Digging up a Story
This Summer, I’ve had the awesome opportunity to present to young readers of all ages about being an author, and the awesome process of Digging up a Story!
Giving the talk at a couple of Libraries, I’m always delighted by the readers, (and future readers) in the audience. And my hope is to encourage a couple future writers to tell their own stories.
Be they fiction or non-fiction, and using whatever method of telling that the young rangers choose* I offered a really easy 3 step process to help anyone tell a story.
*(I’m a writer, so I think about everything as writing. But there’s no reason there are many ways to tell a story including -answers derived from my awesome audience: telling the story, drawing, dancing, singing, theatre . . . and so many more!)
This is an example of me digging up a story. (I am not the T-rex.) When I learned that dinosaurs were around for 100s of millions of years, I realized that they were around so long that there would have been dinosaurs walking around with dinosaur fossils underground! So, why not a dinosaur paleontologist?
So, how do you Dig up a Story of your own?
Simple
Find something really cool, (something your interested in,) and something you want to learn more about!
Learn more about it!
Put it in your story!
It’s that simple! Because, the truth is that your curiosity can help fuel a story! Your interests can color the world. Your characters can like and learn about the things you like to learn about. And if the thing you like is really cool, it can become a central part of your story’s action! If so, then learning more about it can help your characters resolve the plot!
The story of Discovery can even become the plot!
All you have to do is dig into something which interests you! And put it in your story!
Like fossils? Learn more about them, and then you can write a story about a girl who has discovered a fossil in her back yard, and the evil paleontologists who want to steal it.
Like sharks? Learn more about sharks so that you can fill the waters in your story about a treasure hunt!
Like pirates? Turn a legendary pirate into a ghost which haunts your characters new home near the ocean!
Telling a story is about sharing what you know and love, (and what you love to know,) with others. So the possibilities are endless. Because there’s always more to learn about anything you love. (and most of it will fit into a story.)
And for fiction writers, there’s an extra special secret:
When you cant learn anything else, or when certain details are missing, you can make up the answers in your stories.* If the pirate treasure has never been found, your characters can find it in a story! If no one knows the true story of the strange lights seen over Phoenix Arizona in March of 1997, then you can write the story about the aliens who chose to visit earth that night. Anytime you find a blank page, or hear an “I don’t know” from experts, that’s fertile ground for a story! But even when you find answers, that can help move your story along or make it better.
*(don’t make up answers in science or real life. That’s lying or bad results)
The simple truth is that the absolute best tool for a writer isn’t a pen, a laptop, or even imagination. It’s curiosity! Because the more you dig into anything, the more stories you’ll be able to tell!
If you want a summary of how to “Dig up a story” of your own, I have a pdf, and a ppt version of my presentation available. It includes helpful examples, and exercises you can use to help practice writing. If you want an example of how, exactly, you can turn the entire process of digging up a story into a story. I’ve linked this short story here. (It’s also in the presentation, but this should be easier to read.)
So, in summary, it’s been incredibly fun to meet other storytellers, or other future storytellers! And I hope you have fun “digging up a story!”