Writer’s block at the starting gate

I’m starting today’s post with a, “When I was in school...” story.

When I was in school, I dreaded hearing the teacher tell the class that today was the day we were going to write a story. That we’d use our imaginations to write stories about fabulous places and interesting characters doing who knows what. No sooner were the words spoken and I was panicking because every thought I might have had was gone.

Blank. Zip. Nada.

But maybe if I’d been given an idea to start with, say an open ended scenario, a stimulating

picture, a pertinent or perplexing prompt then maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have felt so lost.

Once Upon a Line by Wallace Edwards is one such book to provide story starters for struggling writers. It has a clever premise that every story begins with “Once upon a line”, line referring to the first sentence of the story as well as a physical line used in illustrating this picture book. Wallace presents the reader with the challenge of finding a very particular shaped line that is found in each illustration. (See image below.) I did find this challenging. Kids might like this component more than I did.

But I can see this book being particularly useful as a classroom tool for getting students to come up with some pretty intriguing stories. The format is a one page illustration, captioned with “Once upon a line,” and then an open ended statement that connects to the illustrations and needs to be finished by the reader.

For example, “Once upon a line, there was a knight who was allergic to horses. This was not a problem because…” is paired with an illustration of a trio of medieval knights riding into battle (maybe?) but one of them is sitting on an octopus.

Or

“Once upon a line, Captain Kurd grew eager to sight land. If he didn’t find land soon, he was going to have to…” which shows a small boat with two mice holding musical instruments and the captain who happens to be a chunk of cheese searching for land using his eyeglass.

The illustrations are nicely composed with fanciful and sometimes humorous images that will help struggling writers construct their stories.  Still, lots is left for the imagination to get a work out but the pressure for creating the original idea is eliminated.

Other picture books to check out for story starters are:

Fish on a Walk by Eva Muggenthaler (lots of surreal images and only two word prompts to get a story started)

Breakfast on a Dragon’s Tail by Martin Springett (interesting illustrations with a good chuck of a story provided and a couple of questions to help spark ideas) and finally,

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg (my personal favorite, a classic picture book with a single super realistic, surreal illustration and only a single sentence to spark the reader’s curiosity.)

I’d recommend these books for upper elementary and into junior high.

The creative process for writing a story

Any Questions? by Marie-Louise Gay is a treat.  It’s an exploration of the creative process for an omnipresent author as she writes a story.

It starts as the author visits a school where children ask all sorts of questions:

 How did you learn to draw?

How many books have you written?

Which is your favorite book?

Can your cat fly?

Where do your ideas come from?

Where does a story start?

…and many, many more.  You get the idea.Though I did notice she didn't include the one I remember always coming up: How much money do you make?

It’s the last couple of questions that I listed above that really drive this book.  It’s about how Marie-Louise Gay comes up with idea.  Maybe the colour of the paper she’s working with will inspire her and she’ll end up writing a story about a snowstorm or a jungle or the sea.

Or maybe random words and ideas will give her an idea to play with.  Sometimes these fragments might sit around for a long time before they get used.  You just never know what might work.

 And if she comes up with a blank? Well, she’ll doodle, paint, sketch, play around and ‘shake up’ her ideas, letting her mind wander. Things might get a bit messy and be a bit hard but eventually, something always comes.

Using a story-within-a-story to illustrate this process works really well.  Besides showing this as being a ‘process’ there’s always a great sense of play, curiosity and exploration that is emphasized.  The children in the book become part of the process of working out ideas, creating a portion of the story being developed and just enjoying the ride to the end.

I've always loved Marie-Louise Gay’s illustrations.  If you know her Stella series then you’ll know what to expect. (Stella and Sam even have a cameo early on.)

I highly recommend this for early elementary grades when discussing story development and creative process.

Choose-your-own-adventure technology

Tammy’s discussion of “Choose your own adventures” books  led us to an interesting conversation on the appeal of these books to non-readers and then further, to if these  type of books might appeal to on-line game players and X-Box players (do they call them X-Boxers?).  Our sense of this was no – but were there on-line versions that might incorporate some of the decision making and thought processes?

Some Googling and trials of different search terms (choose your own adventure, interactive character stories) brought me to  Choice of Games, a company devoted to “producing high-quality, text-based, multiple choice games”. Their belief is that text-based games are an underutilized format in computer games, and that the use of text interacts with the imagination in different ways than a graphics-based game. (Hmmmm – interesting premise. I like it.)

They have many, many games that they have produced – the one that Tammy and I played is called “Dragon”. It starts off with a knight who attacks a dragon (the character that the player assumes). The choices that are made determine the arc of the story.  Whoever wrote this one clearly has a sense of humour and a willingness to push the boundaries of stereotypes. Here is an example:

“As you think about it, the knight’s attack was probably inevitable. After all, you did just kidnap the princess from right out of her tower. Although…Isn’t it a little sexist to always kidnap princesses?

o   Maybe, but tradition demands that dragons kidnap princesses, even if that is sexist.

o   You dare question my actions?

o   You know, I never thought about that before. In fact, I think I kidnapped a prince, just to avoid being sexist.

o   I’ll have you know that I make a careful point of alternating between princes and princesses, but it happened to be time for a princess.

Good humour displayed here and at a level that kids would get, I think. As you move through the game, the choices that you make determine things about your character (or you) – in this case, whether you, the dragon lose or gain brutality, cunning, disdain and infamy, what your wealth is and if you have wounds. 

The adventure continues – unlike physical books however, if you don’t like the way it is going, you have to go back and start again, which can certainly change the entire focus.

But what Tammy and I thought had huge potential was that Choice of Games offers the opportunity for you to write your own multiple choice games. They offer a basic guide to their programming language that enables someone to post their adventure online. Of course, you cannot just randomly start writing the program. And this is where an opportunity to capture the attention of reluctant writers and addicted gamers comes in. The story line will have to be plotted out, include what happens at each choice point – students would need to know about plot development, think through the impact at each choice point and perhaps even read a few books/short stories to get some ideas for story ideas and what might appeal to a particular age group.

This would not be a quick project – but the inspiration of being able to see a game that you have written on line might just appeal to those who are reluctant writers and readers.  It certainly would have more appeal than a book report – at least from my perspective.  And certainly, in Alberta, at any rate, a project of this nature would go a long way toward achieving not only the vision set out in  Alberta Learning’s Learning and Technology Framework, but the ability to foster cross-curricular learning is invaluable.

Choice of Games can be played both online and as downloads through iTunes and Android. In addition, authored games can be placed on iTunes and Choice of Games will split proceeds with the author. Kind of a win-win for everyone!!
                                                                                                                                                       --Janet