Do you remember the five elements you need to create a good fiction story?
CHARACTER
SETTING
PROBLEM
PLOT
SOLUTION
For the past four weeks, our lessons have focused on the first of these elements, CHARACTER, and the many facets of creating a good one. We’ve learned how to give our characters physical and emotional character traits and how to SHOW their feelings by creating word pictures. In workshops, I often ask for a show of hands for the following question: “Which do you think is more important to a story . . . CHARACTER or PLOT?” The vote usually goes fifty-fifty, reflecting that honestly, you can’t have one without the other. However, I believe that creating a good character can give even a so-so plot new life, while a boring, two-dimensional character can’t save even the most exciting storyline. Keep in mind that creating characters is number one!
But it’s time to move on to the next element, SETTING. If you have a good handle on creating word pictures to show your characters’ feelings, this next lesson will be a piece of cake. The title is “Writing Cameras.” Maybe you’re thinking, Cameras? This isn’t a photography class! But in a way it is.
Painting a Picture Through Writing
Good authors “take pictures” for their readers. Like an artist who paints a vivid picture on canvas, an author must paint pictures too. There’s just one problem. Authors can’t use cameras or paint brushes to create their pictures. They can’t take a picture or make a movie to show their readers what everything looks like. Sound familiar? You can’t make a movie to show your characters’ feelings, either. You have only one tool: WORDS.
Words, Words, and Nothing But Words
It’s important that the words you write “paint a picture” or “make a photograph” in your reader’s mind. If they can’t “see” what you’re describing, they lose interest. When I come to a place in my story that I want the reader to see, I snap a picture of it with my imaginary camera. How? By using specific, vivid words to describe the scene I am seeing in my own head.
Read these words and think about them for a minute:
REALLY COOL • VERY AWESOME • FABULOUS • EXCITING • MARVELOUS
Are the words above the kinds of words I’m referring to as vivid, specific words? Why or why not? Well, let’s give it a try. Below is a picture of a ship I like to describe to my students. They are not allowed to SEE the picture. Instead, I peek at it and describe it to them, using something like the paragraph below. Read it to your kids and ask them to draws what you are describing. You will quickly discover that the words you use are not vivid, specific words. Kids “get” this as soon as you unveil the ship you were describing. I am usually met with groans and giggles at how different everyone’s picture looks. It is a great object lesson on the importance of good word pictures in their stories.
A Really Cool, Awesome Ship!
“I am holding a picture, but not just any picture. It’s a picture of a really cool, very awesome, fabulous, exciting, marvelous ship. The most fantastic ship in the world. It’s beautiful! (Pause and peek at the picture and show excitement but don’t let the kids peek). “I want you to imagine this ship. Form a picture of this amazing ship in your head. Do you see it?” (Pause and wait while the students think about this for a bit. Somebody usually asks me to show them the picture.) “I’m going to show you the picture, but first I want YOU to draw this really cool, very awesome, fabulous, marvelous ship for me.”
That’s all the clues they get. When they’ve drawn their “really cool, awesome” ship, show them the one you were holding.
Dead Words
Did the drawing of your kids’ ships look like the one you described? Probably not. Why not? Because your idea of a really cool, awesome ship is nothing like another person’s. The kids could not draw what you were describing because you didn’t use words that helped them “see” the ship you had in my mind.
Words like awesome, cool, really, huge, fabulous, yummy, messy, and gorgeous are too general. They don’t tell your reader anything. They’re “dead words,” and they belong in a graveyard. Nothing kills a story faster than dead words — words that don’t paint a clear picture in the reader’s mind. But here’s the good news: as long as you show something with a dead word, you can use it. For example: “The roar of the train was loud.” Loud is a dead word. “The roar of the train was as loud as thunder.” Suddenly, you can hear that train!
Here are more dead words that belong in a writing jail: ALL “feeling words” and others like scary, cute, fun, huge, little, awful, terrible, big, gorgeous, beautiful, pretty, wonderful, fantastic, dirty, boring, good, funny, some, a lot, marvelous, amazing, strange . . . need I go on?
Practice Makes Perfect
Take a look at these dead-word sentences below and how I changed them into vivid word pictures.
Before: The storm was very bad.
After: Lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder exploded. The wind whipped branches from the trees and sent them scuttling through the forest.
Before: Michael’s science project was awesome!
After: Red, yellow, and green sparks flew from Michael’s science project. A motor hummed, and the six-wheeled, metal contraption zoomed across the table. It flew over the edge, onto the floor, and kept on rolling — right out the door.
Try changing these dead-word sentences into vivid scenes. Have fun!
1. Paul opened his gift, and out jumped a really cute puppy.
2. Our camping trip was boring because it rained all week.
3. When I entered the cave, I found the object of my search, the lost treasure of the ancients.
Next month: Let’s Go Fishing!
How is your story-writing going? Share your progress with us!
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