GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS

by Pam Smallcomb

What is it that makes us keep on turning the pages of a book? An enthralling plot will certainly help, but interesting stories alone won’t necessarily keep our interest. What we need to keep reading is to become captivated by the characters in a story.

Movies and books are filled with fascinating characters. How did the screenwriters and authors develop them? One tool used in writing both screenplays and novels, is to create a character bio.

Students can write a character bio to get to know their main character, as well as his/her supporting cast, before they begin to write their story.

There are many different systems for documenting the scenes and characters in your story. Celtx is a screenwriting tool that is available on-line for free (which is a definite plus). Here is an example of the types of questions you will find there:

Character’s description?

Here you can write a brief summary about your character. I like to think of this as a high-level view, with little or no detail. You can start with something like “Sarah is a high school freshman, living in a small mid-western town. She is the only child. She’s shy. She loves singing.”

It’s a chance to put down anything and everything you can think of about your character. Don’t worry about the details. Just brainstorm. You will come back and update this later, to reflect everything you have learned about your character.

Detailed physical description?

This section includes a place for you to enter the character’s age, distinguishing features, hair color, eye color, height and weight. Now you know what your character looks like.

Key character traits?

When you are thinking of character traits, I think it’s helpful to start with the ones you know for certain, and see if they help you to think of others.

For Sarah let’s say these:

Shy

Musical

Obsessive

Fearful

Loyal

Caring

Sometimes one character trait will lead to another. If I decide Sarah should be obsessive (maybe about singing?) then she must have some fear as well (maybe she is afraid of losing of losing her dream? Maybe she has a fear of singing in public?). One character trait will often point you to the next one. If Sarah is loyal, then I think she should be caring as well. I’m starting to see she might be a good friend, or maybe she has always tried to be a good daughter. A small picture of Sarah is starting to form in my mind.

The next section is on motivation. Now things start to get interesting.

What is the goal of this character?

Go back and look at your summary paragraph. Mine said that Sarah was an only child, living in a small mid-western town. Maybe she feels stifled? Maybe Sarah’s goal is to break out of her small town life.

What is the character's plan to achieve the goal?

Once you figure out your character’s goal, you can decide how she is going to get there. What does Sarah have? She has her singing. Maybe Sarah wants to make it as a singer.

There are other sections that will help you to refine and get to know your character better: family background, habits and vices, education, personality, likes and dislikes.

Students can use this tool in another way: to analyze a character in a story. Filling in the different sections about a book character will help them see how the author used certain character traits, goals, and even physical descriptions to his advantage.

Developing complex and interesting characters requires some elbow grease and time (and it’s something I am always struggling with), but it’s time well spent if in the end you have yourself a ‘page-turner’.

    

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

EXPRESS YOURSELF!

by Joan Waites

A fun exercise I often use during school visits is showing students how they can illustrate various emotions. If your character is sad, bored, scared or happy, how do you draw your character’s facial expression and body language?

Emotion can be determined by looking at the lines on three key places on the face:

1. The line of the eyebrows

2. The corners of the eyes

3. The corners of the mouth

Take turns with student volunteers and ask them to show you (and the class) and “angry” face, a “sad” face, a “happy” face and so on. Point out how the eyebrows, eyes, and mouth change with different emotions.  Be prepared for lots of laughs!

Next, provide a template of blank circles. Under each circle, have the students write down different emotions and ask them to illustrate the facial expressions that correspond using the lines of the eyebrows, eyes and mouth.

Finally, have each student illustrate a character from an original or existing story, depicting one emotion. Talk about how the character’s body language combined with facial expression can also show how they are feeling. Would they stand up tall and proud, hunched over with head hanging low, or arms crossed tightly in front of them? Having small hand mirrors for students to look at themselves when working on this exercise is also helpful. Students can also pair up and draw each other.

Have fun and express yourself!

http://www.joanwaites.com/

Drop Everything and Write

by Pamela Ehrenberg

I fidget.  Put my feet on a chair.  Cross my legs.  Stretch.  Drink tea.  Realize that I'm slouching.  Fidget more.  And write.

Most of my students don't know this, but one group does: the ones from my "Lunchtime Writing Retreats" workshop.  In this experience, we all--students and instructor alike--commit to five or six one- to two-hour retreats where we spend most of our time working on our own individual writing projects.

What does it look like when a writer writes?  I shift back and forth between laptop, notepad, and printed-out draft.  I tap-tap-tap, word after word after word . . . then I stare at the screen, finding it too great an effort even to change a punctuation mark.

This isn't how I imagine it goes for Anne Tyler, or Bobbie Ann Mason, or Allegra Goodman.  I imagine my favorite writers unlocking their words with a magical key that allows everything to flow effortlessly on the page.  I know better, but I imagine anyway.  How do our students imagine it looks when a writer writes?

For years schools have had success with "Drop Everything and Read"--programs that acknowledge school might be the place in a student' s life that is most conducive to reading.  And reading in the company of other readers--seeing what it looks like when a reader reads--gives students the confidence to realize that maybe however they're going about it is OK after all.

How wonderful when we can make time as well for our students to write in each other's company--and in our company as well, and the company of other adults at school.  Perhaps the principal writes puns or the woman who lovingly serves lunch is also penning a murder mystery.  Maybe the same benefits of dropping everything to read--progress made, intimidation shattered--will hold true for your students as they do for mine.  If nothing else, the experience will shed light on what it looks like when a writer writes.  And I'm guessing that we'll like what we see.

*For more information about upcoming sessions of Lunchtime Writing Retreats in the DC/Baltimore area, visit http://www.writer.org/

  

http://www.pamelaehrenberg.com/Site/Home.html

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES

by Mary Quattlebaum

Fellow blogger Pamela Ehrenberg wrote recently about rituals that can help move us writers and our students more quickly into the act of writing.  A cup of hot tea, a blue pilot pen, and a yellow legal pad tell me that it’s the “write time.”  Writing prompts can also be helpful. A favorite of mine and my students is the Fractured Fairy Tale.

Like my Nutty Nursery Rhymes last month, the Fractured Fairy Tale exercise jumps off from traditional pieces of writing that are known to people of all ages.  I’ve done Fractured Fairy Tales with third through sixth graders, college students, and MFA writing students.  This playful exercise is especially helpful when considering/teaching point of view, plot, and development of story tension.

Share or read aloud some well-known fairy tales.  “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Frog Prince,” “Snow White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and “Cinderella” are but a few popular examples. 

Explore story development:   What does the main character want?  What are the obstacles in his/her path and do they increase in intensity?  How does the character overcome them?

Explore point of view:  What if the story were told from another character’s point of view (the frog in “The Frog Prince,” for example, or the stepmother queen in “Snow White,” or one of the mean stepsisters in “Cinderella,” or the bartered cow in “Jack and the Beanstalk)?  How would the story be different?  What might happen?  What would a happy ending be like for this new character?  [This gives students a chance to explore, too, how a story idea can be shaped in multiple ways, depending on point of view/main character.]

Explore setting/time period:  What if the story took place in a different place and time?  How might it change, for example, if Little Red Riding Hood was a contemporary girl in an American suburb?  Or the frog prince lived in a large pond with other frogs rather than the palace well?   

Write:  Encourage students to write their own fractured version of a well-known fairy tale.  They might tell the tale from another character’s point of view, play around with setting or time, and/or experiment with tone and humor.

Suggested books:  It’s fun to look at the various versions of traditional and fractured fairy tales in print books and Disney films.  Some of my favorites include (traditional) Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales and The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen, selected and translated by Diana Crone Frank and Jeffrey Frank; (fractured stories) Newfangled Fairy Tales (books one and two) edited by Bruce Lansky; (picture books) Cinderella’s Rat by Susan Meddaugh and Peeping Beauty by Mary Jane and Herm Auk; and (novels) The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale and Cloaked by Alex Flinn.

 http://www.maryquattlebaum.com/

DON'T LEAVE RED RIDING HOOD IN THE WOODS: Helping Young Writers Find Endings

by Jacqueline Jules

While looking over student writing in six different classrooms on the fourth and fifth grade level, I noticed that quite a few ended with TBC or To Be Continued. This troubled me. Were all the students writing sweeping sagas? In conferences, students complained, “The story is too big . . . I can’t finish it.” Looking over the stories together, we saw that they rambled in beginning mode, setting the scene and introducing characters without presenting a problem or conflict. More often than not, “To Be Continued” was another way of saying, “Too Tired to Continue.” Students may dream of creating a 400-page novel, but the classroom is not the right venue for it. I understand that teachers are reluctant to discourage creativity. However, as an author myself, I believe that a teacher can do more damage to an aspiring writer’s future by not demanding a beginning, middle, and end. Many successful writers begin with short stories. A budding novelist should learn how to create a satisfying story arc on a small scale before trying it across a multi-chapter format. 

A classic fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood, is perfect for a quick mini-lesson on beginning, middle, and end. Classes will readily identify the beginning of the story as the part when Red Riding Hood takes the basket off to grandmother’s house. The middle of the story occurs when Red Riding Hood meets the wolf in the woods, and the dramatic end comes when Red Riding Hood is eaten by the wolf, then saved by the woodcutter.

Ask your class: “What if we left Red Riding Hood in the woods?” You will likely get a response on the order of:  “That wouldn’t be too impressive.”

Most students realize they are giving up when they write “To Be Continued.” Don’t accept it. Help your students guide Red Riding Hood out of the woods to a happy ending with grandmother. Show them that all stories must have a problem (ie: big bad wolf) and when you conquer the wolf, your ending appears.

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

FROM WORRY TO WORDS

by Laura Melmed

In recent days we’ve viewed with horror and sympathy reports of the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  Heartrending images such as these and the ones from Haiti last year can be especially disturbing to children.  One way to deal with troubling emotions around such events is through writing.  

By its nature, poetry can tap into, synthesize, and give voice to strong feelings. Helping children describe a forceful act of nature in the form of poetry could be a cathartic exercise.  In a three part session, children can be guided to write poems using strongly descriptive language in a fresh, expressive way.  The goal here is to write in free verse, rather than following a prescribed structure or rhyming scheme which can sometimes rein in the free flow of ideas and emotions.

The exercise might begin with your reading aloud some poems about the power of natural phenomena. One example, found at http://www.poets.org/ is The Storm, by Theodore Roethke, a masterly evocation of a hurricane gathering force. Talk with the children about the poet’s use of imagery and his choice of verbs.  How does Roethke help the reader experience the buildup of tension that ultimately leads to the breaking of the storm?  At the same website, Negotiation with a Volcano, by Naomi Shihab Nye, offers an evocative example of personification, as the unnamed narrators, living in the shadow of a mighty volcano, beseech it not to erupt.

2.  The next part of the lesson is preparation for writing a group poem.  Tell the children that together you will be writing a poem about a powerful force of nature they have probably all experienced: a thunderstorm.  Have them think of words they associate with rain such as water, raindrops, pouring, teeming, streaming, drizzling, puddles, mud. Do the same with thunder and lightning.  Ask them to describe how rain smells, how it feels, how it sounds.  How does lightening look in the daytime; at night?  How does thunder sound when it is far away?  When it is near?  Think of synonyms for wet, such as damp, moist, drenched, and soaked.   Write the words on a White Board, Smart Board or large sheet of paper.  Next ask them to come up with as many adverbs as possible and write those down as well (one way to elicit a good variety of responses for this is to ask the children to name actions that can be performed by different parts of the body. Then have them add adverbs to describe those actions.) You can also throw as many color words as possible up on the board.  Now you are ready to write a poem!    

3.  In the final part of the exercise, you will guide the group in writing a group poem on another sheet of paper or board.  Tell the group to choose from the words they have come up with and combine them in interesting and unusual ways to express what happens during a thunderstorm.  The goal is to write a five line poem, but if the group is brimming with ideas, you can expand it. 

Make sure you convey that it will be necessary to cooperate, and that everyone’s input is to be respected.  Another stipulation is that in order to make the poem express the strong movement of the storm, the first three lines will begin with a verb. Now guide the children in composing the poem line by line, making sure they wrap it up with a zinger line at the end.  The children will be delighted with their finished product!

Follow-up activities could include writing individual poems about another powerful phenomenon such as an earthquake, a volcano, a waterfall, waves crashing against the shore, or a rushing river.  Or try an exercise about the quiet side of nature: a clear night sky, the coming of spring, morning in the country, a peaceful walk in the woods, or dusk. 

http://www.laurakraussmelmed.com/

Writing Tall

by Pam Smallcomb

            In most elementary schools, students complete a study unit on tall tales.  Many of these wonderfully funny stories came from our own continent. Some of these tales originated in Canada, and some in America. The heroes in these stories faced challenges and dangers that pioneers and the working class of the 19th century might have had to face in their own lives. Things like drought, or building a railroad across our country. However, the way the hero solved these problems was different.  He used abilities that no normal human could possibly have. Today we might call those abilities superpowers.

            In the beginning, many of these stories were based on real people. As the stories were told and retold, they became bigger than life.  Perhaps gathering around a campfire, telling a story of a hero gave people the courage to try again the next day (or maybe they were just fun to hear).

            When writing your own tall tale, it’s good to remember that there are some things that these stories have in common. Here are just a few:

1. Your hero should have an unusual childhood or birth story. For example, it’s said that John Henry was born full-sized. He was over 8 feet tall! He went to work on the railroad when he was just 3 weeks old.

2. Your hero should have a regular job.  During our frontier days, Paul Bunyan was a logger, Pecos Bill a cowboy and John Henry a railroad worker. The tall tale hero in your story could have any job we have today: computer specialist, autoworker, plumber, etc.

3. Your hero needs a superhuman trait (of strength, size, etc.). He should have courage. Pecos Bill rode a tornado like a bronco. He used a rattlesnake for a lasso.

4. Exaggeration. There can never be enough in a tall tale. More is better. For example, it took five giant storks to carry the infant Paul Bunyan to his parent’s home.  He was just that big.

5. A tall tale is written as if it were completely true and factual.

6. A tall tale often explains natural phenomena (like the Painted Desert or the Grand Canyon.)

7. A tall tale is a story that is told humorously, and the problem of the story is solved in a funny way.

Many tall tales do feature male heroes. For a look at some female heroes starring in their own tales, grab a copy of Cut From the Same Cloth by Robert San Souci.  Tall tales are always a fun read, and a great way to teach kids about exaggeration, humor, and putting an upbeat spin on the hardships we face in life.

       

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/