Category: Writing Craft

Some people have rhythm. And some people don’t. And I’m sorry to say, I’m one of those people who don’t. I try to have rhythm. Really, I do. I hear a great song on the radio when I’m driving so I tap my hand on the steering wheel or bob my head back and forth. Sometimes I even dance along with my kids and nieces and nephews during our family dances parties.  I mean so what if the dance parties are for the kids? Who can resist dancing to old Hannah Montana songs or Cotton- Eyed Joe?

And so I dance and sing along to my favorite songs, even without rhythm. And that makes me very happy. 🙂

But there’s one place where I do have rhythm—in my writing. In fact, rhythm is important to any good piece of writing. It can help your words flow in an easy pattern.

Here are a few tips for writing with rhythm:

1.Vary your sentence length

In each paragraph, use both long sentences and short sentences. This makes the paragraph easier to read and gives it a smoother flow. In the following sample, notice both the long and short sentences.

My sixth grade class has gathered in the amphitheater, all five hundred of us squished together shoulder to shoulder. The sun is scorching the back of my neck. My ponytail even feels hot. The sound we’ve been waiting for thunders through the speakers. The Piedmont Challenge theme song. I bite my pinky nail. The signal should be coming next.

In this sample, not only do the sentence lengths make the passage easier to read, they help to convey what’s happening in the story. The first sentence is quite long. The main character seems calm, like she’s simply telling the reader where she is.  As the story unfolds though, the author uses shorter sentences. You can almost feel the main character getting more and more nervous as the song plays and she gets ready for the signal to come.

2. Read Your Sentences Aloud

How do your sentences sound? Sometimes the key to creating a nice flow of sentences is simply hearing how they sound. Do they sound choppy? Maybe you’re using to many short sentences all in a row. Do you lose interest in what you’ve written? Maybe your sentences are too long. Separate them into smaller ones. If you try to put to much information into one sentence, an important point may get lost. 

3.Match Rhythm to the Mood

If you’re trying to describe a setting—a  countryside filled with beautiful flowers and cascading waterfalls–longer, more elaborate sentences will work well. But, if you’re writing an intense scene in a mystery novel, short sentences with bursts of quick, simple words will work better.  

Here’s an example: 

The main character, Connor has just missed his curfew time of 10:00pm. He walks through the front door, to find his Father waiting in the kitchen. He panics, knowing he’s about to get into trouble. Notice the long sentences he uses as he tries to explain why he was late.

                 ”Dad, I know I missed curfew again but I have a really good reason. See when the movie was over, I was about to walk to the car, you know to drive straight home so I wouldn’t be late again, but then some of the guys challenged me to a game of air hockey and you know I’m the King of Air Hockey so I knew you’d understand if I was a few minutes late because you really like air hockey too!”

                His dad holds up a hand to silence Connor. “Enough. I don’t want to hear your excuse!”

Notice the short response Connor’s angry dad gives.  And see how effective matching the rhythm of your sentences to their mood can be!

Rhythm often happens automatically. But it can happen even more effectively when you pay close attention to it. So give it a try. Add some rhythm to your writing. You’ll be amazed at how much better it will flow. And then go on and sing or dance to your favorite song. Even if you don’t have any rhythm at all! 🙂

 

We all want to create interesting characters for our stories, right? I sure do! One of the best ways I’ve found to do that is to give your character a Basic Belief.

A Basic Belief is something your character believes to be true. 

Here are 2 examples of characters and their Basic Beliefs:

• Tori believes if people are nice to each other, everyone will be happy.

• Jason believes people should only do something for someone if they get something in return.    

Now that we know what Tori and Jason believe to be true, how can that help us turn them into interesting, believable characters? It’s easy…put them into a situation where that Basic Belief is tested. 

Let’s say that Tori is your main character. She and her friends are building a fort in her bedroom.  When her friend, Molly tells their other friend, Jenna that her idea for building the fort is stupid, Jenna wants Tori to kick Molly out of her room. So what will Tori do? Will she take Jenna’s side and kick Molly out? Will she side with Molly and tell Jenna that her idea really is stupid?  Probably not.

But why?

Tori wouldn’t do either of those things because it would go against her Basic Belief. See, Tori believes that if people are nice to each other, everyone will be happy. Knowing that, we can guess that it’s important to Tori that everyone IS happy. So it would make more sense that instead of siding with either of her friends, Tori would encourage them both to be nice to each other.

In this example, writing about how Tori would react to this conflict is easy because we know her Basic Belief. When her Basic Belief is tested—when the girls begin to fight, Tori will encourage her friends to be nice. Why? Because she’s hoping that if her friends are nice to each other, everyone working on the fort will be happy!

So what happens when she tries it?

If Tori, encourages her friends to be nice to each other and it doesn’t work, the girls are still fighting, Tori may decide that her Basic Belief isn’t really true. She may think that just because SHE’S being nice, everyone else is NOT happy. On the other hand, if Tori encourages her friends to be nice to each other and it works…everyone working on the fort is happy, she will probably continue to believe in her Basic Belief.

See how that works?

But what about Jason? What happens to him when his Basic Belief is tested? Let’s say that Jason is a really good basketball player. Every day at recess, he takes shots from the foul shot line. He makes basket after basket. In fact, he hardly ever misses.  What happens when the other kids want Jason to help them improve their shots? Does he offer to give them shooting tips? Does he agree to practice with them until they get better? Of course not! That would go against his Basic Belief.

Remember, Jason believes that people should only do something for someone if they get something back in return. So instead, Jason agrees to help each of the kids play basketball—only if they pay him $1.00 every day he helps them. Since the kids agree to the deal, Jason probably thinks his Basic Belief is a good one.

What happens though when his Basic Belief is really tested?

Let’s say Jason is playing basketball outside in his front yard. He wants Billy to play with him but Billy is next door raking leaves at Mr. Abbot’s house.  Jason runs over to see if he can help Billy. Surely Billy is getting paid to rake the leaves and maybe Mr. Abbot will pay him too. But when Billy says he’s not getting paid, he just wants to help Mr. Abbot, Jason decides not to help Billy after all. That makes sense right, because Jason doesn’t believe in doing something for someone if he doesn’t get something in return.

Jason may think of it another way. He may offer to help Billy even though he won’t get paid. Why would he do that? Because even though he’s not getting money, Jason may think that the sooner Billy finishes the job, the sooner he can play basketball. This decision still fits in with his Belief because even though Jason is not getting money for helping, he’s getting to play basketball with Billy. So really, he is getting something in return.

In both examples, Jason stays true to his Basic Belief.

But do characters ever go against their Basic Belief? Of course! Let’s say Jason felt bad for Billy. Here he is sweating and tired because raking leaves is hard work and Mr. Abbot has a lot of leaves! Even though Billy has to go straight home after he finishes, and Jason knows that he can’t play basketball with him today, he may offer to help him anyway.

 But why would he do that?

Sometimes characters decide that their Basic Belief is not a good one—or at least not a good one all the time. Jason may have realized that in this case, helping a friend is better than getting something in return.

That decision can make Jason a more likable character. In this situation, Jason is forced to think about the way he acts and the decisions he makes. In the past, his Basic Belief has always worked for him. He had no reason to change the way he thinks.  A good story will push a character to really question his Basic Beliefs. He will have to think about the type of person he wants to be, or about the way he wants to live his life.

Sometimes he will decide that his Basic Belief is a good one. Sometimes he will decide his Basic Belief is not a good one and instead choose to live by a new Basic Belief.

There is no right or wrong way for your character to act. It’s up to you as the author to determine this, but a story is always more fun to read when that Belief is put to the test!  So why not give it a try? First create a Basic Belief for your character. Then write them into a situation where that Belief is tested. You’ll be amazed at how great your story will be. 🙂   

Good luck! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…or your questions. So as always, leave a comment, if you have one!

As long as you write stories, there will be people out there, like your family or your friends, who will ask you,

                “What is your story about?”       

And when they ask you that question, what answer will you give them? You could say something like, “I’m writing a story about a girl named Samantha who makes jewelry.” Or, “My story is about a boy, named Van who loses his puppy.”

Your friends and family will probably say something like, “Oh, that’s sounds cool.” They may even sound like they mean it. But why don’t they sound more excited about what you’re writing? Why don’t they get that the story you’re writing is going to be amazing?? Probably because you haven’t told them anything about the plot. You’ve described to them a situation that your main character is in. And that’s not enough for a story. A situation is not a plot. Your story needs more.

 It needs stakes.

But what are the stakes? The stakes are what will happen to the main character if he doesn’t get what he wants or what he needs. Here’s an example:

Samantha is a teenager who makes her own jewelry. She plans to give away her handmade earrings to a group of sick children in the hospital on Christmas Eve. But when she loses the box of earrings, Samantha fears she won’t have any to give away to the children, and their Christmas will be ruined.

In this example, the stakes for Samantha are clear. She doesn’t want to disappoint the children.  The story you write will describe exactly what Samantha will do to be sure the children don’t get disappointed. Of course we don’t know whether or not Samantha will succeed…until we read your story!  

Here’s another example:

Van is a boy who loses his puppy. While he searches the neighborhood, he finds a magic marble with a clue attached to it. The answer to the clue will tell Van how to use the magic marble to find his puppy, but if Van can’t figure out the clue, he may never see his puppy again.

In this example, the stakes for Van are clear also. He may never see his puppy again. Here too, the story you write will describe what Van will do to figure out the clue and find his puppy. Again, we don’t know whether or not Van will succeed…until we read your story!

In Charlotte’s Web, the author, E.B. White gives us another good example of high stakes. Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered by the farmer. Charlotte attempts to spin messages on her web in praise of Wilbur in order to convince the farmer to spare his life. But what if she can’t do that? What will happen to Wilbur? Wilbur will get slaughtered and all his friends on the farm will be devastated.
Those are the stakes of the story.

Can you see why the stakes are important? They’re important because if your readers care about your main character, they’ll care about the mess they’ve gotten themselves into. In fact, the bigger the mess, the better. That’s what makes your story interesting. Your readers want to see if your main character will succeed. They know what’s at stake if they don’t. That’s what makes them turn the page and keep reading!

So when you’re thinking up a story to write, be sure you know what’s at stake for your main character. And when your family and friends ask you what your story is about, be sure to tell them what’s at stake too. This time when they hear what your story is about, I bet they’ll mean it when they say, “Oh, that sounds like a cool story!” And I bet they really will want to read it too! 🙂

The first line can tell a lot about a story. It can tell whether it will be creepy, or serious, or funny. It can tell you if it’s set in our world or in an imaginary world. It can tell you if it’s going to be told by a narrator or by the main character. Most of all though, a great first line can tell you whether or not you’re going to like the story!

Take a look at some of my favorite first lines in children’s books today…

∙ “If you are interested in stories with happy endings you would be better off reading some other book.” (A Series of Unfortunate Events- The Bad Beginning)

∙  Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. (Harry Potter and the Scorcerer’s Stone)

∙ “Not every 13 year-old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial, and found guilty.” (The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle)

∙ There isn’t one mirror in my house. (Divergent)

∙ There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife. (The Graveyard Book)

∙ “How five crows managed to lift a twenty-pound baby boy into the air was beyond Prue, but that was certainly the least of her worries.” (Wildwood)

∙ Sophie had waited all her life to be kidnapped. (The School for Good and Evil)

∙ “It certainly seemed like it was going to be another normal evening at Amelia Bedelia’s House. “ (Amelia Bedelia- Unleashed)

∙ “Sometimes there’s no warning.” Chronicles of Ancient Darkness- Oath Breaker

∙ When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.” (The Hunger Games)

∙ “It was fun at first, playing house.” (Love, Aubrey)

∙“My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog.” (Because of Winn- Dixie)

∙ Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. (Al Capone Does my Shirts)

See what I mean? A great first line can help you decide whether or not to read on.  So when you’re writing your own story, do your best to create something great. Something that will make your reader turn the page. Something that will stay with your reader long after the story’s over.

So what do you think of these first lines? Which one do you think is best?  Do you know of a line that should be included on this list? If you do, leave it in the comment box below. I’m always up for another favorite first line!  🙂