Cuddled

 

My baby cries,

hurt

or scared,

or just alone.

I cuddle, keep her warm, 

check what she needs.

I play, sing along to my favorite lullabies,

songs that lift and encourage and comfort,

and at last I realize

I have hidden hurts, fears,

sometimes just alone.

I need the cuddles, the warmth, the comfort.

I need her.

She needs me.

I need me.

Story Structure for kids (and other beginners)

I've been writing stories since I was a young child, yet I didn't publish my first story until I was 28. That's about twenty years of practice before my stories were ready. I learned by trial and error and developed skills slowly over time. 

The biggest issue with my early stories was that they had no structure. I just wrote whatever came to mind. After a lot of practice, I finally developed a feel for how stories needed to progress. I only discovered story structure after I had written my first book, The Spectra Unearthed, yet that one does fit the beats of a structured story. 

Note: The color coding matches up to my system, which I will discuss later. Note that I have three shades of blue in the middle when I should have only two.

Again, it took me twenty years to get to that point, and about four years of working on that one book. Some authors still write by instinct, and their stories still end up having structure even if they don't do it deliberately. Personally, I find that story structure lets me write faster, and my stories turn out better.

 Nine steps for a simple story

Today I gave my kids a nine-step formula for writing a structured story. I had them write down one sentence per step. When I write, I use a similar formula, though for me, one step equals about three chapters.

1. Who and what is your character? What do they want? Why are they interesting?

2. What will happen to your character? (passive) 3. How does your character choose to change? (active) They choose to interact with step #2. 4. Who or what is stopping your main character? 5. What does your character learn about themselves and the world? 6. What can your character lose? What will happen if they don't win? 7. What goes wrong? 8. What happens when your character faces what's stopping them in step 5? 9. How has your character changed?

Half steps for a more advanced story

For more advanced writers, you might want to add half-steps in between some of these major beats:

2.5: What was your character's life like before the story? 3.5: What is your character's new life like now that they have chosen to change? 4.5: How does your character react to their troubles? 5.5: How does your character prepare to face their troubles? 6.5: What convinces your character to keep trying? 7.5: What hidden strengths can your character draw on to rise above everything that went wrong?

Next, my kids and I looked at KM Weiland's Story Structure database to learn how stories that we already know and love fit our model. We used Harry Potter 1. I've also used the movies Frozen and Aladdin.

(More advanced) My structure system

I used my own story structure system to come up with those nine steps. Many different authors have come up with different story structure systems. They all have similarities, but some of them use different labels for the same point. I started using KM Weiland's model, but soon adapted it for myself. 

Here's a quick overview of my system:

I took the three acts and broke them into eight pieces. Each piece has a specific job and ends in a specific "beat" (which I defined in the steps above).

Look at how my "climax" beats align to the steps/questions from earlier:

1. Who and what is your character? What do they want? Why are they interesting? (Characteristic Moment/Hook)

2. What will happen to your character? (Key Event)

3. How does your character choose to change? They choose to interact with step #2. (First Plot Point)

4. Who or what is stopping your main character? (First Pinch Point)

5. What does your character learn about themselves and the world? (Midpoint)

6. What can your character lose? What will happen if they don't win? (Second Pinch Point)

7. What goes wrong? (Second Plot Point/Low Point)

8. What happens when your character faces what's stopping them in step 5? (Climax)

9. How has your character changed? (Resolution)

Story Structure in The Spectra Books

For my first few Keita's Wings books, I used story structure to turn a messy rough draft into a publishable story. Now I also use it to create an outline before I start writing. I update my outline as I go to help me keep track of where I am in the story and what I need to do next.

Here are some of the finished outlines for some of my books (some of them are cropped to remove spoilers).

Mira's Griffin:

Keita's Wings series

These are color coded instead of labeled by section. Act 1 is yellow, Act 2.A-B are green, Act 2.C-D are blue, Act 3 is red, and I colored the resolution yellow as well.

DreamRovers

I broke up each chapter into scenes for DreamRovers to help me keep track of the three point of views. 

Yes, I am a bit obsessed with spreadsheets.

Story structure is a huge topic and I hope this is useful. This is an amazing age when more information abounds if you wish to search for it. Have fun!

Mother's Day Eve

I described last Saturday to a friend, and she said it sounded like a bad country song. Challenge accepted!

Note: Although it's not country, I sang it to "Piano Man". I'm not familiar enough with most country songs.

It wasn't the best day in history,
my last Mother's Day Eve.
It was only the tip of the iceberg
when our new puppy decided to leave.

Then my son soiled his pajama pants
--that's all the details you get--
Threw 'im in the tub to clean him all off.
The knob blasted off; all got wet.

Hurry! Shut off the well water
though we're stinky from shearing our sheep.
Grab your shoes and get in the car--
Got to get a part a'fore we can sleep.

Heading to town, our car broke down--
steam's bursting up through the hood.
To be fair I must mention friends happened by
To help us get back on the road.

Life gives you plenty of ups and downs.
The lesson I learned this time
was that when you look at your troubles
they always sound better in rhyme.

Unglued

My desert garden needs a touch of personality.

I'll make dinosaurs, fun for my kids to look at,

and superglue them to the rocks

or they will shatter in clumsy hands.

I take my birthday clay and shape

my first,

a megasaurus:

long tail, head sideways, claws curled.

Each time I set him to dry I must reattach

a limb.

An arm fell off, a leg, his head.

Then for shaping, peeling off the extra,

smooth with gentlest sponge.

Claws fall off.

Well, I can paint over that.

Right?

Set him to dry, two weeks this time.

Hue lightens as he ages, terra cotta to vague gray.

All in one piece,

he looks as good as my imagination.

Take him down to paint.

I'll make this a fun activity,

earn good Mommy points,

so I pull out a lesser statue for the boys.

Leave the room to retrieve the paint.

Crash.

Tattling: "My brother broke it."

Dinosaur is in pieces.

Broken.

I put him on the shelf,

say I'm sad but do not yell,

earn good Mommy points.

Later, send them outside.

Superglue his arms, a leg, his head.

Cracks remain, and pieces too small for the glue.

I can paint over that, right?

Begin to paint.

Nudge his head.

Head falls off.

Scream at the universe:

"I am having a bad day!"

Wonder, is there some Meaning,

a parable in this tale?

I am the statue trying to fit the ideal,

sometimes coming unglued
or losing my head.

I retreat, let the frustration dry.

Later I'll get the glue

and try again.

Under cover

The baby is sleeping.
The morning is aging.
I should be out of bed, but
warmth and comfort live under the covers.
My body curls around her,
my protecting arm replacement for womb and flesh.
Baby faces are angelic in sleep.
Memories awaken,
another morning just like this,
and I cannot seem to discern
which baby I hold.

Labor diligently

In our family scriptures, we are reading Moroni chapter 9, easily the most disturbing chapter in the Book of Mormon. Nevertheless, this lesson jumped out at me. This is the prophet Mormon writing a letter to his son Moroni.

"I am laboring with them continually; and when I speak...with sharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they harden their hearts against it." (Moroni 9:4)

Does this sound familiar, moms? Wives? Anyone else with a stewardship over other people? I suspect we all find ourselves in that 'neither option works' situation from time to time. If I tell the kids to stop doing something in a nice way, they ignore me. If I put consequences behind it, they get mad and collapse in tears and still don't do it. If I try to hustle the family somewhere, I get grumpy and we're late. If I don't, I'm not as grumpy but we're still late.

What can we do about it?
The answer is in verse six. Labor diligently. Keep trying, because the responsibility is ours whether or not it has any effect. As Mother Theresa said, "It was never about them anyway". Mormon and Moroni had a tough job, called to be the last warning between the people and utter destruction, a warning that few people were likely to accept. As we keep reading I'm going to be looking for ways that they coped with it, but for now I know that it's important to keep laboring.

And the end result? Also in verse six, to conquer the enemy of righteousness and to rest our souls in the Kingdom of God. I don't know about you, but that last part sounds really good about now.

Wordplay: The Two Stages of Writing (And Why They Are Fun)

A friend of mine told me that she had considered asking me to talk to her second graders about writing, but decided against it because I write for teenagers.  I actually wrote my first story in second grade. I still have a copy of it (and enough memory that I can read between the lines to know what I meant to say). Since then I have been thinking about what I would share with younger kids. I've written a post already about why I write stories, including to communicate and to practice writing skills. I think younger children would also benefit from the habit, so I decided that I would share that writing stories fun, and how to do it.

Playing on Paper

Writing is done in two stages. Most people have a favorite, but both of them can be fun. The first stage is called drafting, otherwise known as playing on paper. Watch kids play. They take a few toys or objects that catch their eye, assign them characters, and then make them react to each other in different ways. They don't stop to wonder what comes next. They're endlessly adaptable, easily throwing in some new idea or character and seeing what it does to the story. I can still remember the first time I switched from pretend play to daydreaming: just playing inside my head without the toys to illustrate (I believe it involved some kind of Robin Hood adventure). Perhaps you still daydream. The same patterns apply: you take some interesting characters, some interesting ideas of things that might happen to them, and you throw them together and see what happens.

The first stage of writing, drafting, is to put those kind of stories down on paper. Play with it! You can start with characters (you and your friends, your cats, your favorite toys, even your favorite tv characters if you want), or you can start with the plot (that just means the things that happen to the characters, like 'they go to the zoo' or 'somebody is going to be captured and need rescued'). You may not know where you're going, or you may have an ending in mind, or you might have a list of things you want to cover. All of those are fine. Don't worry about spelling right now. Don't worry about grammar or word choice or all those rules you learn at school. At this stage, the only rule is to have fun with it!

In Control

If you are writing just for yourself, you might stop after drafting, and that's okay. In fact, if you love your story enough you may never end and just keep going as long as you can. Some people don't like the second stage, which is called editing, but I do. If you want other people to read what you've written and understand what you mean, if you want to make your story the best it can be, if you want to turn it in to a teacher or publish it into a book, you're going to have to edit.

Editing might be my favorite. When you're drafting, you write down everything as it comes to you. The story itself is in charge. When you edit, however, you are in complete control. This is a great feeling, because no one truly feels in control in life. You''re working by your parents' rules, or the school's rules, or society's rules, or the bank or the country's rules (yes, even grown-ups feel this way). Editing is when you work by your own rules.

Of course, if you are writing this story for a certain reader, you will have to pay attention to their rules too, but I don't like to think of it as following their rules. I've studied grammar and read lots of books about writing, and when something makes sense I adopt it as my own. Now it's not the book's rule, or grammar's rule. It's my rule, and I get to enforce it.

Different people do editing in different ways. If you are writing a story by hand, your first edit will be either copying it into a computer or copying it into a new notebook. You'll probably make changes as you go, deciding that some things could be phrased better to make more sense. That's great! The more times you go over it, the better it will be!

So, writing is fun! You get to play and imagine, be in control, make new friends, express yourself, and unlike play and daydreaming, you'll be able to go back to it whenever you want and enjoy the story all over again! Keep practicing, keep learning, keep reading others' stories. If you keep working at it you may become an author. Or you may decide not to, but those writing skills will be helpful in your life. At the very least, you can look back at the things you wrote when you were younger and be able to understand and remember how things were. And I think that's well worth the effort.

Just Around the Corner

Most people would look at my family and laugh if I told them I struggled with infertility. It lasted only a year, and had a quick and easy fix. Even at the time I felt guilty for feeling so bad about it because I had a child already and most people with this problem had none. But it was real all the same.

We had our daughter so quickly that we assumed that this would always be the case. I so wanted her to have a sibling. I had the name of my next child picked out (I was sure it’d be a boy), and I could picture exactly what he’d look like. Months went by and nothing happened. Was it my fault? Was I not a good enough mother for our daughter that I didn’t deserve another child? Somewhere in my heart I knew we’d have more children—my husband wasn’t worried for the same reason. I knew that other people had it worse than I did, but thinking that way only made me feel like I had no right to be unhappy about it, which of course made everything much worse. I didn’t get any hurtful comments, but I had one hard moment when another woman was talking about being able to visit Girl’s Camp despite having a baby, and saying she’d “better go now because [she] would probably be pregnant again next year.”

The lowest point was at a family reunion. I was trying to accept the Lord’s timing in my life and pondering how I could stop feeling so miserable. Then, at a church meeting, two cousins stood up one after the other and announced that they were both expecting. They laughed at the shock on their mother’s face, and I so much wanted to be one of them that I physically hurt. I couldn’t even allow myself to be jealous, as this would be a “rainbow baby” for one of my cousins. I had to walk away from the celebrations with my husband so I could calm down before facing people.

My two-year-old daughter loved going to her nursery class on Sunday. One morning, she hurried off through the wrong door to get there. I knew that the church hallway was a circle and that she would eventually make it to the right class, so I allowed her to go through the wrong door and followed after her. After a little while, she started getting upset. Soon, every time we passed a foyer or turned a corner, she would collapse in tears. “Nursery! Nursery!” she cried. I tried to explain. “We are going to nursery, I promise. Please trust me. We’ll get there if you just keep going. Come on, get up.” And she would get up and walk to the next corner, where we’d have to go through the whole thing over again. At last we arrived and she ran joyfully into her class.

Then I realized how much my daughter had been teaching me. My goal was taking longer than expected, and I too would stop and cry at every corner. I too had Someone with me, telling me the same things I told my little girl, but with even more patience and love. “You are going to get there, I promise. Please trust me. We’ll get there if you just keep going. Come on, get up.”

I too arrived at last. I visited a doctor, who discovered that my thyroid levels were off. I started medication and within a couple of months became pregnant with my son (who looks almost exactly like I imagined him). I learned some important lessons. I still have trials, and I still stop and cry at every corner when my goals don’t happen on my time table. But I’m starting to learn to listen to that voice of the Spirit which is always there, that tells me that everything will be all right if I just keep going. 

My Choice

The other day I was discussing abortion with some Facebook acquaintances. Their basic viewpoint was that abortion is "not ok" but that it's not the government's business to make that choice. (While discussing this with my husband, he said something like, "Deciding who is and is not allowed to kill people is very much a role of government. Regulating doctors is also a pretty basic role of government." However, my purpose in writing this article has nothing to do with further debate.) While the Facebook conversation definitely did not change my mind or my vote (I'm not sure Facebook posts ever do), it did make me think about this.

In America we believe that the government is a representation of the people. So, if we really want to end abortion, maybe we should be looking at other ways to make a difference. I'm not talking about other political policies. We already decided that government isn't the answer. Maybe politicians or famous people can say "everybody should do this" or "the government should do that", but for little me, saying that "the world should be this way" is an exercise in frustration. We might as well say that the world should be paradise and have done with it. So, laying aside our political beliefs, working together whether we are pro-life or pro-choice, what is something that you and I can do personally to help people make good choices? I would love to see other people's ideas and comments on this. Here are a few things that I've thought of:

My life is pretty sheltered (though I prefer the word 'blessed'). Most of the people I know belong to the same religious culture I do. They are honestly striving to follow important commandments such as the law of chastity that make life so much simpler... and, though I'm trying not to be judgmental, better. And, as "the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them" (Alma 31:5), it seems to me that missionary work ought to be on the list of ways to help mothers make good decisions. Spreading the word of God is a way to change people's hearts, and let the laws and politics follow. Again, I'm not saying that "everybody ought to be a member of our church" or  "people should listen more to missionaries". I'm saying that those of us with good, moral lives should talk to our neighbors, talk to our friends, and try to help spread the principles that lead to happiness.

Another idea that came to mind is to use the spheres of influence that we have. I communicate best through writing. Sometimes words haunt my mind and do not go away unless I write them down (thus, I have this blog). I also just published my first book. Novels shouldn't be written purely with a political agenda (that's not a story, that's a soapbox). But I find that my beliefs and experiences do help me to write. Once I euthanized a dying baby chick, and even though my reasons in my head were solid, the second I killed him I had an instant emotional reaction I didn't expect. The experience became a part of my book, where the main character enters a battle and ends up killing someone. My feelings of horror when I hear about abortion came into the story in the climax, when the main character sees the result of prejudice that ended up killing many children. The theme of motherhood comes up continually, and I have a feeling that these thoughts on changing hearts instead of laws is going to be very prevalent in the sequel. I also feel that young adults don't have enough experience with parenthood or children, as families shrink and/or break. I noticed that young adult novels, if they have children at all, use children as heart-wringing props to show how evil the villains are. The dear children must be saved... but they aren't characters, and they aren't human. In my book I tried to show the children as characters. Some were hurt, you might call some of them victims, but I hope I showed that they are individual people, valuable not only because of who they can become but also because of who they are.

My last idea is the hardest. My thoughts on these subjects were interrupted as I needed to leave the house and run some errands, which means I needed to take my three little boys with me. I realized that one thing I can do is to show people the joy of motherhood. This is not easy when taking little boys in public. I'm usually trying to show people that I am not insane as I try to keep them in some sense of order. But maybe that reaction is making things worse. Maybe I can try for a balance, so that I'm still teaching my boys not to run in the road or disrupt other people, but I'm doing it in a way that emphasizes the fun and joy of it. Lately I've been trying to answer people who say "you have your hands full" with "and my heart's even fuller" (this is difficult for me because I struggle to talk with strange people). If you have ideas and tips on how to do this, please share.

So, there are a few thoughts that I've come up with. Again, I would love more ideas on how I could help people to make good decisions, not as a voter but as an individual. Thank you.

Population Control

I'm the oldest of a very large family, and I always wanted my own large family as well. I've also always been interested in learning about animals and conservation. As a child I never thought that the two might be considered at odds with each other. I read descriptions of habitat loss and ZooBooks' not-so-subtle hints that we have a human overpopulation problem without taking much notice. In high school my English teacher constantly liked to talk about our population problems and joked about programs to limit the number of children one can have. I felt that was wrong, and I knew my religion encouraged having children, but until college I didn't really have a solid position on the subject.

Lessons From Religion

The first concept I learned came from religion. The Doctrine and Covenants 104:17-18 states:

17 For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.

 18 Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.

It made plenty of sense to me. The Lord created the earth and made sure there were plenty of resources to care for the people he created. The problem lies with people who hog all of the resources instead of allowing others to take care of themselves. It reminds me of the agricultural fields around the city where I live--gleaning was banned because people would hoard all of the food and then open vegetable stands to sell what was intended to help everyone.

Another concept I came upon while in college was the idea that Satan, the enemy of all mankind, was fighting to destroy the place where we live. His goal is to make men miserable and to hinder the work of the Lord, and it makes a lot of sense that one of his targets is to make the earth uninhabitable or at least less beautiful. But I think there's enough information out there on this subject, and our culture seems to be erring from caring too much about the earth instead of the other way around, so I'll move on.


History and Innovation

People have been worried about over population for a long time. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich stated:

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines--hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

If you look at the information he had available, you might be tempted to agree with him. In fact, the technology and practices available at the time were not enough to feed the world's growing population.

Obviously, the world did not collapse in massive famine forty years ago. What happened? At the same time Ehrlich was prophesying , a global movement called the Green Revolution was beginning.People made new discoveries and inventions which allowed farming to be much more productive.For example, Norman Borlaug bred new types of wheat. While "corn... as high as an elephant's eye" is poetic, it's not really that helpful: we don't eat corn stalks. Borlaug began breeding wheat that grows the same amount of food on a smaller plant, resulting in less nutrient and space requirements. While some of the effects of this were negative (widespread pesticide use and the crippling of the family farm, for instance), it also allowed us to support a larger population. More people means more innovators, and innovators help us to live better.


Economics

In order for a population to stay static, each woman needs to have two children survive to adulthood (one to replace her and one for her husband). Currently in the United States the birth rate is about 1.93 children per woman. Most developed countries are below, sometimes far below, this rate. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article claiming that America's baby bust will be the greatest threat to our economic standing (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323375204578270053387770718.html). The number of children being born cannot support the number of people retiring from the baby boom of the 50's.


The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

Open a map on your computer, zoomed out so you can see the whole United States-- google maps works well. Close your eyes and point to a spot on the map. Now zoom in on your spot. When I did it, I pointed to a spot just east of the Gulf of California in Mexico. As far as I can tell, it's about forty miles from any human habitation. My second try hit the Halfbreed Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Montana, about thirty miles from Billings. Chances are pretty good that you didn't hit any human habitations either.

National Geographic recently came out with an issue that highlighted the importance of cities. They explained that having people in a more centralized location lessens the effect on the earth overall. It uses less wildlife habitat, and less gas as people don't need to travel as far. My husband visited a place in Korea where the people living in the "country" live in high-rise buildings with their fields stretched out in all directions around them.

Beatrix Potter says in her retelling of The City Mouse and the Country Mouse, "One place suits one person, and another place suits another. As for me, I prefer to live in the country." I completely agree with her. I'd rather be in the country, but within a short drive of a larger city. In fact, when I was younger I suggested that the entire earth should be divided equally among all of the people, and each should manage and take care of the section they'd been given. I'm old enough to know this wouldn't work, but the principle holds true--no matter where we live, we need to care for what we have.

One way of solving problems on a personal level is the principle of homesteading, which is that each person should try to be as self-reliant as possible, especially in providing food and other goods for their family. On a city, this might mean a pot of herbs in the window. On fact, the best garden I've had yet was a tiny plot in front of our rented duplex, barely big enough for three tomatoes and a zucchini plant smashed between the owner's mandatory rose bush. In the country, this might mean goats, chickens, and a large garden (my eventual goal). The principle remains the same no matter where you live.


Effects of Overpopulation Fears

One of the biggest problems of fearing overpopulation is that almost every solution to the "problem" involve violating the rights of others. Some people do decide not to have children in order to keep from "adding to the problem", but others see fit to force their opinions on others. This includes the murdering of unborn children, forced sterilization, one-child policies, and eugenics. Eugenetics means that someone in authority will decide for the rest of the population who is fit and who is not, and remove those who are not from the population. Hitler's extermination methods are a very extreme, well-known example. Abortion clinics targeting minority races and doctors suggesting abortion for "disabled" babies are less-known examples.



Quality and Quantity

My favorite story came from a college friend. She was attending an event in high school and was assigned a roommate with very different views from her own. The roommate explained that she did not want to have children because of overpopulation. Then she paused and said to my friend, "I'm glad you want to have children, though. The world needs more people like you."

Raise the change you want to see in the world. This is what makes the most sense to me. I for one believe that there are a lot of problems in our culture. I can't change everything, but I can teach my children right from wrong. I can teach my children how to live a good life. And they will go out into the world and interact with others. I will do my bit, and they can do theirs, and goodness will spread, little by little, person by person. Lasting change for the better is never successful when crammed down people's throats. It happens on an individual level, one by one, person by person. And that's how I hope to make a difference.