One of the things I like to do in the early stages of writing a story is to draw what I call ‘snapshots’ or ‘frozen moments’ of scenes from the story. I imagine that the characters have a photo album that contains pictures of certain scenes from their lives. Here are some ‘snapshots’ I did while working on The 13-Storey Treehouse. They are very rough first drafts in which I am just trying to get potential story ideas down as quickly as possible.
Rough first-draft snapshots from my notebook.
I didn’t use all these ideas in the final book and many were changed as I wrote the story, but the process of drawing and labelling the snapshots helped me picture the world of the treehouse and get to know the types of things that were going to happen there. Here are some of my snapshots that made it into the finished book (redrawn by Terry of course!).
Terry paints the cat yellow and turns it into a canary.
Terry reveals that all he has drawn for a whole year is a picture of his finger.
Terry hits Andy with a giant banana.
Terry and Andy working on their story ‘Once upon a time there was a finger …’
Another great thing about snapshots is that as well as helping to picture scenes within your story, you can use them to create dramatic openings.
Many of the short stories in the Just books begin with a clearly defined moment. For instance, ‘Bogeyboy’ begins with the image of Andy lying under his sister’s bed waiting to scare her because she teased him about wetting the bed.
The snapshot with a few notes.
Once I have a strong image for the beginning of a story, I like to sketch it and then spend some time thinking about all the things my character might be feeling, hearing, seeing, etc., as in the example above.
I then take all this information and try to write a focused beginning that includes as many of these details as I think the reader needs in order to be drawn into the story.
The opening scene of ‘Bogeyboy’ in Just Stupid!
I like to start my stories this way because it plunges the reader right into the middle of the scene. Having established where the character is, what they’re doing and how they’re feeling, I then fill the reader in on whatever else they need to know before the action of the story begins for real.
TRY THIS
Snapshot
This is a three-part exercise designed to help you take a specific moment from your life and explore the rich sensory detail that all such moments contain.
1. Pretend you have an imaginary camera that is able to take a photograph of a moment from your life that sticks in your mind for some reason. It could be a time you got into trouble, a time you were scared, a time you were embarrassed, amused, sad, happy or simply content. Often the moment just before a significant event can be a good one to choose. Draw a sketch of your imaginary photograph (stick figures are fine!). Note: You are just drawing a single moment, not a sequence of events.
2. Label your snapshot like the example shown on page 273. Write at least three details under each of the headings.
See: What visual details stick in your mind?
Hear: What sounds were happening around you?
Feel: Were you holding anything in your hands? Were they clenched? Open?
Smell/taste: Is there any specific smell or taste associated with your memory?
Body position: What was your body doing? Where were your arms? Your legs?
Thoughts: What was your main thought at that exact moment?
Emotions/feelings: What was your main emotion or feeling at that moment?
Dialogue: Were you saying something to yourself? To somebody else? Was somebody saying something to you?
3. Now is the fun part where you get to convert your snapshot into words. I either like to start with the words ‘I am …’ or with a line of dialogue. When you’ve done this, and perhaps tested it out by reading it to somebody else, you will have a solid starting point for telling either a true, partially true or completely made-up story.
Andy enjoying a perfect moment at the start of the story ‘Lick’ (Just Doomed!).