A Reason to Care

A good story gives the reader a reason to care what happens to the characters.  The story causes the reader to recognize feelings and situations, phrases and conversations. They feel personal and familiar, even if the story is a fantasy or if it takes place in another part of the world.

In The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck the main character Wang Lung’s desire for wealth and status clashes with his simple respect for the earth and his adherence to old Chinese traditions. The reader feels his desires and hopes and frustrations, and experiences his mistakes.  The reader cares what happens to him and his family.

"But Wang Lung thought of his land and pondered this way and that, with the sickened heart of deferred hope, how he could get back to it. He belonged, not to this scum which clung to the walls of a rich man’s house; nor did he belong to the rich man’s house. He belonged to the land and he could not live with any fullness until he felt the land under his feet and followed a plow in the springtime and bore a scythe in his hand at harvest."

In Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea the reader hears Santiago's inner thoughts and dreams. The reader witnesses a three day struggle with a marlin, the largest fish of his career.  The struggle reminds the reader of every difficult thing he has endured, and those feelings make Santiago's struggle feel personal.

"He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy."

Vision

The author's vision is the central theme of the story, or the idea that motivates the author to tell the story.  Everything in a novel is there by choice.  Each element of the plot, each character adds to the whole.  It could have been left out, or it could have been told in a different order, or said in a different way.  The decisions of the author are based on the story in his head, combined with all of his life experiences and all of the books he has read. At each moment in the author's life he is unique.  He brings unique experiences, emotions and vocabulary to the writing process.  Several authors may write about a theme, such as lonliness, struggling with poverty, or trying to win approval.  But each author will tell their story uniquely, based on the author's vision.

When you read a novel you are getting a glimpse into the author's vision.  Some novels will resonate with you so much that you submerse yourself in the book and you don't want the book to end.  That shared experience between the author and the reader is powerful.  It contributes to the feeling of one-ness in the human family.  It is a strong motivator for the reader.  He may search for quite some time before he finds another book that speaks to him in the same way.  But he will keep searching, because it was a good feeling he wants to repeat.

If you are a writer, you must tell your story using your vision.  It must be authentic.  If you can do that, there will be readers out there who will find your story and fall in love with it.

A Little Tale

 

Dear Mom

 

We have something to tell you.  It's about Jinks.  He has been naughty. He dropped his mittens in a mud puddle.  He is hiding under the bed.  Can we have his pie?

 

 

Sincerely

 

Jingle and Jangle

 

Three little kittens they lost their mittens,
And they began to cry,
Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear
Our mittens we have lost.
What! lost your mittens, you naughty kittens!
Then you shall have no pie.
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
No, you shall have no pie.

The three little kittens they found their mittens,
And they began to cry,
Oh, mother dear, see here, see here,
Our mittens we have found!
Put on your mittens, you silly kittens,
And you shall have some pie.
Purr-r, purr-r, purr-r,
Oh, let us have some pie.

The three little kittens put on their mittens,
And soon ate up the pie;
Oh, mother dear, we greatly fear
Our mittens we have soiled.
What! soiled your mittens, you naughty kittens!
Then they began to sigh,
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
Then they began to sigh.

The three little kittens they washed their mittens,
And hung them out to dry;
Oh! mother dear, do you not hear,
Our mittens we have washed!
What! washed your mittens, then you’re good kittens,
But I smell a rat close by.
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
We smell a rat close by.^[1

Aiming High

This about achieving your dream.  Maybe you want to be an artist, a really good gardener, or a writer.  Aiming high is the only way to get there.  What would it look like to you to be successful?  Can you picture it?  Can you fill in the details?  The more clear this is to you, the more real the image is to you, the better.  Because you need to be sure about it in order to get there.

 

 

 

For a writer, success for you may mean finishing a project you have started.  It may mean a certain level of income.  It may mean orgainizing your bits and pieces, quotes and character sketches into a usable file system.  Be clear about what you want to achieve.

So what if you are struggling?  What if you don't like what you are producing? What if you have left your art form for awhile and you want to start up again?

The best advice I have for you is, don't worry. There is a time and a season for everything.  If you want to create, you will.  During the dry times in between projects your subconscious mind is gathering material from which you will start to produce again. 

Wonder

I wonder about things.  I try to learn something new every day.  It keeps the brain cells firing and gives me something to write about.  Research and browsing are not mutually exclusive.  Entertainment can also be enlighteneing.  Learning about the world we live in is fascinating.

 

Today's subject is camels.

 

 

True or not true about camels:

 

 

1. The hump stores water
 
2. Camels can drink 40 gallons of water at one watering
 
3. Camels don't sweat
 
4. Camels lie down to sleep
 
5. Camels can kick in all four directions with each of their legs
 
6. Camels are fussy eaters
 
7. Camels can close their nostrils against the wind
 
8. Camel coat keeps them cool in the hot sun
 
9. Camels chew tobacco so they can spit
 
10. Camels bond with their caregiver
 

 

 



 

 

 

 

1. F 2. T 3. F 4. T 5. T 6. F 7. T 8. T 9. F 10. sometimes

The Gift of Story

If you could sit down with someone from history, what would you ask them?  I believe you would want to know their story.  If you could talk to the ancestor who left home and travelled to a new land, I think you would ask them to tell you that story.

Your story is just as priceless to your friends and family.  How will you capture and preserve your story for them?

Binder - you can add pages of any size.  A flexible way to save your writings, concert tickets, theater programs, pictures.

Blank Book - use it to jot down your ideas, write poetry, record your dreams, or express gratitude.

Artists Sketchbook - tell your story visually with your own drawings and paintings.

Photos - save them in a book, save them online, or make a slide show or a video of a baptism, vacation or birthday.  Be sure you write down who, what, when, where so others will know why you saved that picture.  It is sad to have a box of photos and not know who any of the people in them are.

Audio recording - maybe you are better at talking than writing.  Get a little digital recorder and start telling the story of your life.  A few minutes a day will add up to a beautifully preserved story.

Any way you choose to share the gift of story, you can be sure it will be priceless!

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
Philip Pullman

Observation

Writers must be very observant.  This is not my strength, sadly. But every skill can be strengthened with practice, even observation.  One of the best things you can do to improve your writing is to use the character's senses, all of them, as often as possible.  Sometimes I like to create a little scenario and try to write the scene including all five senses.  This is part observation and part imagination, but it strengthens the use of all five senses.

Here is an example of a scenario.  Would you like to try writing about this scene?

 Let's say a character fell into a cold river.  He has been rescued and is suffering from hypothermia, trying to warm up near a campfire.  Try to describe his experience using all five senses. How would you describe the ache from nearly frozen feet?  The scent of the fire?  The colors of the fire that are so hypnotizing?  The sound of voices of his rescuers, muted because of the water in his ears?  Does he still hear the rushing river?  Can he hear his own heartbeat? Maybe he tastes blood in his mouth.  Maybe he has the bitter taste of black coffee in his mouth.  Even if you have not experienced this yourself, combine observation and imagination to make it as real as possible.

Having fun yet?  Maybe you are ready then for this challenging writing prompt. What if a character did not have the use of one of his senses?  His other senses might be even more sensitive.

Family Read Alouds for Winter Nights

It gets dark so early this time of year.  It's time for playing board games, making popcorn balls, baking cookies and reading aloud together.

Here are some of my favorite family read alouds.  Some can be read in one sitting, and some will take a few nights to complete.  I hope you enjoy one or two of these books on a cold winter night.

Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
Tuck Everlasting by Natlie Babbitt
How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

What is your favorite family read aloud? 

A Story About Becoming

 

What are you becoming?

 

I visited an exhibit at the art museum yesterday.  It was called "Becoming Van Gogh".  The exhibit showed the progress of his short career as a painter.  Having already failed at several other careers, he decided at the age of 27 to be an artist.  So he began to teach himself to draw. Using a flat carpenter's pencil or charcoal he copied drawings from a book.  He drew them many times, trying to learn to draw the human figure.  Later he began to experiment with color, but his colors were very somber.  After moving to Paris he started to immitate other artists use of color, so his colors became bolder.  He experimented with colored yarn, laying complimentary and analagous colors of yarn next to each other.  He experimented with impressionism and pointelism.  All of these years of experimentation lead him to his own unique style.  His unique brush stroke is long strokes of color, like pieces of yarn, with directional movement to create drama in the painting. His unique use of color is placing complimentary colors next to each other to create movement. The style we know as Van Gogh's style took nearly ten years to develop.

 

So the point of my story is this.  We are all becoming.  Those impulses to create something, be it music, art, inventions or writing, are the beginning of what will become your unique expression of emotions and vision.  The process of becoming is as important as the product.  So I wish you well in your creative journey.  Don't worry about the pieces you don't really like. Just keep doing what you are doing until the great pieces begin to emerge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cow story

It started with a sandwich.

You know that chicken sandwich restaurant chain that uses cows in the advertisements?  Somehow that cow image got stuck in my mind.  The image reminded me of some funny children’s books featuring cows.  Is there anything better than the laughter of a child?  No, not really.  So grab a book or two from this list, a couple of glasses of milk and your favorite young person.  Enjoy!

When Cows Come Home by David L. Harrison

The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson

Kiss the Cow by Phyllis Root

The Cow that Went Oink by Bernard Most

The Cow Who Clucked by Denise Fleming

Moo Moo Brown Cow by Jakki Wood

Cows Can’t Fly by David Milgrim

Poetic License

Special licenses are sometimes necessary to the success of a character or a story. James Bond has a license to kill.  Sherlock Holmes has a license to invade the privacy of others in order to investigate a crime.  What is poetic license? It is the liberty an artist takes to alter normal rules of behavior or physics or practices to create the desired effect in the story.  A poet may re-arrange the normal order of words to make the phrase comply with the rhyme scheme or have the appropriate rhythm.  A novelist my introduce elements that seem impossible according to the laws of physics but make sense on some scientific level and that make the story work.

Appropriate use of poetic license requires the writer to be aware of the normal conventions of speech, grammar and natural laws.  A science fiction writer employs real science knowledge and introduces a plausible scenario for the desired literary effect.  A writer who includes the dialect of a certain region must understand both the rules of mainstream grammar and the special rules of the dialect.  If not, the dialog will sound wrong to the reader's ear and offend native speakers of that dialect.

Some examples of poetic license can be found in old sayings that imply situations that cannot literally be true such as:

When hell freezes over

I am starving

She is older than the hills

I have butterflies in my stomach

These are figures of speech.  They are literary devices that convey emotion and meaning although to take them literally would be very confusing.

Another example of poetic license is the use of dialect, such as these phrases from Huck Finn:

"that ain’t no matter" and  "it warn’t no time to be sentimentering"


We as readers grant this poetic license to writers when they use it skillfully and it enhances our experience.  We can also rescind the license if it sounds false or fails to be reasonable enough.  We are often required to suspend disbelief and immerse  ourselves in the story but if the writer has not created a believable variation on the rules we fail to reach that level of trust necessary to suspend disbelief.  

Two Sides to Every Story

Every story has a protagonist.  This is the person who has a goal or problem that is central to the story.  This is the person who the reader usually identifies with.  The reader hopes for success for this character because we believe his cause is just or he is in the right.  We, the readers, want this person to win love or a treasure and live happily ever after.

Every story also has another side. This is the antagonist.  This character may not be a bad guy.  This character stands in the way of success for the protagonist.  This character disagrees with the protagonist.  He may even think of himself as a hero, believing his cause is just and that the world will be a better place if he succeeds.

Let's look at a familiar story to explore the idea that the antagonist could be in the right, could be the hero of his own story.

In the story The Three Little Pigs there are three protagonists, three characters that the reader hopes will succeed with their story goal or problem.  The three little pigs each build a house and want to live happily ever after in their house.  They did not make an equal effort to build their house, which is the tragic flaw for two of the pigs.

The antagonist in this story is the wolf.  He finds the three houses and manages to eat two of the pigs who did not build a strong enough house.  How could he be a hero in his own story?  He is obviously hungry. What if he has been on a long journey and is trying to get home and is nearly starved when he finds the first little pig's house of straw. We would cheer for him when he gets a well deserved meal, wouldn't we?

New Story from An Old Story

 

 

Here is a way to get yourself going if you are experiencing writers block.  Try to make a new story from an old story.Start with a familiar story and then do one or more of the following:

• Change the setting, a new place or a new time
• Modify one or more of the characters, give them a tag such as a cute habit or phrase
• Modify the story problem
• Tell the story from the antagonists point of view
• Tell the story from the point of view of a minor character

 

Have fun with your new story!  It is OK to change things to create a new story of your own.  Use your story wisdom to know what to keep and what to change.