Writing classes for kids blog … and the Keepers competition
January 28th, 2012
If you’re interested in writing, have a look at this very interesting website, Writing Class for Kids. I’ve just done a lesson for it, which is up now and will tell you a bit about the inspiration behind City of Lies, the second book in the Keepers trilogy. There are also lots of other free tips on the website.
And don’t forget the competition that I launched last week! The prize is the audio books of Museum of Thieves and City of Lies, as read by Claudia Black, and there’s a section for kids and a section for adults. The deadline is Feb 19th, so I hope you’re already cooking some ideas! And if you can’t think of anything, my lesson on the Writing Classes blog will give you some useful tools for getting ideas.
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About Lian
Lian Tanner has been dynamited while scuba diving and arrested while busking. She once spent a week in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, hunting for a Japanese soldier left over from the Second World War. Nowadays she lives by the beach in southern Tasmania.
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HI Lian,
Thats cool . . . THe tower gave me shivers and gave me an idea too. I’m stuck in my story, I have no new ideas and I’m hardly half way. Before the big ending they visit some towns . . . (my charecters) and I just don’t know what to do. I’ve had assasins, a capture, escape, riddles, ambushes and traitors. What now? I just follow my favorite authors’ advise as usual. Thanks, once again for the amasing writing facts!
Lily
Stuck. Hmm, let’s see. The story sounds VERY exciting so far. I wonder if perhaps something might happen as a result of one of the things that happened earlier. So something that your characters thought was finished and dealt with comes back unexpectedly? As with life generally, it’s good not to waste your resources in a story. By this I mean, if you have had an interesting character previously in the story (one of the assassins perhaps?), then try using them again rather than bringing in an entirely new character. It’s more interesting for the reader if there is a connection between events rather than just one new event after another. It’s a bit like weaving a particular thread in and out of the story. So you bring in something from before, but with a new twist. Maybe the villain (whoever it is) now has helpers. Or maybe they are more desperate than before, for some reason. Whatever it is, if you are writing an adventure story (and it certainly sounds as if you are) the danger levels must rise for your heroes as you go through the story, right up until the story climax, which is when we get the biggest danger of all.
I’ll give you an example of using a character several times. In City of Lies, the Bandmaster is quite a minor character. Yet he pops up three times and plays a very important part in the story. 1. He’s the first person Goldie befriends in Spoke; he gives her something to eat (after she has stolen it and then given it back) and alerts her to the fact that Harrow is a person to be terrified of. 2. Later on, he and his band play a major (though unwilling) part in Goldie’s rescue of Bonnie and Toadspit. 3. Later still, he and his band help Pounce get on board the Piglet, and when the Big Lie strikes them they chase Guardian Hope away.
Now I could have used a different character for each of these things. But that would be wasteful 🙂 and besides, it’s far more interesting using a character that we already know.
You’ll find some more good suggestions here from Susan Stephenson – they are mainly ideas for getting started, but you can use many of them for getting unstuck as well.