Music to my ears

Music is strange. Everyone seems to have a different opinion when it comes to music. Music is important for singers, dancers, and today, writers. For today's assignment you will be writing a story about a song. Not about the history or meaning, but the song.
Let me explain: the first thing to do is choose a song, preferably not a rap song, but if you really want to, go ahead. You can go with a funny song or an old song, whatever you like! Now, get out a pencil and paper (or a new word document) and play the song you chose once or twice.
How does the song make you feel? I know a few that make me cry, and some that make me want to wear pigtails and skip over to my granny's house. Write about how you feel.
Pay attention to the lyrics, what is the artist saying? What message is he trying to convey. Write about it. Listen to the instruments in the song and the voice of the singer. Are they strong or weak. Do they blend or stand out. Write about it! Now take all of that stuff you wrote about and think about it.
Play the song again, think of a story to fit your song.
Say you chose a song by Enya. Her voice is smooth, soft and angelic. Her lyrics are sometimes in Gaelic, so you may not understand them, but what if that language was also used by... fairies? Or maybe your story should be set in Ireland?
Maybe you chose one of her English songs. What is it about? Take the song "My! My! Time Flies!" She's talking about how things change through the years. Take that and build it into a story. The possibilities are endless!
Wait a little while and read it again while listening to the song. Do you still like it?

Coming soon

Freya and I joke around a lot, that's kind of our thing. Inside jokes are most common between us "There's a pachyderm on my trachea" etc.. I talked to Freya and there's going to be an on going series of short stories. I'm not sure what we're going to call them but I do know who the characters are going to be (it was part of the joke) Chuck, Dave, Phil, Norton, Doris, Jane, Mary Lou, Buck, Bill and Agnes. It's basically about a large family who lives in a tree house. It should be coming out in about a week. I don't know how often after that. So keep your eyes peeled for this!

Characters: Imperfection

I am hoping that Freya will write a post on finishing a story soon. I can never sick with stories, so I'm hoping her post will help. In the mean time, I will write yet another  post on characters. Today is imperfection.

Ask any person, and chances are, they will say that no one is perfect. If they say that, they are correct. Jesus was the only person who ever lived that was 100% perfect. It's true that some people were close, but close is not 100%. So naturally, you can't have a perfect character... with a few exceptions. If your character is perfect, or close to it, at least call attention to it in the story, otherwise people are going to think your characters are weak and unrealistic. If your characters do have flaws, don't let them say sorry every time. Unless you're writing a bigography on a Saint. No one can identify with characters who don't hurt, or get angry and mean it. They can to be mean sometimes, or rude, or even hateful. It is okay to do that to your character, even when he's the hero.

Weaknesses are another thing. Even superman had  a weakness. So did Mr. Incredible, he had a soft spot for junk food and his family. The weakness doesn't always have to be negative as you can see with the latter example.

So make your characters real. Make them human. Give them bad habits. Give them a short temper. It's okay, you can do it.


Fill all the lines of a notebook page with flaws you can give characters. Keep it for future reference.

I

Conspiracy

I watched her carefully. The expression on her face was calm and cold. Her eyes were locked on one spot. She wasn't starring, she was thinking. How I wished that I could get inside of her head. She was up to something I knew it.
I felt something on my shoulder. A bird had landed on it, an indigo bunting, to be exact. I tried to silently shoo it away, but it was useless. I pushed it off gently, but the bird didn't know I was trying to be discreet. "Davey, is that you? What are you doing here? Mom said you had to go out and get groceries!" She exclaimed. "Wait a second, were you spying on me?"
I tried to change the subject. "So... how's the fishing?" That was a stupid question. How would she know? "Don't try to change the subject! Why were you spying on me?" I gave her one of those looks that they do in the movies. When you squint you eyes a little and tilt your head to the side and back and look skeptical.
"What are you up to?" She looked at me blankly. "Up to?" "Yeah, why were you so upset when you saw I was spying on you?" She shook her head. "Because it's an invasion on my privacy!" She shouted. Some passersby gave her a weird look. "So, what are you up to?" She shook her head. "If you really want to know, I got a job." I rolled my eyes. "So? Why would you keep that a secret?" "Because I didn't get mom's permission. I wanted to get her something special for her birthday."
What a let down!!! Here I thought I was about to discover that my sister was a secret agent, or a burglar or an alien and she's saving up for mom's birthday! I wonder what my brother Mike is up to....

-Vladimir

Characters: The villain

A villain doesn't always have to be a whom, it can be a what. For instance the movie "The Never Ending Story". They aren't facing a person, they're facing an illness and a nothing. If you don't understand this, rent the movie. Today I'm going to talk about a human villain. You have to make some choices as to how sinister your villain is. After that come up with a name according to how sinister, and a wardrobe and a motive. How far is your villain willing to go. What can he or she do? Do they have power? Why don't they like the main character? Does he/she have a side kick? Do they ever change their ways? Do they know what they're doing is wrong?

Characters: friends

Most characters need a friend or friends. If my main character, Charlotte Marie Clementine in this case, is a teenager who has her head in the clouds. Now we need to come up with some friends. 1-3 close friends is about how many you want, more and you may have trouble giving them all distinct personalities. Now back to "Char" (short for Charlotte). I usually give female characters one female friend and one male. That way you have a little variation. Something that I like to do is have the male wish he didn't have to tag along with the girls, but he didn't have a choice. I like to have one friend the same age as my main character and one older or younger. Remember, these 2 characters are not your main character's only friends. Just the ones he or she hangs out with the most.

A very, very long and ALMOST pointless post.

I have just started chapter two of Distorted Notions. Chapter one is called broken homes start with broken minds and chapter two is called stone cold confusion. These titles seem kind of dark, don't they? Lately I've noticed my writing has been leaning towards a Twilight Zone style. Not to be confused with Twilight. I love switching gears on my writing when I'm stuck or bored with something. Blogging is a more informal writing style, which can be very relaxing after banging my head against the keyboard.
Now for something else I would like to talk about. The schools in my area are starting school in barely over a month. So naturally, I have been paying more attention to the sales at office max. Other things that come with school are trying to remember what you've learned before this Summer. Which is why an article about some of the most often misspelled words caught my eye. Surprisingly, the words young and cloth were on there. Which got me thinking: How much of that is because of spell check? I write quickly, which means I make lots of careless mistakes. So I am guilty of not using my brain. I have trouble memorizing things that aren't random and strange, which is really fun when I have a test in school.
Another thing about school: you do use it in life. Every year when I look at writing assignments from the beginning of the year to the e
nd of the year, I notice that little things like strong words and sentence structure makes your writing sound a lot better. If you say: "well I know I'll use it in life, but it's not like I'll be graded  on it". Well, you kind of will be. Whether you end up writing a book, or getting an office job, there will be pressure that seems very similar to being graded.
Writing is an important skill to have. If you're good at it, then you have a talent. If you like it, you're blessed. Writing applies to so many things! Speaking, poetry, reading, understanding, thinking. It's amazing how something like that is so important. For every book there is, someone had to write it.
Now what does speaking have to do with it? The more you write and learn about writing, the more you will understand the English language and how to use it best. What words sound good together, how you want people to understand what you're saying. If you write a lot, chances are you have a vocabulary and style for your writing. Chances are, part o
f that writing style will become your speaking style. When I write a blog or a journal entry, I write like I talk. When I write a story I write like I speak.
Poetry has been talked about several times on Words on a Page. Why? Because it's one of the most vaguely beautiful things you can write. I can't stand poetry. Which does not mean I don't appreciate the art, or the artists who create it. I can't write poetry, and I am extremely self conscious when I have to show someone a poem I wrote. I also have trouble interpreting poetry. In school, I hated it more than math (no offence to math fans out there). "Do you think that the poet meant he was tired, or flying in a moonlit sky?" I thought the poet meant what he wrote! I wanted to say that, but it's not a good idea to be a smart alec in school.... or anywhere else for that matter.
How does writing help with reading? Reading and writing could be compared to monkeys. At this point you would probably lean back in your chair and try to comprehend this. They are like monkeys because monkeys help each other with cleaning their fur. Still don't get it? A monkey has been playing around where ever this particular monkey lives with his monkey family. And this monkey, we'll call him Bill, is covered in bugs now. So his monkey friend George comes and clean the monkeys fur by eating the bugs. In turn, Bill does the same for George. Writing and reading are like friends who help each other clean up the other. When you read, you're learning, sometimes without realizing it, how to write well. By taking in all sorts of properly spelled words, interesting characters, and even little things that the author did that you don't like. By writing, you can pick apart what you're reading and further understand it.

Three paragraphs ago, when you saw that I said writing helps thinking. Any skill you learn will help with thinking. Comparing something to monkeys comes from my science book that I could not stand! Why did I write this really, really long post? To show you that 1)I have way too much time on my hands and 2) to prove to you that school may seem boring, but you can think of it as "how can I use this other than for this weeks pop quiz" rather than "I can't wait until the bell rings". I wrote this mostly because of reason one.

Characters part one: the main character

Note: These steps are for if you stuck and/or writing a book. These steps aren't necessary for a good main character.

Characters are the back bone of of a story. There are a lot of things to think about when you create your main character.

1. you need to come up with a basic idea of what you want you character to be like. Let's say I'm writing a story about a human teenage girl, who usually has her head in the clouds.

2. I would come up with a name to suit the character. I'm going to go with the name Charlotte Marie Clementine. If you write a lot of fictional stories, I advise you to have a list of girl's names, boy's names, fantasy names, last names and a list of names for fire fighters, writers, scientists, etc. for minor characters who won't be mentioned very often. Phone books are great places to find first and last names.

3. Get a piece of note book paper and write on the first side things like the character's hobbies, eye color, hair color, family, etc.. On the other side, write a paragraph describing the character. Here's an example of that paragraph with one of my minor characters from BtLoN:

"Tasha is a quiet, barely teenager who is in her first year of college. Her bubbly sister, Nia, is constantly getting on her nerves. Tasha's interests include: poetry, violin, piano, singing and ballroom dance. She plans on being a music teacher after college."

4. Give your character some flaws. Let's say that Charlotte has a bad habit of biting her nails and she trips when she goes down the stairs. Maybe have you main character be self-conscious or made fun of for something.

5. Give your character some personality and add whatever else you see fit.


Next weeks "Words on a Page writing assignment": co-stars

Freya's First Post

"People are never as they seem, so take a moment to wake up from your dream, and take away the judgement you made in your heart, to see the person they were from the start. For you never know what goes on behind the scenes, within the mind and hands of time. The trouble, the grief, the hidden scars, the dreams, and wishes made upon the stars. When you feel as if you could judge, just take a moment to remember that they are more than just a smudge on this Earth, but more like a splash of life, God's creation, that could forever make a difference in this nation."




Poetry is often under appreciated... Some that is sewn together with a wonderful message is often taken and turned into something dark, and unwanted. But poetry is not a dark thing at all. To me, Freya Ellerhoff, it can be a way to let your imagination be free... To let out your thoughts and feelings, and to express yourself.



I hope you enjoyed the first post from I, Freya, and I hope you look forward to the more that is to come.

-Freya Ellerhoff.