Since this is not a class and there are no tests or grades, let’s assume we have our first character. Let’s assume we will write a poem about this little girl in grade 7.
If she was down because her best friend left her there all alone or her crush just trampled on her heart we could piece together a poem for her.
This could be a sad poem about her friend or a terribly sad poem about her crush since life as she knows it is over. The point is that we can have a dozen scenarios as to why she is sad and write a few lines about her immediately because we have established a few important things. Plus we have developed her character for the poem. Jot down a few things. Tears, sadness, anger, loss, alone and so on. All we need to do is put those keywords in a sentence to have a few lines of a poem.
You’ve already stopped to think about how those can fit. If you need to; put a few sentences together and see how you do. Keep in mind this simple exercise is just that. A way to get your brain to work.
We have established a few things and these are or these can be our foundation. After all much like a house, we need to build a strong foundation for our story and then build a frame, roof and so on.
Now that we established this, we can move to the next step. We have not given this girl in grade 7 a background or a backstory. All we have is a poem about a sad little girl. Where did this character come from, what is her name? Her name could be part of her backstory. A certain type of name can be a certain race, place or event. If we call her Lucky, maybe she was lucky at birth because she had her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and almost died.
Maybe her name is Violet, and she was unexpectedly born in a garden. The possibilities are endless and this helps us with the rest of the story. Assuming we are going to write about this little girl we need to establish her mom and dad. The same character breakdown is needed for them and with this, we give them personalities and characters.
We have all this from a single snippet of information, a little girl sitting at a table in a school cafeteria. We can run amuck with the rest of the info and I can see your wheels are turning. Not time to get rolling, not just yet.
Once more I like to jump into something else. Remember, this works for me. If you need to adjust something that you do to make things work do so. If you want to try something new and tear away from a constant rut you are in then stick to what I am telling you.
I am not going to tell you how to write or what to write. This works for me.
How to be a writer, How to write? Writing, Author, Blogger. Blog, How to write a novel, Novel, Books, Reading, poet, poetry, book lover, reader, creative writing,
Zsolt Zsemba 