkier things become.  Looking out into the room, you can see their eyes glazing over.

A good exercise for elementary school aged kids is to have them write about their own childhood (as short as it may be!). That’s too general, of course, and so tightening their options is a good idea. One direction to go would be to have your students write about the funniest memory they have of their own family. The great thing about this exercise is that if they can’t remember a funny episode, they can simply make one up. By using their own families, each student has a cast of characters who are defined and ready to go. All they need to do is either ‘pretend’ that a funny event has happened in the past, or retell a real one.

Maybe their funny memory happened during a holiday (a Thanksgiving dinner disaster, perhaps). It could have happened on a family vacation.  Remind them of those long car rides to DisneyWorld, or of family reunions. Many will have brothers and sisters, or dogs and cats.  If they don’t, they can add one into their story and see what happens. It’s their chance to have the pet llama they always wanted for their birthday, but never got.

While they are writing their funny family memory, it’s a good time to remind students that when you write humor, exaggeration is your friend. If Aunt Ethel is tidy, she is super tidy. She is so tidy that she walks around the dinner table wiping the condensation from the water glasses so it doesn’t drip on the plastic tablecloth.

If Uncle Ernie snored through your big sister’s wedding, he was so loud the bride and groom couldn’t hear their vows.

 

  When retelling a funny memory, exaggeration is like an amplifier. It turns up the funny volume. But if you use too much exaggeration, your reader won’t know where to focus.  If Uncle Ernie is the star of your funniest memory, let his story build and climax, and make the best use of exaggeration when he snores through your sister’s wedding.

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/