Wham! Write A Story!! (a story about a story for adults as well as kids)
Wham! Will writes. Ka-zooom!! And our hero flies off. The end.
He adds a half dozen exclamation points to his ‘Wham’!!!!!! and three more to
his Ka-zooooom!!!!!!!!! 
 “I’m done,” he
says in a very loud voice. “I’ve written the greatest story ever!”  
But Lara, his best friend, doesn’t agree. His story isn’t
done. It hasn’t even begun.  
“Yes, it is! See I wrote ‘the end.’" 
“You don’t have a beginning,” says Lara. “Where’s the ‘Once
upon a time’ or ‘it was a dark and stormy night?’” 
“I have “Wham!' With an exclamation point.”  
“Okay, you can start with wham! But something has to happen next. You
have to introduce the setting or the characters.  Then something has to happen to the characters. Also, you’re
using a lot of exclamation points!!!”  
“Exclamation points look like soldiers, and I like them. But what’s
the setting? Why do I need that?” 
“Where the story takes place. The setting is also about when it
takes place. For example, does it take place now? Or in the past? Or in the
future?”  
“I want it to take place here, Lara. On the page.” 
“You have to take it off the page. Bring it into reader’s
mind. My mind.”  
“Then, how about at school?” 
“What kind of school?  You have to be specific. The more details in a story, the
better the story. An elementary school? A big school? The world’s biggest
elementary school?” 
“The world’s most gigantic elementary school. A billion and
twenty-nine kids go there.” 
“I’m glad I don’t go there.” 
“It’s my setting,” says Will. 
Lara stretched across the white sheet of paper, her
character aching to go someplace. To do something or to want something—the
story needed a plot.     
“Okay, so you have the setting. Who’s in the story? Who’s
this story about? Is there a main character—other than us— that does something?
That propels all the action and stuff forward.” 
“Huh?” 
“What happens next? That’s the plot. You have to ask
yourself what happens to your characters?” 
Will underlines with his newly sharpened yellow pencil a
line where he says that his superhero flies off to fight the evil alien mutants,
right before ‘the end.’

“Let’s back up. Is that your main character? A superhero? Not me?”  
“I don’t write books about girls.” 
“Today you will, or I’m leaving.” 
“I guess I could add you but only as a secondary character.” 
“Forget it then. This story ends now.” 
“No, wait!!! Lara!!! You can be a main character too.” 
“A superhero too?” 
“Yes, a superhero, too.” 
“What’s my name in the story?” 
“Can’t you just be Lara?” 
“What’s the other superhero’s name?” 
“He has a name,” said Will, clutching his pencil even
tighter.  
“You didn’t include it.” 
“But I know the name.” 
“And I only know what you write on the page, Will, and what
I read. So what’s his name? What does he look like? What is he thinking? Seeing? Touching? Feeling? Use all of your senses to describe him—and me.”   
Will put his pencil down on the lined notebook paper.   
“That’s okay. You are going to have to edit and revise this
story—every writer does that. But hey, tell me, what does this other hero want?
What do I want?” 
“I don’t know. I never know what you want, Lara!” 
“I want to save the world, of course. Ka—zooom!! Don’t all
heroes want to save the world?” 
Will snatches up his pencil and scribbles that down: save
the world. Ka—zooom!!.  
“What obstacles do we face? What decisions do we make? All this
tumult is about something called: Plot. We have to have stuff happen to us.
Challenges. What helps us or stops us from doing our job or getting what we
want or, in this story, saving the world? Start at the beginning, again. You
can do this. You can write your own heroes, Will.” 
“Can I use exclamation points?” 
“Maybe just one or two,” said Lara laughing with Will, and
with that Lara ka-zoomed off the page. 
“Wham!” dashed off Will, beginning his story, again....

------------Caroline Bock is the author of two critically-acclaimed young adult novels: BEFORE MY EYES and LIE.  Ka -zoooom!!!