Joe Cummings

May 13, 2016

First Story Part 2 – How To Write It

So how do you get a 9-year-old to write a story? Sure, it’s hard to get his butt in the chair and actually write, but once there, what does he do? What have they taught him in grade 4?

Much to my shock, it’s actually quite a bit. And yet, it’s also quite simple.

Here’s the thing. There are hundreds and hundreds of books about how to craft a story. Seems everyone has an idea. Stephen King. James Scott Bell. Dilbert.

But looking at the 5 page hand out the teachers gave The-Youngest, it made me realize that sometimes it’s actually not that complex.

Forget the 400 page books on character. Forget the tomes on plot. Forget everything about what you’ve read. Here’s how to write.

Like you were 9 and you had nothing in your head on how to actually do it.

#1. Ask what if. It’s that easy. It’s the basics of story-telling. What if you were transported to the minecraft world? What if you were an NHL goalie and you were in a shootout for the Stanley Cup? What if you were a new Stepdad and spent most the time being constantly confused and bewildered?

What if we could bring dinosaurs back to life?

All stories can start from there. All of them. What if Dinosaurs came back to life? Jurassic Park. What if a giant shark decided to attack a beach community? Jaws. What if there was a school for wizards and by writing about it, you could make billions of dollars? Harry Potter. What if women liked porn and bad writing? Fifty Shades of Grey.

See? If in doubt, start with what if.

#2 But where can you get the what if ideas? Try, Building Ideas With Memories. I call it mining your own life, but it’s the same thing. The-Youngest looked at what he did on vacation, what made him scared, what hobbies he had, what events in his life were important.

#3 Begin with Something Happening. In the case of The-Youngest, he had to follow “The night I followed the (blank), this happened”. So, “The night I followed the cat and the cat had to fight a dog.” Isn’t this the essence of how to get a story going? A character, in movement (following), another character, (a cat or turtle or bunny) when something happens.

So, what could happen in Minecraft? Or in an NHL game? Or to some poor stepdad who has no idea how to scorekeep?

After much thinking and talking with The-prettiest-girl-in-the-world, aka his mom, he settled on a minecraft story.

#4 Figure out who your good character is. Figure out your bad guy. What traits do they have? What defines them? Make notes.

Dark Knight succeeds mostly due to its characters

All stories, yes, all stories, succeed or fail on their characters. Howard the Duck sucked so bad because, well, Howard the Duck sucked so bad. The Dark Knight succeeded because it had a tortured Batman and one of the greatest villains of all time, Heather Ledger’s Joker.

So, The-Youngest made himself a list of traits. (Interestingly enough, one trait was that the bad guy was good looking, while his good guy was ‘not good looking.’ Hmmmm. Interesting.

#5 When you write, use feeling words. It’s how we connect to the characters. We need to feel what they feel if we are to feel for them. Wait, does that make sense? It sounded good in my head, but whatever, think about how your character reacts to what happens. Not just physically, but emotionally. How does it affect them?

Annoyed. Scared. Disgusted.

He made a list.

#6 Use your senses. Smell. Taste. Sound. Sight. Touch.

This is to draw us into the world. A world with 5 senses becomes real. It becomes relatable. Now, I’m not sure he actually remembered this in his final draft, but it’s something to keep in mind when writing. Eating zombie flesh tastes yucky, right? Smells bad too, right? But how does it taste? How would it feel in your hands? What details are so totally gross that you can barely stand to look at it?

He may have forgotten about this one a bit. As do I.

#7 How does your story begin? How does it end?

I always know this, but I struggle with the middle. Still, as a learning tool, it’s vital. If you know where it starts, you can, uhm, you know, start, and if you know where the story is going, where it will end, you can throw things at the characters that prevent them from getting there. Until they do. The end.

#8 Then you write.

Seriously.

So he began with an idea.

What if someone hacked into his minecraft account and destroyed his valuable supply of diamonds, blocks of gold and stacks of ender pearls?

He worked on his characters, the good guys, Florence and Flo. He worked on his bad guys who had made a fatal mistake of leaving a small electronic trail F&F could follow and exact revenge.

He knew where he wanted to start, he used a few ‘feeling’ words, and he wrote a pretty damn good story.

It is here if you want to read it.

FLOYD AND FLORENCE’S MINECRAFT ADVENTURE

This is a story about how 2 cousins named Floyd and Florence helped the police capture Henry and Jerry. They are wanted all over canada for major robberies. Floyd is 15 and Florence is 12. Floyd is an expert minecrafter and Florence is a noob at the game. Florence is staying for the summer break at Floyds house.

Floyd helped Florence make a tree house. Florence learned how to place a block, how to hit, how to move, how to mine and how to craft. Together they created a giant castle with a moat.They have 3 double chests full of diamond blocks. These are super hard to get.

One night when Floyd is out with Florence at mc donalds, SOMEONE BROKE IN TO Floyds back door and went straight after the computer. They put it in their bag and they left. Henry and Jerry (the bad guys) hacked into Floyds computer and got on their server. They destroyed Floyd and Florence’s castle but they accidently left a sign there saying where their campsite is on the server. Floyd and Florence were very upset at first but then remembered that they had a backup laptop hidden in the basement.

While Florence is asleep Floyd goes on to the backup computer and gets the server. He follows the sign Henry and Jerry put there and he finds their camp site and gets their stuff back. Floyd sets up a trap at the camp site so when they go in their big main shack it will blow up. The trap is also a virus. It tells the police where they live.

When the police get to Henry and Jerry’s they arrest them. They find $3,000,000 worth of stolen things. Floyd and Florence get rewarded $1,000,000 and really good laptops. Floyd and Florence bought a lot of NERF GUNS and video games. Their parents let them play Minecraft any time they wanted.

the end

I was so proud of him. The ending even made me laugh.

It’s amazing what your children can teach you. In this case, it was to remember, at the end of the day, a story is pretty simple (and writing one can even be fun!)

May 10, 2016

His First Story

I’ve missed a lot of kid ‘firsts’.

First steps. First tooth. First use of the f-bomb.

But this one I’ve managed to see. Last week, The-Youngest wrote his first story.

He didn’t do it by choice, however. He didn’t sit down and think, my goodness, I need to write a story about an evil brother who constantly tries to scare the bejesus out of his gentle, younger brother. No. He was forced to do it by his arch enemy. The school system.

I remember writing my first story at 9, the same age as The-Youngest. It was called The Invasion of the Mole People – Blue construction-paper cover, twenty handwritten pages (Jam smears on a few of them), eleven illustrations (all bad).

My parents loved it. My teachers loved it. My friends loved it. I knew, then, that I wanted to be a writer.

Throughout my school years, I continued to write, and by the end of high school, I even attempted my first novel, Starborn, a story about a hunter of rogue androids who doesn’t realize he’s an android.

I received an A in English class and a stack of rejection letters.

Sadly, out of high school, I did not pursue a writing career in any shape or form. Instead, I chose the very exciting field of accounting. Oh, the glory, the challenges, the excitement! But I still kept on writing.

So I was super excited to help The-Youngest out. I mean, damn, this is what I’m trying to do: Write.

Surely he would want my input or want to make use of my vast experience, right?

Wrong.

He’d worked himself into a quick tizzy about doing it, and only wanted The-prettiest-girl-in-the-world (AKA his mom) to help him out.

That was heartbreaking. I so wanted to help him out. But he wouldn’t have any of it.

Here’s how the conversation went…

“I can’t write a story.”

Prettiest-girl-in-the-world: “Sure you can, honey, you just have to sit down and start.”

“I can’t, I don’t know what I’m going to write. I’m not a writer.”

“Sure you are. You just have to start at the beginning. What story do you want to tell?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Ok, hold on. Wait. That was the conversation she has with me every time I start to write a story. But The-Youngest’s conversation went pretty much the same way. Like any writer, he was terrified of that first page. Of no ideas coming forth. Of not being able to tell a story.

But unlike me when I wrote my first story, the schools have done an amazing job in teaching the kids HOW to actually write a story. And he had his mom.

I’ll detail the amazing cool (and super simple ideas the school had for creating a good story) in the next blog, but for now, here’s why the Prettiest-girl-in-the-world is such a great mom.

Her: So what if we tell a minecraft story? About two boys named jinga-jinag and goobermunday.

Mom! What? You can’t have names like that.

Her: No? What should their names be?

*Thinks* Floyd and Florence.

Her: Good names. And what’s happened to them?

I dunno.

Her: What would be the WORST thing to happen to them in minecraft?

The worst?

Her: Yup

Someone stole all their stuff.

Her: Oh, like what?

Diamonds and stuff.

Her: Why would someone do that?

They’re bad guys. They like destroying things.

Her: That’s pretty terrible. What are Floyd and Florence going to do?

Then the ideas came fast and furious. They came so fast he couldn’t write them down so she did, scribbling while his mind went this way then that way, then flipped around and raced in a totally new direction. Not once did she say an idea was wrong or silly. She just kept him talking.

Then, like magic, they had a ton of writing on sticky notes and a good story.

The-Youngest got out his laptop and began to type. He typed until he finished the story. In one burst. Like he eats a bag of chips.

Then he proudly printed it out.

I was so excited to read it. It had been so cool to watch the creative story-birthing process, and listen to how the Prettiest-girl-in-the-world help brainstorm the best story possible.

He was proud of himself, too. You could tell.

He’d done what all writer’s do in the end.

He wrote.

All he needed was a muse and despite the fact I hate it couldn’t have been me, The-prettiest-girl-in-the-world did incredibly well.

Next up, a quick peak into how the schools are teaching kids to write.

April 28, 2014April 7, 2018

Traveling With Kids – San Diego Zoo – Animal Magnetism

Animal Magnetism

When in the zoo, see the animals. Here they are.

The elephants I like. The Prettiest-girl-in-the-world is worried that one is just swaying side to side. She says that’s a bad sign.

I think the elephants are ok. I say they have each other. They are super social.

She says, yeah, but what if they hate the other elephants? Like one’s from Surrey or something and the rest are from Kerrisdale?

Good point.

We watch an elephant getting hosed down. She seems to be loving it. She must be from Surrey. Apparently not all elephants love it, though. They keepers do their nails sometimes. Like a spa. I think the Kerrisale elephants like that. But not today. No one’s getting their nails done.

The boys find a huge elephant statue. When they stood underneath it, the Prettiest-girl-in-the-world and I get the giggles.

This is a nicer picture. The first one we took made them look like they were getting a semen sample.

However, the boys love to touch things, to climb on things, and this zoo understands that. No, no, they don’t let children play with the lions (much to the youngest’s disappointment) or throw poo back at the monkeys (again, much to the disappointment of the youngest), but they have animal statues or mock construction equipment to climb on, so we let them burn off excess energy by hopping on everything.

And hey, while they climb, we sit down. Win-win! We encourage them to climb for as long as they want. Sadly, they get bored and we have to walk again.

The oldest says horses in real life are bigger than in minecraft. I think that’s a good observation.

We a see a camel.

No one cares.

We spot meerkats hiding in tunnels they dug. They are cute. One looks like me on a sunny day, lying down with his belly up. The oldest admires how many holes they have dug. He is, afterall, a minecraft guy. Diggy-diggy holes. It’s an important skill.

We walk right by the big lions and don’t even see them. I still have no idea how we did this. However, we later discover they were, surprise, surprise, sleeping (and I think hiding from us.)

As we go into the reptile and big-ass bug area, the youngest decides it’s a good idea to bang on the glass to get the attention of a scorpion.

Outside the reptile area, the oldest talks to a cage full of birds. He has a love/hate relationship with birds. As long as they are caged, though, he’s happy to have a chat with them. When they’re flying at his eyes, not so much.

We all think capparbarras are cute.

I ask the oldest what he thinks a dung beetle eats.

He looks at me like, well, by now you should know.

We find a cage full of monkeys. The youngest declares he wants a monkey. He thinks if he was a monkey, he’d be the one leaping from branch to branch. I think he’d be the one throwing poo. The oldest thinks he’d be the monkey sitting and thinking about things. They both think that their mom would be the monkey licking her face. I laugh. Out loud. The Prettiest-girl-in-the-world scowls at all of us.

We watch a honey badger play with his toys. We have to drag the youngest away. I dunno if he likes the badger or wants to play with the toys.

We shake our heads as a three morons make whistling noises at the animals right by a sign that says, hey moron, please do not make loud noises, these animals are sensitive to noises. I don’t want to stereotype, but fat, red faced and white. The mom comes by and yells at the top of her voice. Be quiet! The animals hate loud noises!

Does she get the irony?

We see the cutest ugly things in the world. Wart hogs. We see a little one. But he’s photo-shy. Maybe if we yelled at the top of our lungs we could have made him stop running around.

We stop for food. Not surprisingly, the Asian restaurant has chicken strips. We are thankful. Surprisingly, the chicken teriyaki is pretty good. The Prettiest-girl-in-the world says the ginger chicken wrap is as well.

The oldest braves the PUBLIC bathroom by himself. This is a big deal.

I wash out the plastic souvenir cups. We now have a very fine collection of them. We will definitely need another bag when we go home.

With tummies full and feet a bit sore, we go in search of a bus to take us around the rest of the park.

I won’t say it was only because we all were feet-sore. but there was no way in hell we were going to walk more, so, yeah, we took the tour bus.

More to come.

February 12, 2014

Being the Older Brother

Being the Older Brother

It’s not easy. I think I may have been the worst older brother in history. Well, maybe not Cain-and-Able bad, but I do regret that I wasn’t a better role model, that I didn’t stand up for my younger brother, that I specialized in teasing and taunting him.

But while it’s fun to write about the youngest I’ve found myself looking after, the truth is, it’s the older brother who needs to be written about more often.

He has me shaking my head in admiration.

The only problem, it’s not good writing material.

I mean, when I say, “hey, let’s do our homework first,” he says, “Sure.” Then gets it done.

When he’s dragged to hockey practice, he doesn’t mutter a word of complaint; he sits patiently, sometimes talking to me, sometimes playing a game.

When we’re at a movie, he doesn’t suddenly need to pee in the middle of an epic battle between Thor and Loki.

In other words, he’s a delight to be around.

How can I make a story out of that?

Yet he’s got so much going for him. He’s got a pitch-perfect singing voice. It comes naturally to him so, you know, he doesn’t count it as a talent or skill.

He’s passionate about Adventure Time and Minecraft and Pokemon (but God-forbid, you say Pokemon-s).

He loves to talk about video games and movies and scientific facts. “Did you know the Megalodon is alive?” “Or big foot?”

He loves to ask questions that always get me thinking (and often stump me.)

“So what’s the worst dream you’ve ever had?”

“So what’s your favourite pokemon character?” (Stumped! The smooshadon? I dunno, I seem to forget the names as soon as I learn them.)

“So what’s your favourite movie?” (For the record, the greatest movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – yup, all three cuz the three are one and the one is three. One movie to bring them all together and in the darkness bind them.)

Oh sure he has his flaws. He cannot understand why the 1^st Star Wars movie is the worst movie of all time, (the Jar-jar Binks abomination, not the Luke Skywalker one), he gets angry his brother sometimes, and he may take life a little too seriously for an 11 year old, but what impresses me most is that he seems to effortlessly be a good guy. I’ve seen him be kind to his mom when she needs it most. I’ve seen him put others’ needs before his. And I’ve seen how caring and brotherly he can be with the youngest.

He talks to his brother, he plays with him, he tries to teach him life lessons (especially about Pokemon,) and, most importantly, he spends time with his younger brother.

He’s a good role model.

Better than I ever was.

He needs to be written about more.

All good guys do.