Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--W is for Who, What, Where, When, Why (and How)

From an "ugly" stepsister's
perspective

I suspect the most widely known rule when it comes to writing an article is that you must answer the six W questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why (and How). 

Answer these six questions, and you’ll have a complete article. Don’t answer these six questions, and your readers will be left asking questions you should have answered.

Fictional stories answer these six questions, too, but there’s one very important difference: the answers for an article are supposed to be based on fact, but the answers for a work of fiction can be anything the author chooses. 

Cinderella, for example, has an evil stepmother and evil stepsisters in the original fairy tale, but in your version? You can do anything you want.

This Cinderalla is running away
from the prince

The truth is every existing story has an infinite number of story possibilities. All you have to do is change the answers to the six questions.

Who? In the original, it’s Cinderella, her evil stepmother and evil stepsisters, her fairy godmother, and the prince. But what if you make one of the stepsisters the main character? Or the fairy godmother? Or what if Cinderella isn’t so good? What if she’s kind of mean and she chooses to sleep in the cinders to embarrass her step family?

What? In the original, she gets magic clothes, goes to the ball, falls in love with the prince, loses a glass slipper, and is found to be the prince’s true love when the glass slipper fits her. But what if she doesn’t have a fairy godmother, or magic clothes, or any of that stuff? What if she doesn’t even like the prince? What if she doesn’t want to go to the ball?

All she wants is to get rid of the
curse of obedience

Where? The original takes place in a fairytale land. But what if it didn’t? What if it took place in the 21^st century? (Time is a part of the setting, not the “when.”) What if it took place on another planet? What if it took place in the Wild West?

When? The story begins with Cinderella being mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters. But what if it started before all of that happened? Or what if it started after? And how much after? What if starts with Cinderella trying to adjust to a royal life and being unable to accept how the servants at the castle are treated? What if it deals with political intrigue behind the scenes as noblemen and women try to get rid of Cinderella? Or what if it skips ahead a couple of decades as the daughter of Cinderella and the prince has doubts about marrying a prince?

Why? Cinderella gets her happy ending because she’s good and obedient and doesn’t complain despite all the hardships she endures. But what if she isn’t so good and obedient? Or what if she is obedient, but not by choice?

How? The “how” of a story is about how the story is told: in other words, its style or genre. Cinderella is fairytale, but it doesn’t have to be. What if you turned it into a mystery? I mean, how did Cinderella’s parents die (or at least disappear) anyway? What if you turned it into a screwball comedy? Or into a science fiction novel with robots?

Six questions, infinite answers, and infinite story possibilities.  

Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge‑‑S is for Stories (and where to find them)

As many writers will tell you, the first rule of being a good writer is to read, and read, and read some more.

But I like to think it goes beyond that. You can’t simply read like any other reader; you have to read like a writer. You have to take apart what you read and figure out what works and what doesn’t and why. You have to take what you’ve learned, and you have to apply it to your own writing.

I also think it goes beyond stories written in books. There are stories in every medium imaginable. There are stories in movies, TV shows, songs, and art. But it goes beyond that, too. The truth is there are stories pretty much everywhere you look.

In Toren the Teller’s Tale, young Toren learns that every person, every object, and even forces like the wind have their own unique stories. If she can read a thing’s complete story, that thing becomes a part of her. She can control it, but only if that thing wants to be controlled. And when she fully knows a thing’s story, she can retell it in a single word that brings that thing to life. This is her unique magic, the magic of the storyteller.

While Toren the Teller’s Tale is an epic fantasy, there’s a part of it that’s, well, not a fantasy at all. The truth is that every person and every object does have a story. You have to crack it open like an egg, take it apart and figure it out to discover the story hidden within.

Just pick up any object, the object closest to you. Who made that? Where did it come from? How did it get to you? Who were the people who affected or were affected by its journey? And isn’t it interesting to think that someone at the start of its journey in some small way affected you at this stage of its journey? You’re connected to each other through this object. You’re connected to every person along its path. And that’s just one object. Look around you. How many people affected or were affected by the objects just in your immediate vicinity? And role did they play in that object’s story?

But it’s even more than that. Because every person, every object, holds millions of possible stories. How could this object have arrived here? Where could it have gone instead? And what could happen to it in the future? How would that affect the people involved? The potential stories are infinite. And if you believe the Many Worlds theory of quantum physics, what’s even crazier is that they could all be true, somewhere out in our amazing universe.

In his autobiographical book, Rewrites: A Memoir, playwright Neil Simon says (I’m paraphrasing), “Writer’s block isn’t when a writer has no ideas; it’s when a writer has so many ideas and doesn’t trust himself to choose the right one.”

With so many stories around us all the time, that truly is a dilemma. How do you choose the right one?

I like improv’s answer. There is no right and no wrong choice. There’s just a choice, and you have to make it or let the audience make it for you. Whatever the choice is, you have to commit to it 100%. I guess you could say the only wrong choice is not choosing or not committing to what’s been chosen.

I see dozens of stories around me every day, and I throw almost all of them out.

It’s not because I haven’t committed to a choice. It’s because I am already 100% committed to choices I’ve already made, stories I have thought out in my mind or outlined on paper but haven’t had time to turn into fully formed manuscripts. Like the persona in Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” I “have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep.”   

But the stories are there, inside my head. Don’t ask me what I’m thinking. You probably don’t want to know.

I once sat with a guy near a bonfire and watched the ashes float in the hot air above the flames. He leaned in and said, “You’re a writer. I bet you’re thinking something about the poetic beauty of the fire.” I smiled and nodded, although what I was really thinking was “Wouldn’t it be funny if some prehistoric caveman who was obsessed with flight saw those ashes and thought he could fly if he could somehow sew or glue the ashes together? And after a few failed attempts, it might occur to him that it had something to do with the fire. He’d wonder if he could fly if he could just somehow throw himself on the fire at just the right angle. Maybe he could test that theory by tossing a friend over it. Hey, maybe that’s what gave J.M. Barrie the idea for pixie dust!”

See? There's a reason why I don't tell the stories I don't tell and focus instead on the ones I do.

Speaking of which, I should get back to those stories. The second book in the Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, here I come! 

Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--N is for (use the) News

The news can be a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it can make you more aware of what’s going on, which is good. For a fiction writer, it can inspire ideas for stories. It was a news story that inspired my YA romantic ghost story, Ride of Your Life, and science news helps inform the science in my teen science-fantasy comedy series, The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer.

But then there are the drawbacks: being obsessed with the news can gobble up time that would be better spent doing other things, like writing. The news tends to focus on bad news, too, which can be depressing and troubling. There’s also a lot of misinformation and bias. The news rarely gives you the “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” There are always those who will manipulate the facts, or even blatantly lie about what the facts are. You can get media burnout just trying to find out what the real story is.

I know about the news from both sides. My family has been in newspapers for five generations, and I don’t mean we ate fish and chips in the UK (where it used to be sold wrapped in newspaper). No, I mean we’ve been working in the newspaper business that long. I was a consumer columnist and arts-and-entertainment for the Jerusalem Post. Before that, I was an editorial cartoonist, a job that requires a deep and current knowledge of the news. My mom edited the women’s section of two different newspapers between the fifties and the start of this century. Her father was a newspaper writer and editor. Her grandfather (on her mother’s side) was a newspaper writer and editor. And finally her great grandfather on her mother’s mother’s side was a newspaper writer and editor. Five generations all leading up to me.    

I’ve seen both sides of that sword. It’s been a blessing and a curse. I love the news when it’s honest. Today the journalists with integrity stand out, because they’re very much in the minority. I also love little stories about ordinary people accomplishing great things, humorous news, and learning about scientific discoveries and breakthroughs. I hate the news when it’s deceptive and manipulative, and that just seems to be getting worse and worse. Most people don’t trust the media nowadays, and to the most part I can’t blame them.

Today’s news gives you a lot of material for writing fiction, most of it in the area of satire and dystopian science fiction.

Want to know how to write either?

For satire, check out my post: Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge—H is for Humor. I came up with my House of Funny formula when I was an editorial cartoonist, which is basically like writing political satire in a drawing or two and ten words or less.

For dystopian fiction, you only have to take one bad or even potentially bad news item, look at it through a microscope so that the tiniest thing becomes huge, and then project it into the future. Of course, you better hang on tight, because that is going to be one scary ride. Or you could just listen to the current presidential candidates. They all seem to have doomsday scenarios for what’s going to happen if you don’t vote for them. Although I think it’s probably smarter to trust your own gut over what any politician tells you.

My name is Shevi, and I’m a news-aholic. 

My Writing Process Blog Hop

I was tagged by Ella (the enchanting, the talented, the hilarious, and the modest) Schwartz in the My Writing Process Blog Hop, so here are my answers to four very simple questions . . . or at least they would be simple if I were the kind of writer who wrote just one kind of thing in one kind of way.

Ah, the weird and wonderful life of the eclectic writer. But let’s see what I can do. 

If you like to glimpse behind the curtain, read on.

What am I working on?

A lot. A series of blog posts about my mother, her mother, her grandmother, and their lives in Jerusalem; Why It Still Mega Bites, the second book in my funny science-fiction series, The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer; trying to figure out how to market my new picture book, Fay Fairy’s Very Big Problem; a blog post about how to publish a picture book with CreateSpace (in part to help others, but mostly so I’ll have a better idea of what I’m doing the next time around); illustrating and coloring my next picture book, Click the Dog;  assembling the parts of a book of photos, entitled Seasons in the Park, which I intend to sell at the next local art fair; catching up with the reviews I have to write for Amazon; trying to cram more things into a day than there are hours in a day; and this blog post.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My books aren’t just different from other books in their genres; they’re different from each other. Until I started working on the second book in The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, I didn’t even write in the same subgenre twice!

My mind is like a library. I don’t know about you, but I would find it very boring to be stuck in a library that only had one shelf of books, all from the same genre. I don’t like to limit my reading that way, so why would I limit the stories in my head to one genre? I want to write what I want to read; and I want to read, well, everything.  

I am a funny girl, though, and I do try to put at least some humor in everything I write. I like that in the books I read, too. Humor is like salt. It makes everything taste better. Or maybe that’s chocolate. Now I’m thinking about salt with chocolate. Mmm, so good . . . Wait, what was the question?

Why do I write what I do?

There’s a different story behind each story, a different reason why I wrote it.

Most of my stories, though, start with a desperate desire to read something that hasn’t been written yet. I write to fill those holes on my bookshelf.

I wrote Toren the Teller’s Tale for the girls who believe in the magic of stories and want to read a book about a girl like them, a girl who glows with the magic of the storyteller. I wrote it because, when I was a teenager, that was a book I needed to read.

I wrote Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, book one) for geeks like me who understand that they are the true heroes of this world and who deserve to see a hero who represents us geeks in the kinds of books we love.

I write because these are stories that I need, and I’m guessing there are others that need them, too, whether it’s to give them hope or encouragement or a good cry or a good laugh—or even all of that combined.   

How does my writing process work?

Again, that depends on the book.

Two of them—Toren the Teller’s Tale and Ride of Your Life—started as stories I wrote in my head when I was just a teenager.

Two others started with simple concepts. Dan Quixote started with the idea of putting the story of Don Quixote by Cervantes into a modern middle-grade classroom in New Jersey; and Why My Love Life Sucks started with the idea of a comedy based on the ultimate teenage geek hero’s ultimate nightmare.

In every case, the story is complete, or almost complete, in my head before I even write the outline. I’ll also outline chapters and scenes before I write them to give me a kind of roadmap to my story, a clear guide of where the story is going and how I intend to get there step by step.

Having a detailed outline also lets me start with dessert: the scene I’m most excited about writing. I try to go from dessert to dessert. And all those scenes that aren’t dessert? I can skip them until I can figure out a way to turn them into dessert, and sometimes I find they can be left out entirely. After all, the scenes I’m less excited about writing will probably be the scenes the reader is less excited about reading, too.

Toren the Teller’s Tale took me the longest to write, in part because it’s an epic, and in part because I edited it as I was writing the first draft. I wrote the first draft of Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey in under three weeks, and I’ve written the first drafts of several novels—including Why My Love Life Sucks—in under a month during NaNoWriMo. Of course, once the first draft is finished, that’s when the real work begins.

The editing stage of Why My Love Life Sucks took almost an entire year. I wrote several drafts of many of the scenes so I could choose the best one. Sometimes my favorite version of a scene meant I had to rewrite other sections of the novel. A famous actor once said, “Dying is easy; comedy is hard,” and that’s true. Comedy is very precise. You have to get it exactly right, and brevity is the soul of wit, so you can’t have anything extra. I probably ended up throwing out a hundred or more pages of material with Why My Love Life Sucks, but I think all that extra work was worth it.

I know all this editing probably sounds tedious, but imagining the story in my head and editing it until it shines are my two favorite stages of writing. In fact, I enjoy editing so much, I often find it difficult to say, “It’s done now. I have to let it go.”

And now I'll let this blog post go and pass the baton to a couple of truly wonderful writers. 

~*~

No matter what you write, you absolutely have to check out Judith Van Praag's, Write Day-In Day-Out blog. You'll see, she is an amazing writer with a fascinating voice: http://www.writedayindayout.blogspot.com/

I'm also excited to pass the baton to my fellow fantasy writer and indie author, A.R. Silverberry, the writer of the YA fantasy Wyndano's Cloak and his latest work, The Stream. Check out his blog at http://www.arsilverberry.com/blog

Forget New Year's resolutions. Write a Wish List instead!

Yes, I know I'm not perfect. There are bad habits I'd like to break. I want to exercise more. I want to eat more vegetables. I want to lose weight. And I'd like to write every day and blog every day and start that vlog I've been meaning to start.

But I don't write New Year's resolutions.

I don't like the idea of them. It just seems so negative. They're all about what you don't like about yourself, things you want to change. They make you feel bad about your past. And that negativity continues when you inevitably fail to keep some of those resolutions. Then you feel doubly bad about yourself, first for the things you wanted to change, and then for your inability to change them.

That's why instead of writing New Year's resolutions, I write Wish Lists. These are lists of things I want to do or have. We're not talking about an Amazon Wish List. Many or even most of the things on them can't be bought. They're just whatever you wish for in the future, whether it's success, good health, a quiet place, or anything else you dream of.

I usually write a Wish List at the start of summer or a week or two before my birthday. The idea came to me when my husband told me he gets me lame presents because he doesn't know what I want. Now he has a list. Not everything on it is something he can give me, but that's okay. There are things he can, and things he can work out sort of giving me. Like he can't give me good weather to take more walks, but he can go for walks with me.

So instead of focusing on the negative, write a Wish List and focus only on the positive. And every time you wave your own magic wand and make one of your wishes come true, you can cross it off your list.

One summer, my family got together and wrote a list called "The Summer of 100 Wishes." It was fun crossing things off that list, like movies we wanted to see or trips we wanted to take. We probably did 50 things we wouldn't have done if we didn't have that list to spur us on.

My latest Wish List, which I wrote before my most recent birthday, includes things like "See a great stand-up comedy show." I was happy to cross that off my list after the opening night show at this year's New York's Comic Con.

So forget about making New Year's resolutions. Forget about feeling bad about yourself. Instead, make a Wish List.

What would be your top five wishes for 2014?

Writers, looking for inspiration? Have you tried a random photo generator?

Do a Google search for "random photo generator" and you'll find several. Here's a link to one: http://www.pbase.com/photos/random.html

Looking at the photos can give you places, characters, actions, and moods. If you don't feel inspired by what you see, click again to get new photos.

When I tried it, I got a little girl picking up a turtle in a garden. That could be the start of a story. Just ask yourself, "What happened after that?"

I also got a backpack on a kayak. That could also be the start of a story.  Just ask yourself, "Who does that backpack belong to? Why is that person in the kayak? Who else is there? What's their relationship? What kind of conflict could evolve on their adventure?"

Clicking "more" gave me a wistful bride looking out a window and a race car. Put the two together, and you can probably come up with a great story. Maybe the bride is giving up racing. Maybe she wants to race away. Maybe she's marrying a race car driver, and maybe he was killed in an accident on the way to the wedding.

Give it a try. It's a lot of fun, and you never know what you're going to come up with.

Here are some random photos of mine to get you started.

Have fun writing!

Writers, where do you get story ideas? Here's a simple method.

This is the presentation I'll be delivering at the book launch for Why My Love Life Sucks at the Highland Park, New Jersey library this Thursday. Kids will learn how to break a story down to its parts and use those parts to write new stories.

This presentation will be followed by a fun, story-generating craft, book-launch party favors, love-and-vampire themed sweets, and a book signing. It should be great!

I hope you can come; but if you can't, I hope you enjoy this presentation. If the event goes well, I might do the same thing at author visits at libraries and schools in the area.

What do you think? Could this method work for you? 

Please feel free to share it with your kids, teens, students, friends, and fellow writers. 

Thanks, and I look forward to reading your comments!

Shevi Arnold

Once Upon a Time, enter the “writer”

Once Upon a Time image from Recultured.com

SPOILER ALERT: This is not about something that will definitely happen in the modern-fairy-tale show, Once Upon a Time, but it's something I think will happen. This is based on scenes from previous episodes, so if you haven't seen them yet, don't read this. If my guess is correct, I have to tip my hat to the writers. It's brilliant.

A new character, a stranger, recently appeared in the little town of Storybrooke. 

Here are the things we know so far about this stranger. 

He rides a motorcycle and carries a weird box. Regina, who is the modern-day version of the evil queen, doesn't know who he is, and she's wary of him. 

When Emma questions the stranger about the box, he says he'll show her the contents if she agrees to let him buy her a drink. She agrees. He opens the box to reveal an old typewriter. She asks him why he's carrying it, and he explains that he's a writer. Earlier he tells Henry the box contains something he needs to take care of the thing he came to Storybrooke to do. 

In the following episode, the storybook that contains all the stories of the fairy-tale characters in Storybrooke is stolen from the place where Henry--Emma's son who was adopted by Regina--had hidden it. We later see it's in the stranger's possession.  

Henry knows the rules that govern the town, and according to Henry, outsiders never come to Storybrooke. This means this stranger isn't an outsider. But he also can't be an ordinary resident of Storybrooke, because Henry also says that "bad things" happen whenever residents of the town try to leave it. 

But maybe there's a loophole. 

The fact that the stranger carries a typewriter is very suspicious.

 He says he's a writer, but he's carrying a typewriter, not a laptop or a tablet computer. He's not so old that he might be the kind of writer who refuses to use technology. The typewriter he has is one that writers haven't used in about 25-30 years. Emma is 28 years old, and we know that the day she was born is the day the storybook characters became frozen in time and were banished to our world and the little town of Storybrooke. Why then does this writer use a typewriter from the time Emma was born and the storybook characters became real world characters who are stuck in time, never aging, never changing, and never able to leave?

Henry's storybook tells all the stories of the characters in Storybrooke--which are different from the stories as we know them. In Henry's book--the one now in the stranger's hands--Rumpelstiltskin kills Cinderella's fairy godmother and then grants Cinderella her wishes for a price. Snow White is an outlaw living in the forest, who meets Prince Charming when she robs his carriage. Prince Charming is forced to marry to King Midas's daughter. Nothing is what it's supposed to be.     

Think about it. Let's say you're a storybook character in Storybrooke, and you're unhappy about the way things are. Let's say you come across this book, and you somehow figure out that you're one of the characters in it. You realize all the other people in the town are also characters in the book, and you see that all of you are somehow stuck in this one place and time. How long does it take you to realize that if you want things to chance, you're going to have to change the original fairy tale? 

So you're sitting there looking at this book, and you're thinking about what edits would serve you best. Should you make yourself rich? Handsome? Happy? Brilliant? All the people who were those things in the fairy-tale world are now under Regina's control. No, the smartest thing you could do, would be to write yourself out of the story.

Now you probably think that if I'm right, the writers are very clever, but not really brilliant. Okay, so the stranger wrote himself out of the story. So what? 

Here's the really brilliant part: if the writer did it once, he could do it again. 

A few edits here and there, and the entire fairy-tale back story has to fit the changes. And what changes in the back story, affects the contemporary story line as well. The last time he edited it, he freed himself from the town and from Regina. What happens the next time he edits it? Does someone else get freed? Does someone die? Does he become imprisoned again? And how will this affect everything else? 

This means that at the very moment you think you know it all, the writer can step in and change everything again.  And that means the story could continue over several seasons, each time with something else changing everything. 

Which is very cool.

I love stories about stories and storytellers. I suppose that's obvious considering I wrote Toren the Teller's Tale, as well a blog post about the role of the storyteller in my favorite movie, The Princess Bride. I was still on the fence about Once Upon a Time, but if this show goes in the direction I think it's going, I'm sold. 

What about you? What do you think of Once Upon a Time? Do you have any theories about where it's heading?

What Every Writer Needs To Know

Do you ever experience writer’s block?

In his autobiographical book Rewrites, playwright Neil Simon explains that writer’s block isn’t when a writer has no idea what to write; it’s when a writer has plenty of ideas but doesn’t trust himself to choose the right one.

The main thing you need to know is that writing is about taking a leap of faith in your story--and yourself.

Detail from Toren the Teller's Flight, book two of Toren the Teller's Tale

Toren the Teller’s Tale is a fantasy novel about a magical storyteller and her struggle to accept the magic within herself. She has a hard time taking that leap of faith. It seems wrong. The world doesn’t approve. She loves her own magic, but trusting in it is scary, terrifying, in fact.

In a way, Toren’s story is the story of every writer. We all have fears. We all struggle to accept our own magic. But we have to accept it. We have to believe. Our stories need us; but, more importantly, our readers need our stories, although they might not know it yet.

In the following scene from chapter nine, Toren is attending a tellers’ gathering as a storyteller’s apprentice. What the others at the gathering don’t know is that she’s a girl disguised as a boy, and that her real master is a wizard who hired a storyteller to take her to the gathering so that she can learn about the magic of the storytellers.

~~~

“The first step to becoming a great teller,” one elder master said, “is to know your audience. You must know what they wear, eat, think and believe, how they live, how they die, and where their souls go when they slumber. Your story is a journey to a greater truth, and your listener will not join you on that journey if he doesn't see it as his journey. You must paint your story in such a way that the listener will see himself inside it.”

“So true, so true,” commented another. “A teller must study everything--from the smallest details of our mundane existences to our grandest hopes and fears.”

“Is that what a story is then?” one of the older apprentices asked. “A mirror showing the listener exactly what he is?”

A wave of laughter rippled through the hall.

“Of course not,” shouted a teller in the back. “That is the very last thing a story should be” He stepped closer to the platform so everyone could see and hear him. “Indeed, it must start with the listener, but it should take him far from his reality. In each person’s mind, he is the center of the world, for it begins and ends with his experiences, thoughts, and beliefs. The listener is the one and only hero of the story of his life. In his mind all other heroes and all other stories are insignificant. But in reality he is of no more importance than any other sorry soul of the millions who have lived or have yet to live. He is a drop in the endless ocean of existence, which carries us all where it will. Of course, you must never tell your listener that. If you do, he will throw you out on your ear. The only mirrors you should show him are those he sees in his dreams. You must say, ‘Look here you are in my story. The perfect hero, that’s you. You only need to close your eyes, and I will take you there.’”

A murmur of approval greeted his words. A few even applauded.

Giddy yawned. “Don’t you find this dull?” he asked me.

I raised a finger to my lips to tell him to be quiet. My real master’s words echoed in my mind. Pay close attention to everything the master tellers say, he ordered. You are here to learn about the magic of the telling. And so I did.

“Now, now,” countered the first elder master, “not all of our stories are dreams. Sometimes we lead our listeners through their nightmares and guide them safely through to the other side. Only two things remain constant: the listener is always the starting point and our goal is always the greater truth. The easiest stories to tell are the dreams or nightmares you and your listener share. Discover what you have in common, and from that common place of departure begin the grandest journey your soul will allow.”

“But what if you and your audience have nothing in common?” asked one of the apprentices. “What if you tell a story to a king, for example? Do you tell him a tale about royalty, even though you know nothing about life at court? It won’t ring true. And what about all the tales of princesses and daring knights? Surely, they’re not only for nobles. My master tells these tales to peasants all the time, and they love them.”

“Yes,” said another apprentice. “And what about made up stories, ones that deal with fantastic things that could never be true? Where’s the common starting point, and where’s the greater truth?”

The elder master said the answer to this question was obvious, and he turned it over to us. I hesitated at first, but when no one else spoke, I asked if I might be allowed to. He nodded.
“We all have common hopes and fears,” I said. Sol reminded me to raise my voice. I continued a bit louder. “From the lowliest peasant to the king, we dream of someone who will love us more than life itself. In her dreams, every maiden is a princess longing for love; in his dreams, every youth is the one who will win her heart. Even the king’s hopes and fears are as common as our own.”

“And what about fantastic tales?” the elder master asked.

“My master’s story was fantastic,” I replied. “And yet it’s true. A man wants a son to follow in his footsteps and may be blinded to a truth he doesn’t wish to see. A woman may know the truth and be afraid to speak it. And a child may suffer for not being what the world demands her to be.”

The elders smiled at my answer, but one of them shook his finger.

“Although what you say is true, young man,” he said, “I believe a story’s truth is even greater than that. One day you’ll see. You’ll think you are telling a story, but the truth of it will take over, and you’ll realize the thing you thought you created was always there--not in this place and time but somewhere in the infinite universe and as true as your own existence. We tellers are bridges from the past to the present, from the present to the future, from distant lands to here, and from here to everywhere.”

~~~

Realize there’s a journey your reader needs to make, and only you can take your reader there.

Embrace your own magic. Trust your story. Trust yourself.

Your story, your characters, and your readers are depending on you.

Improv for Writers, Part 3 of 3:Speed Writer--a Lesson Plan for a Writers' Conference

I sometimes like to imagine giving a class at a SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) conference. I have a long list of things I’d like to teach, and one of them is Improv for writers. Here’s my lesson plan for that class.

1. Hand out the information from my two previous blog posts on Improv: “How Improv Can Help You Write Better, Faster, and More Creatively“ and “Mind Games: Five Solitaire Games for Fiction Writers,” as well as recommendations for further reading. In each hand out, include an index card with the name of a well-known children’s book character, like Harry Potter or Clifford the big red dog: a different name on each card. There should be a note on it about not showing your card to the other people in the class. Also hand out several small pieces of paper that might be used later for suggestions. (Each handout should be attached with a paper clip. Bring a hat for scenes-from-a-hat type games. Also bring in a well-known children’s book, like The Cat in the Hat or Guess How Much I Love You, and a box that can be opened and closed.)

2. If there isn’t a space at the front of the room, ask everyone to help me make a space.

3. Ask “What is Improv?” Explain that Improv requires players to come up with ideas and scenes on the spot and that following the rules of Improv can help writers not only come up with lots of ideas fast but write faster and better. Explain that the most important words in Improv are “Yes, and . . .” Explain how this affects a story, that it lets the story move forward. Explain that we will be playing several Improv games that deal with voice, emotion, character, raising the stakes, coming up with story ideas, revision, and if we have enough time, using all your senses. There’s a lot to learn from Improv, and it takes most people months or years to hone the craft. We’ll do our best to cram as much as we can into the time we have.

The Games

(Remember to finish each game on a high note, so the excitement doesn’t wane.)

1. It’s How You Say It (3-5 minutes)

This game is all about voice. Ask for three volunteers to come to the front of the class. Tell them they’re going to read from the children’s book you brought with you, but they’re going to change the way they read it according to the emotions or characteristics I call out.  Here are some of the things you can try: angry, shy, surfer dude, bored, nervous, confused, in song, mafia hit man, giggling, suspicious, and overjoyed.  Ask the audience for suggestions too. After the game, ask what was the most fun. Was it an unexpected voice for reading that particular story? A surprising voice is usually more fun.  

2. I Gotta Feeling (20 seconds or less per person so it’s under 10 minutes, I hope)

This game is about embracing emotions. It’s like the first game but with adlibbing, and it’s for everyone. A box gets passed around a room along with a reaction to what’s in the box (the box is actually empty, but players can make up what they find in the box). Tell the players they must react to what’s in the box based on the kind of reaction I will give them. They need to pay attention, because the reaction can change at any time and I could ask for the box to be passed at any time. Pass the box around and call out reactions, like anger, angrier, angriest, indifferent, delighted, overjoyed, confused, perplexed, distraught, like, love, passion, bored, more bored, bored out of your mind, sarcastic, very sarcastic, scared, terrified, with apprehension, anxious, hopeful, jealous, proud, sleepily, reverently, and so on. After the game, ask which reaction the group thought was best. Why was it best? Was it very specific? Was it heightened? It’s usually best to vary the level of the emotions in your writing between five and nine with an occasional ten. That lets the tens stick out.

3. Character Conference (10-15 minutes)

This game is about creating characters. Ask for one volunteer, preferably someone who’s read a lot of children’s books. Everyone else should look at the index card they got with the name of a well-known children’s book character. They should stand until the volunteer correctly guesses who they are. Then they can sit down. The volunteer has to mingle at the character conference and try to figure out who everyone else is by asking questions. Everyone else needs to be their character without saying his or her name, the title of their book, or the names of other characters. They should try to feed hints to the volunteer without giving things away. If the volunteer gets stuck and a person playing a character isn’t helpful, other characters can mingle with that character until it’s obvious who that character is.  

4. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (5-10 minutes)

This game is about story middles and raising the stakes. Ask for three to five volunteers. Ask everyone else for an activity. One person plays the main character and is given a goal related to the activity (like write a great novel, win a race, buy a toy, and so on). When I clap, the main character has to say, “What could possibly go wrong?” One of the other characters then needs to step in and raise the stakes by presenting obstacles related to the goal (make it clear that it has to be related to the goal and not some random obstacle) or by giving a reason why the thing the main character wants is now something he truly needs. The main character has to work to overcome these obstacles. This illustrates how to raise the stakes and how this increases tension and audience interest. Point out Murphy’s Law for fiction writers: If anything can go wrong (for your main character), it should.

5. The Untold Story (10-15 minutes)

This is about using old stories to create something new. Before doing this game, explain that Improv can be used to change an existing story and make it something new by changing the who, what, why, where, when, or how of the original story. The how is about how the story is told, like the style or the genre. Ask for a genre, like paranormal romance, murder mystery, Doctor Seuss, Star Wars, or evening news. Have each person write down on a scrap of paper something they associate with that genre, like if it’s mystery, the word could be detective or gun. Collect the pieces of paper and put them in a hat. Next have the group pick a well-known fairy tale. Ask for one volunteer who’s a really good storyteller. Take two more volunteers. The first volunteer has to narrate the untold story of the fairy tale in the chosen style or genre. The other two have to act out what the narrator says and come up with their own dialogue. The narrator in turn has to incorporate what the characters are saying and doing into the story. Every once in a while the narrator says, “That’s what everyone thinks happened, but what really happened is the character said . . .” The chosen character reaches into the hat and says a line that incorporates whatever is written on the piece of paper that character draws out. All players should try to make sense of and incorporate whatever it is into the story. When the game is over, ask how many variations of Romeo and Juliet the group knows. And what about Cinderella? What’s changed in those variations? Is it the who, what, where, or how? What other changes can they think of to either of those classics that haven’t been done yet?

6. Work for Hire (about 5 minutes)

This game is a fun game about being flexible and open to revision. Only do it if you have extra time, which isn’t likely. Everyone in the class has to pretend they each have a chance to get hired to write the next book in the hugely successful Happy, Happy Princess series, but they need to prove they can work with an editor. Point at one player and ask him to pitch his story idea for a Happy, Happy Princess book. After about 30 seconds say, “Stop right there. That’s good, but we’re thinking of taking Happy, Happy Princess in a new direction.” Make suggestions for a possible change (different character traits, different setting, different actions, different genres. and so on). “Give me what you got.” After the first person is finished, ask, “Anyone else?” After that person gives me her pitch, I switch the suggestion again. It could be something like “Comic books are really popular, so we want you to give Happy, Happy Princess a superpower” or “We’ve decided to kill off this character, but keep it happy” or “This story needs a werewolf” or “We think we could get a Star Wars tie in, so stick Yoda or Darth Vader into the story.”  This game ends after someone gives a really great pitch.

7. Story Settings (about 10 minutes)

This game reminds writers to think of the five senses when they write. It’s more educational than fun, but it could be a good way to wind things down. Have everyone walk around the room. Call out settings, and have the other writers react as if they’re in that setting. They need to react with all their senses: sound, sight, touch, taste, smell. Their reaction should be apparent in the way they walk, their posture, how they hold their noses, the way they move their hands, and of course the expressions on their faces. Among the settings to use are a crime investigation scene, a beach on the hottest day of summer, a garden in Wonderland, a kindergarten classroom, a funeral, and a space ship.  When the game is over, ask what people heard, saw, touched, tasted and smelled. How can they use this game in their own writing?

CONCLUSION

Improv can teach writers a lot, but perhaps the most important thing it teaches is how to overcome fear. There's no time for fear when you're performing Improv.

When Tina Fey began working at Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels told her, "Don't worry that it's going to be crap, because it's definitely going to be crap." Isn't that freeing? No one expects you to get the first draft perfect, so don't even try. Just have fun.

You have to take a leap of faith in yourself. Pick a genre and a starting point, create your characters, give your main character a goal, and raise the stakes. Don't ask yourself if it's crap, because it's definitely going to be crap. Just accept it and let your imagination go wild. Remember, you do have one advantage over an Improv actor: you can always edit your story later.

Improv opens up your choices in all areas of writing. You can always rewind and do a scene again and again until it's just the way you want it. Sometimes writers are paralyzed by having too many options. Don't be. Pretend it's Improv. Give yourself 30 seconds. Make a choice, take a leap, and find out where it takes you. 

And now, three books on Improv:

101 Improv Games for Children and Adults--just what the title says, this book has lots of fun games of varying difficulty and for varying group sizes.

The Ultimate Improv Book: A Complete Guide to Comedy Improvisation--this book is mostly for those who wish to teach Improv in a high school setting, but it does include some fun games and a lot of information on the skills required to do Improv well.

Truth in Comedy--this book was written by some of the people who originated Improv as it exists today. It gets to the heart of what makes Improv great, and it’s fun to read.



I hope you've enjoyed this series on Improv for writers. Please feel free to use the comments section below to let me know your thoughts or ask any questions. And if you're a conference organizer and you're interested in having me teach a class, drop me an email. I'd love to hear from you.

Improv for Writers, Part 2 of 3--Mind Games: Five Solitaire Games for Fiction Writers

Last week I talked about my love of Improv and how I use Improv to do everything from coming up with story ideas to raising the stakes to editing. This week, I’d like to give you five Improv games you can play on your own.

It might seem like a strange idea. Improv, after all, is performed in groups; whereas writing is usually a solitary activity. But really when you’re writing fiction, you can have as many people to play Improv games with as you like. You just have to make them up.

Each character should behave like an Improv actor, responding to everything with “yes, and.” This keeps the story moving forward. Try to explore each idea you choose as fully as you can. And if you drop something in early, try to remember to pick it up before the end.

And now, here it is:

Five Games Based on Improv 

Writers Can Play On Their Own

1. Word Association (1-3 minutes)

Technically this is more of a warm up exercise than a game, but it does help you explore ideas or themes in a way that will let you come up with related stories.

Think of something, anything, and then think of all the things you associate with it. Rattle them off as they come to you, whether they make sense or not. You can record them, type them, or just write them down by hand on a piece of paper. (If you like to doodle, you can sketch ideas as well.) If you have someone else who can work with you, they could offer the original suggestion for you to brainstorm. Or if you have an idea of something you’d like to write, you can just start with one word associated with that thing.

For example, let’s say you want to write a YA. YAs are about teenagers, and teenagers go to high school. Your note might look something like this:

The words you come up with can help feed you ideas for the other games, so it’s usually a good way to start. In Improv, all players will come up with their own word lists. Sometimes they’ll actually talk about a topic instead of just listing words. However you do it, this is a good way to start.

2. Who, What, Why, Where, When, How (3-5 minutes)

Every story has to answer these questions. Who are your characters? What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Where are they? When is this scene taking place in regard to the action? (This isn’t about a time period, because something like the Ice Age, Victorian times, or in the future is really more of a where then a when. The when is before, during, or after the action.) How is this story shown? (For example, is it shown as a fairy tale, a romance, or a detective story, or all three at once?)

There are many different kinds of Improv games that are based on taking a scenario with assumptions and replacing a who, what, why, where, when or how with a different who, what, why, where, when or how.

One of these games, for example is Fairy Tale Court. Pick a fairy tale, take two or more characters from it, and come up with a scenario that would explain why one is suing the other. This is all about changing the what. Instead of doing what these characters would normally be doing in the fairy tale, they’re dealing with a lawsuit. You might think this is a where thing, but the court setting is just an extension of the what (the lawsuit).

For a more adaptable game, start with a story that has assumptions about all six. Do a one-minute word-association game related to that story, so you have all of your assumptions before you. Now change one of those assumptions to something very different.  

Let’s use Cinderella as an example. Cinderella has Cinderella as the who, going to the prince’s ball at the castle as the what, falling in love with the prince as the why, Cinderella’s house as the where (for this part of the story), during as the when, and fairy tale for how the story is told. Write each of these down in a separate column. Now below each item, write a different who, what, why, where, when or how. Don’t think too long about each thing you write down. Whatever comes to you first, no matter how crazy it might seem.  

Here’s a chart I wrote for Cinderella:

Cinderella

Who	What	Why	Where	When	How
Cinderella	Go to the Castle	Fall in Love with the Prince	Cinderella’s house	During	Fairy tale
Ugly Sister Stepmother Prince Fairy Godmother Slipper Pumpkin Waitress Nerd Robot Lawyer Chameleon	Sue fairy Get job Teach class Get therapy Sell cosmetics Become famous Make pie Watch TV Exercise Buy car Hire maid Protest Prince Run for Office	Network Research article Murder king Gossip Eat Line Dance Steal painting Cater party Hurt stepsisters Deliver pizza Sing Karaoke Go to bathroom Mock prince	High school Laboratory Zoo A corporation Victorian times The future On a beach Atlantis Japan Video game Alaska Olympus Kindergarten	Before After	Comedy Musical Opera Sci-fi Thriller Steampunk Horror Article Tweets Love Letters Commercial Sports Commentary Court TV

You don’t have to fill out a complete chart, just enough to give you some original ideas. As you can see, there’s no end to the number of variations you can create from just one story.

Writers do this all the time, which is why there are so many variations of some stories. Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Ella Enchanted, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Pygmalion, My Fair Lady, She’s All That, A Cinderella Story, Another Cinderella Story, Ever After, and Just Ella are all variations of Cinderella. You can probably think of some more.

This game might be a little overwhelming at first, but it shouldn’t be. Just trust your instincts, no matter how crazy the idea you come up with seems to be. The thing to remember is that whatever you choose to change should be used consistently and in a way that makes sense within the context of your new story. Don’t just drop the change in and forget about it. Explore it fully. If you can’t trust yourself to come up with original changes, ask someone for a suggestion, like a type of person to replace the who or an activity to replace the what.

Once you’ve picked something, ask yourself, “What if?” Taking one idea at random, what if Cinderella was a robot? What if she was built to cook and clean, and what if she wanted something more? What if her fairy godmother was a nerdy guy who fixed her to make her beautiful so she could live her dream? It’s such a fun and interesting idea to explore.

3. Do It in Style (5-15 minutes)

Technically this is just about changing the how (as in how the story is told) of any story, but it can be very helpful for writers to experiment with different styles, so I’m including it as its own game.

Start with a very simple short story. This could be a well-known fairy tale, an ancient myth, a news item, a movie or book plot you’re very familiar with, a Shakespearean play, a Bible story, or even something interesting that happened to you recently. It should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Now write it in a genre different from the one it was originally.

I’ve done this with students in an English class, and they loved it. Some of the genres a writer can use are children’s book, Dr. Seuss (easier than it sounds,  because you can just make up words if you can’t find a rhyme), spy thriller, romance novel, love letter, complaint letter, job application, horror, high fantasy, steampunk, Biblical, Shakespearean, or newspaper article. If there’s a popular movie or TV show character or celebrity with a particular way of behaving or talking, you can use that too. How would the characters on Jersey Shore act out the story of Cinderella? It could be fun to find out.

Doing it in style helps writers work on voice, which many believe is the single most important quality of every story. As the saying goes, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.”  

4. Raising the Stakes (3 minutes)

Raising the stakes is an important part of longer Improv games, because it keeps the audience engaged. It can also determine whether your reader will put your book down or feel compelled to keep reading from beginning to end.

In Improv, this game might simply involve having one player playing a character with a goal, while all the other players are required to step in, present an obstacle, and then leave. Or it could require two players to raise each other’s need to achieve their own goals while presenting each other with obstacles. Or raising the stakes could simply be an element of another Improv game.

To play this game as a writer, start by creating a character and giving that character something he or she wants. Now write a list of the reasons that character wants this thing, what it will mean if the character doesn’t get it, and what it will mean if the character does. One part of raising the stakes is about raising the character’s desire, so put these reasons in order from least important to most important.

For example, at first your character might want to pass a test just so he doesn’t fail the class. To raise the stakes, he might later find out that if he doesn’t pass the test, he’ll have to repeat tenth grade. Then he might start thinking about how this will affect his relationship with his girlfriend. Will she break up with him? Each stage here raises the stakes from a simple want to a deep need.  

Next, create a list of the kind of things that might get in his or her way. I like to call this Murphy’s Law for Writers, which I sum up as, “If anything can go wrong (for your main character), it should.” These obstacles have to come out of what it is the character wants, not random, outside obstacles. They can come from the character himself (internal conflict), other characters, or the environment. One of the best obstacles is time itself, because if the main character doesn’t achieve his or her goal by a certain time, it will never happen.  He has to pass the class tomorrow morning, because he won’t get a second chance.

Create other characters to make him need to reach his goal more or to provide obstacles to reaching his goal. For example, his girlfriend could tell him she couldn’t date him anymore if he’s held back a year. That would increase his need to reach his goal. Meanwhile, his best friend invites him to a party at his house, which tempts the main character away from studying for the test, thereby creating an obstacle. An environmental obstacle could be that the main character’s computer breaks down, so he can’t use it to study. Keep raising the stakes and keep having your main character do everything possible to achieve the goal until the question of whether or not your main character gets what he wants is answered. Your audience will be riveted, because your audience will need to know the answer to that question.

Goal: pass test

Raising Desire	Obstacles
Can stop studying Will prove he’s smart Parents are pestering him Needs to pass to move up to 11th grade Parents will be disappointed if he fails Needs to be in same class as girlfriend Needs to keep girlfriend Needs to keep his friends	Party at friend’s house Broken computer Homework he still has to do The book is boring He’s too tired to study Girlfriend wants him to go to party Parents refuse to help Teacher won’t allow a makeup test

You don’t need to use all the things on your lists, but it’s a good idea to explore as many of them as fully as you can. (It can be really funny, though, if you do use everything on both lists and use them very quickly.) Try to raise the stakes physically and specifically, as well as internally and through dialogue. The more dimensions you can give the conflict, the more real it will be for the reader. And the more real it is, the more engaged your reader will be.

5. Rewind (1-3 minutes per rewind)

In Improv this game involves rewinding the last thing you said and saying something else. As writers, we shouldn’t just settle for the first thing we think of. What if the next thing you could have come up with would have been so much better? You won’t know unless you try. So do your story and yourself a favor and rewind.  

This is a great game to play while you’re editing.

If you have a scene you’re not absolutely delighted with, rewind it and take it in a different direction. I often use this for dialogue, but it can also be a good way to raise the stakes. I like to use the comments section in Word for this. If what I come up with is better, I’ll replace the old scene in the document but keep the original scene in the comments section. Don’t be afraid to change anything and everything. Giving you more options can only give you a better, stronger story.

It will also save you from annoying the audience by missing something obvious. Ever watch an action film and think, “Why hasn’t anyone called the cops? There’s a guy running through midtown shooting. Surely at least one person has dialed 911 by now”? If the writer of that movie had gone through all the options, he would have an explanation as to why no one called the police or he would have had the police arrive at the scene.  Explore as many logical possibilities that you can think of, because you don’t, your audience will.     

This is just a small fraction of the number of ways you can use Improv in your writing. 

Next week we’re going to look at Improv games that can work at writers’ workshops, classes, and the like. See you then!