Reading Tip: « Stories for in the Campfire »

A snippet from the bundle « Stories for in the Campfire »:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…

 

Ehhh…

 

…

 

Once upon a time…

 

…

 

Pffff…

 

…

 

…in a galaxy far, far away…

 

…

 

…there was a man who suffered a writer’s block…

 

…

 

This man wasn’t me. I never suffered a writer’s block and I don’t think I ever will.

 

Writing starts with having something to say. The final goal of any writing is to be read. If you don’t have anything to say, what’s the point of writing about it?

 

A writer’s block for a writer is like a notebook with fines for a police officer. When the policeman starts his working day, he thinks: “Today I’m going to write someone a nice, big parking ticket… Let’s see… Who will it be? … Well… I can’t find anyone… Nobody seems to do anything wrong… How disappointing… I fear that I suffer a Writer-Of-Parking-Ticket’s Block today…” The wrong approach for this officer of the law is to stare at his notepad until the inspiration comes. Every good policeman knows the solution: he has to find a criminal, he should look for trouble, he should find a problem.

 

The first thing you need is conflict, a problem, a plot, something you want to write about. You start with answering these three questions:

 

1. How do I think about war / peace / football / eating chocolate / buying new shoes?

 

2. Why do I hate/love war / peace / football / eating chocolate / buying new shoes?

 

3. War / peace / football / eating chocolate / buying new shoes leads to…?

 

War, peace, football, eating chocolate and buying new shoes are just examples of topics. Of course, you can pick any topic you like. It’s best to write about something you know, but it’s also a challenge to pick a topic you don’t know very much about and do the research that is necessary. For inspiration on choosing a topic, you can listen to music, read newspapers or magazines, take a walk and look around or read stories by other writers. Staring at a blank piece of paper is not an option.

 

Since Aristotle invented it, every story consists of three parts: (1) the beginning, (2) the middle and (3) the end. The beginning defines a problem, the end offers the solution and the middle part describes the actions that are necessary to go from the problem to the solution. The final conclusion might be that there is no solution, or that there is no problem, or whatever, but that’s already part of the content and not of the form. To find the content of each part, you use your answers to those three questions.

 

Let’s take this man with the writer’s block for an example. His name is Tarzan. He picks the topic ‘eating chocolate’, thinks about it and writes his ideas down on his notepad: