#1 Children's StoriesA Lesson by tynamite Learn the structure and tone of children's stories, the most basic of all stories. It has come to my attention, that a minute few writers on this website only know how to write children's stories. And by that, I mean stories written in a style for children. I was reading a first person story on this website in the viewpoint of a child, about how she hated how her mother was a victim to domestic abuse because of her father. I told my friend about it and we laughed about it mocking it. Examples of children's books with traditional children's style narration are Mz Wiz, Bill's New Frock. I recommend that you buy Ms Wiz In Jail, Bill's New Frock, Molly Moon Book number 1. Here is an example extracts from audiobooks for those who don't get it <-- Bill's New Frock <-- Molly Moon 1 <-- Ms Wiz Adventures In children's stories, there is always a bad person (the antagonist) (he's antagonising me! stop it!), and the good person troubled by the bad person who wins in the end (the protagonist). A common trait of children's books is that they tell the reader how they should feel for the protagonist. They do not let the reader come to their own conclusions about whether they should be empathetic or not. They also have a common structure. Introduction (to characters, scenery) --> Problem (is introduced) --> Build up (of situation)--> Conflict (happens) --> Resolution (of the problem) --> Ending (usually happy) If you read the kind of stories that primary school (elementary) children come out with, it will most likely be in that structure because that's all they know. For an example of a common children's story, read my story called The Black Portal and the tale of The Trampy Cat and the Food. The Trampy Cat and the Food follows the format well and 100%, and it's a moral story slash fairy tale. I have also studied how children's stories start. 99% of them start out with something bad happening to the antagonist in chapter 1. This is the first lesson, because children's stories are 1> Accessible. Anyone can do it, given a prompt. 2> Widespread 3> The Foundation Lots of writers try to write above their weight. I started out on children's stories, they didn't. They fail, I don't. We had to write one in primary and secondary school for our SAT tests (when I was 11) and GCSE English qualifications (when I was 16). (I'm from the UK.) I must have wrote loads of them at school. I'm being a writing mentor for Aliciah on this site, and I gave her 5 prompts for childrens stories and I asked her to write one, so I can find out what her writing style is. If you're going to do so, make sure that it's 3-4 sides of A4 handwritten, and that there is no more than 3 characters. Here's a message I sent Aliciah, who I'm the writing mentor of thanks to Chelsea. She chose prompt number 1, and she's still editing her story after 2 months! -_- I've thought of 5 prompts for you for the children's short story, to give you some ideas. Remember it has to be written on lined A4 paper, with 3 characters maximum, and to aim for 2 or 3 pages, no more than 4 pages. Don't spend more than 45 minutes on it, as it's only practise. 1 Aliens come down to planet earth, and they can only say English words that begin with the same letter like a or t. In future they plan on learning words of other letters, but now they can't. 2 Write a story about a child who shoplifts, feels guilty and then puts what she stole back. The security man thanks the child. 3 Here's what I wrote at 14. Write a story about a boy who catches her younger sister sneaking her Dad's pie, who plans on getting her in trouble for it. 4 Write a story about a spoilt kid who always wins games by cheating, and they get what they deserve, when someone else starts a new game of their own. 5 Write a story about a fox in the woods, that manages to escape being shot with a gun, when hunters show up on their horses. The dilemma for this story will be whether the fox decides to save its child; as the fox could either gamble its own life by saving the fox, or take the risk that the hunter that is coming from behind, won't see the fox child.  Comments |
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