Living in a Cyber-world

 

This is probably a very important topic at the moment.  There are lots of concerns about artificial intelligence and computer hacking, identity theft etc.

We all spend a lot of our time staring at screens these days, more so probably because of the Covid 19 pandemic. Will this go to an extreme? Will we have to go the same way as the Daleks and the Cybermen? Is the on-line life here to stay?  Or will here be a reaction against all of this?  Use your writing skills to explore this theme. 

 

There are plenty of ideas for articles: scams, how to work sensibly with AI, what else there is to do apart from looking at screens.

This also lends it itself to interesting poetry. An ode to the cyber world? A ballad, a story of what has happened or might happen there? A eulogy, mourning what is lost because of it? Or what about a Limerick?

In a script could you subtly introduce some sentient AI and all the implications around that?

Surely as well time for a story, novella or novel?       

Characters – making them rounded and believable

 

In better stories no character is ever completely evil or good. The good guys will have their weaknesses and the bad guys will have a few good points or at least a reason for being the way they are.     

You really need to know your characters well before you slot them into a story or a script. You might spend hours doodling in words or pictures in a note book or you might day dream about them as you are going about your daily business.

You need to think of the physical, the mental and the emotional aspects of them. Answering these few simple questions may help. In many stories you can have a hero, an enemy, a friend and a mentor. Do the exercise for the hero (aka main character) and either an enemy, a friend or a mentor.  

Physical

1. What do they look like?
2. How old are they?
3. Are they very sporty?

Mental

4. What are they or were they good at at school?
5. What is their personality like?
6. Which newspaper would they read if they were an adult in our world?

 Emotional

7. What do they like?
8. What don’t they like?
9. What are they most afraid of?

Motivation

10. What is their main aim in this story?

 

How do they change by the end?

 

Now put what you have written on one side and write a short scene between the two characters.

Get someone else to read your scene. Maybe ask them questions about your character where the answer isn’t in the script. Do they get it right? Ask all of the questions above. It’s my experience that usually readers get at least seven out of ten right.  

How well do they understand your characters? (i.e. – how well have you written them?) 

Another exercise that may help

Ask a writing buddy to fire questions at you about your character. E.g. What sort of car do they drive? What did they do last night? Where did they last go on holiday?

Can you answer them all? Do any of them lead you into new insights about the characters you have invented?

   

Ice Breaker by Raine Fielder

After she had buried the body [GJ1] she brushed her hair, then put on her white gown and walked out to the backyard. She looked over to the mound of dirt and smiled. She made her way out on the pier over the lake and looked down at the frozen water. She carefully [GJ2] stepped down onto the hard surface. She walked slow and deliberate, step by step until she was far enough out to see the vast mountains around her. She knew this lake well, knew exactly where the thin spots of ice would be, she stood on one and waited. The weight of her and the warmth of her bare feet would soon do[GJ3]  the work for her. She heard a small cracking sound and then another. There was no going back, she fell through.

Fifty years later, Dakota Slater and his son packed their bags for their first trip to a cabin Dakota had just bought in northern Wisconsin. His son, Elliot had just turned twelve, his mother had left them a few months back because of her drug addiction[GJ4] . Dakota had struggled with the same problem, but he had to take care of Elliot, so he had joined a twelve-step. One of the guys in his group had suggested a winter trip during Dakota's lay-off months and sold him a place really cheap. He worked construction and every winter he had nothing to do and keeping busy was the best way to keep himself sober. Elliot didn't talk much, he'd been through and seen a lot from both of his parents and Dakota was ashamed of it. [GJ5] He drove through the white dusted forest, looking over at Elliot in the passenger seat. Elliot had his hood up over his head and looked down at his phone as he played a video game.

Dakota started to say something but decided against it. He didn't know how to talk to kids, not even his own. He sighed and drove the rest of the way in burdened silence[GJ6] . Lumi, their golden lab in her crate, in the back of the SUV, was asleep. She didn't add much to the conversation. When they finally got to the cabin, Dakota was surprised at how big it was considering the price. It looked like it had two stories and an attic. It had a big front porch and aside from some minor repairs it was in good shape. He got out and Elliot did the same, somehow getting out of the vehicle safely without even glancing up from his phone.

"Help me with the bags," Dakota said. Elliot dropped his phone into his hoodie pocket and did what he was told without complaint. He was a [GJ7] good kid who never disobeyed them or got into trouble and got average grades at school. He had turned out better than most kids with two addicts for parents. Dakota had held down a job at least, for most of Elliot's life. But provider was the only roll Dakota had ever had in his son's life. They never had been close emotionally, that was his mother's part of the deal. Dakota had always been too high to realize how much she had failed to do her part. He couldn't blame her completely though; she had a disease and hadn't been ready to be a parent either. Dakota had emotionally neglected them both until drugs were her only family. So, when she had left a year ago, Dakota woke up and realized he needed to be more than just a financial provider. Elliot needed at least one parent in his life that would be there for him.

They carried the bags inside, and Dakota let Lumi out of her crate to run around. The road they’ve driven up on had no cars on it and even if someone drove up, they’d be going slow since the roads were pretty icy. She never wondered far from Elliot anyway, Dakota [GJ8] tried to play with her in the snow, but she ran inside, Dakota sighed and followed her. She jumped up on the couch where Elliot sat playing on his phone again. Dakota called her but she crawled closer to Elliot and laid her head on his lap. Elliot absentmindedly patted her head and she seemed to smile defiantly at Dakota. He threw his arms at her, since she was the only one paying even a little attention to him. He knew he hadn’t earned much more than these cold shoulders from them, but he was trying.

“What do you want for dinner?” Dakota asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Elliot mumbled without looking up.

“Come on buddy, I’m trying here,” Dakota said.

Elliot rolled his eyes and sighed, “I’ll eat whatever you want.”

Dakota felt tears burn the corners of his eyes as he let out a breath to remove the lump in his throat, “okay, go get [GJ9] unpacked while I figure something out, you can choose any room you want.”

Elliot jumped up obediently and Lumi followed him, they walked up the stairs and disappeared without a word, look or even a ‘screw you’.

“What do I want to cook?” Dakota asked himself, he began the process of making hamburger helper, because it was quick and easy and they hadn’t eaten since the fast food breakfast they had stopped for hours ago on the drive up. He got so wrapped up in cooking that he was startled to see Lumi and Elliot outside the window in the back yard. They were playing in the snow and he watched them and smiled. He hadn’t seen Elliot playing outside since… well he had never seen him play outside. H[GJ10] e turned the stove off and let the meal simmer on the cooling burner and walked over to the double glass doors that led to the back yard.

He walked out, “hey!” he shouted.

Elliot stopped in his tracks and his smile dropped instantly, “I figured she’d want out since she was in the car all day,” he explained nervously.

Dakota tried to chuckle through another lump, “that’s [GJ11] fine, I’m glad you are having fun.” Elliot blushed and didn’t say anything. Dakota had never yelled at Elliot in his life, he had never needed to, but he understood that Elliot had no clue what to expect from a man he didn’t even really know. Dakota watched him as he fidgeted with his jacket zipper, uncomfortable.

“You ever build a snowman?” Dakota asked walking over to him. Elliot shook his head. Just then the smoke alarm started to blare, and Dakota cursed, making Elliot jump. “Oh, it’s just the hamburger helper, let’s go eat and then we can come out and build a snowman okay?”

Elliot nodded reluctantly and went inside. Dakota looked at the sky and hoped it would stay daylight long enough for them to come back out. Dakota gave Lumi some of her dog food and they all ate in mostly silence. Dakota kept checking the window to make sure the sun was still out, then he noticed Elliot doing the same. He felt a joy spark inside knowing Elliot wanted to build a snowman with him. It gave him a little courage to speak, “do you like [GJ12] hamburger helper?”

Elliot looked puzzled for a moment and then shrugged, “it’s food.”

Dakota chuckled, “well that’s one way to look at it, but you know you can tell me if you don’t like something, or if you do, that way I can cook things you like more often.”

Elliot looked at him like the concept was completely foreign to him. Dakota cleared his throat and waited on a response but there was none, just a look of skeptical contemplation. [GJ13] 

“I’m finished Dakota,” Elliot said a while later, Dakota winced, he hated that Elliot hadn’t called him ‘dad’ or [GJ14] anything like it since he was a toddler. He blamed himself so he didn’t correct it and instead just nodded. There was still some daylight left so they bundled up [GJ15] and went outside.

He showed Elliot how to make the parts of a snowman, starting with the largest ball first. Their snowman still didn’t have a face, Dakota wasn’t sure if they had anything to use as its mouth nose and eyes. Elliot didn’t seem to care, he was fascinated.

“It is so much easier than I thought it would be,” he said, then he looked around, “where is Lumi[GJ16] ?”

Dakota looked around and didn’t see her anywhere, they started calling out her name and looking for her. Dakota spotted her on the lake, digging into a spot on the ice.

“LUMI! Stop it, get back here!” Dakota shouted. Before he knew it, Elliot was running out onto the ice to get her. Dakota hadn’t tested it yet to see if it was steady, plus it was probably slick, he started out after Elliot. Elliot slipped and slid but made his way to the dog without falling down. He grabbed her collar and then looked down at the ice and screamed[GJ17] .

Dakota didn’t see anything wrong but ran towards them faster anyway on instinct, he got to them and Elliot was still screaming. Dakota looked around and saw nothing but Lumi was barking alongside his screams.

“What is it?” Dakota grabbed his shoulders and knelt down to him.

“A woman, under the ice,” Elliot sobbed, Dakota [GJ18] had never saw him like this.

“That’s impossible, we would have seen someone go under,” he said.

“You don’t believe me?” Elliot scoffed.

“I do, I just think it was probably something that looked like a woman, maybe a couple fish [GJ19] swimming close together… I hope there’s fish that big in here, we’ll catch them,” he ruffled [GJ20] Elliot’s dark hair a little trying to lighten the mood. But the boy still looked terrified and Lumi wasn’t satisfied with the explanation either. Dakota had to carry her back to the house and Elliot sulked behind him. Dakota didn’t know how to make him feel better without lying to him about reality, so he just didn’t mention it again. Elliot played his games and Dakota spent the rest of the night getting everything ready for ice fishing the next day. At least they had seen how thick the ice was already.

The next morning Dakota got Elliot up early, before dawn[GJ21]  and they set out onto the lake. Elliot wanted to bring Lumi but Dakota said it was too risky considering how she had behaved the night before, he didn’t [GJ22] want her running off chasing any wild animals. It was just another thing to make Elliot unhappy with him but he had to set some rules.

An hour later and the sun hadn’t come up yet, in fact it started to get darker.

“Must be a storm coming,” Dakota mused.[GJ23]  Elliot sat with his chin in his hand and sighed. [GJ24] 

“Help me pack up,” Dakota said getting up and starting to load their things into a bag and tacklebox. He was busy so he didn’t notice when Elliot started following a figure under the ice. By the time he turned around he couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Elliot!” he shouted; a tight feeling he’d never had before gripped his entire body.

“Help,” he heard, then a loud crack almost like a gunshot, then a splash. Dakota knew the sound instantly; Elliot had gone through a thin spot in the ice. He took off into the dark without knowing where to even begin to look. He ran around until he saw the hole and didn’t think twice before he dove under. He saw Elliot floating and then a woman came up and grabbed Elliot’s ankle and began to pull him further under[GJ25] . Dakota grabbed his waist and pulled him out of her grasp. He swam up toward the hole and finally made it out. He shook Elliot until he finally coughed up some icy water and woke up.

“I should have believed you,” Dakota said.

“That’s okay, thanks for saving me, dad,” Elliot said[GJ26] .

 

 

 

---

 [GJ1]Great opening. This grabs out interest straight away.

 [GJ2]Can you show this?

 [GJ3]I note that you have used non-standard formatting for this. I suggest you double space and indent new paragraphs without an extra line between paragraphs.

 [GJ4]This is a run-on sentence. It needs splitting up or different punctuation.

 [GJ5]This sentence also needs splitting up.

 [GJ6]What dies that mean exactly? Would it be an idea to show some inner monologue here?

 [GJ7]Paragraph break here?

 [GJ8]Another run on.

 [GJ9]Throat. “Okay, go get

 [GJ10]A lovely poignant moment.

 [GJ11]another lump. “That’s

 [GJ12]speak.  “Do you like  [GJ12]…” Unless you are using a tag word like “said” or “ask” there must be a full stop here.

 

 [GJ13]What does this look like?

 [GJ14]Dad. It is a proper noun here so should start with upper case.

 [GJ15]Would some more detail be effective here?

 [GJ16]You use dialogue well.  Think a little about the balance between dialogue, description, inner monologue and action.

 [GJ17]Nice drama and tension here.

 [GJ18]. needed here

 [GJ19]A couple of fish?

 [GJ20]Them.” He ruffled

 [GJ21]Comma needed here.

 [GJ22]; here

 [GJ23]Not a good tag word. Could you avoid a tag word altogether here by having some body language?

 [GJ24]This ought to be on a new line.

 [GJ25]Lovely drama here.

 [GJ26]The ending is a little abrupt. However a good story. Nicely drawn characters and a good sense of time and place. 

 

About the author

Raine has been writing poetry since the seventh grade and fell in love with a guitarist. She has had several articles published by Vocal. In addition, she has run a blog, written several poems song lyrics, short stories, and seven books. Writing has been her passion her whole life.

Teen Talk: Writing and Revising Poetry By Aimee Romano

So here you are, staring at your laptop. Maybe you're here by choice. But more likely, your teacher has assigned you a poem to analyze, or even worse—a poem to write. You wait for the perfect words to smack you in the face. We all have been there. My students frequently say reading poetry is too confusing and writing it is nearly impossible. You might agree with them. But writing poetry can be extremely rewarding, especially if you aim to get your point across quickly and don't want to blather on and on like your teacher does when she dives into classic literature.

After reading these tips, you will no longer be hesitant to explore poetry. You may even learn to love the art and write poems for fun (*gasp).

 

Banish the blank page

The worst thing a writer can do is stare hopelessly at a wordless document. That blinking cursor or empty line is like an aggravating little friend. But pretend it's 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and that friend is taunting you into jumping into the deep end of a swimming pool. What would you do? You would jump. Do the same with writing. Leap into your document and start typing. Sometimes, I start by listing random ideas. Some of the poems I have enjoyed writing the most materialized from messy notes. If you know what your topic is, begin brainstorming. Write everything you can possibly think of related to the topic: dumb ideas, great ideas, pointless ideas, off-the-wall ideas. The main goal is to write. You can always cut the entire list and start over. In an article published by The Guardian, columnist Oliver Burkeman suggests working on "morning pages," in which he encourages writers to tackle "three pages of whatever comes to mind first thing."

If waking up at the crack of dawn to write doesn't interest you, don't fret. A poem is simply defined by Merriam-Webster's (a.k.a. the dictionary) as "a composition in verse" or "expressiveness, lyricism, or formal grace." Nowhere does the definition say a poem only can be classified as a neat, old-school, formal, rhyming group of words. By Webster's definition, a poem can be anything. A poem can consist of a few words or one. Or it can be simply a series of descriptions. So dial back the pressure. You are free to write whatever you want, however you want. And you'll still be following the official definition of poem.

 

Pay attention to your line breaks

A good line break is everything in poetry. A break is when the last thought of the line continues onto the next line. It is meant to be read aloud as a complete sentence. You already know how to write sentences, so just press enter somewhere other than the end. Then, rearrange your words into logical lines and add imagery to give a mental picture to the reader. That's all there is to it.

But there's a difference between writing a mediocre poem and a good one, and that difference starts with a great line break. My go-to technique is to craft lines one at a time, and then return to the poem later and analyze my breaks. I determine whether or not the last word in each line leaves the reader with the intended impression. Can I move a word to increase the impact? When the poem is read aloud, how do the breaks sound? Or maybe I don't want a break. I want an end-stop, where the line ends in a period. All of these decisions are up to you. Poetry may be the one area in your life in which you have complete control.

An example of an effective line break is illustrated in Danielle Chapman's "Catch-All." Chapman creates an enjambment—skipping from the last line of a stanza to the first line in the next stanza—in lines 10-11 that shifts the meaning for the word "rib." The poet states, "the quivering gobble of her chin / teacup clinking dentures as she sprang / up into her wattle hut / and broke a rib / of aloe vera" (7-11). Upon first read, I could assume the speaker is talking about literally breaking a rib, but when I jump to line 11, I see she is discussing how her neighbor squeezed gel from a plant to soothe an injury. Additionally, Chapman cuts line 8 at "sprang," and continues "up" in line 9. This enjambment and perfected line breaks are effective in propelling the story forward.

 

The weirder, the better

Some of my favorite poems would probably make you roll your eyes and ask, "What even is this?" Poetry should make you sit up straighter at your desk. In a sea of zoned-out faces (yes, I'm looking at you), your reader's should be perky and alert. Otherwise, the poem is not weird enough. And I don't necessarily mean the topic. The best poems use strange word combinations and unexpected similes and metaphors. If you choose to write the overused "He ran as fast as a cheetah," your reader will keep her eyes trained off the page and out the window. Same for exact, predictable rhymes. You want your writing to zap the reader, making him or her want to finish the piece, to figure out the puzzle.

Again, Chapman uses surprising imagery in "Catch-All." Using unexpected word choice, Chapman tells readers her neighbor is elderly without explicitly stating it. She describes the neighbor's "gobbling" (line 7) neck and "dentures" (line 8). The poet waits until the third stanza to include these images. Additionally, a "wattle" is a neck fold, so Chapman explaining the woman's "wattle hut" solidifies this idea of age. So why didn't Chapman just say, "The woman had wrinkles and a saggy chin"? The weirdness of her descriptions makes her poem interesting, forcing the reader to stick around until the last word.

 

Play around with language

Pretend you are 8 years old, at recess with your friends. Remember that feeling? That whatever you imagined was real? Harness that. Give yourself permission to have fun with words. The beauty of poetry is that formal grammar and language rules don't apply. I once had a student ask me if she could lowercase an I in one of her poems. Yes! With poetry, you don't have to follow your teacher's rigid grammar guidelines. Lowercase your I's (*teacher cringes). Eliminate punctuation. Indent where you want to. Make up words, even. Whatever you can imagine is real. I wrote a poem that used the word "mouth torch," something that doesn't exist. I loved the way it sounded, so it survived the revision process. A mouth torch became real to me. I will never forget when a colleague, Joshua Luckenbach, used Emily Dickinson's name as a verb in his poem, "Crossing Over." He describes Dickinson "Emilying around" in her garden. Just writing "Emily was walking" is boring and expected. The idea is to embrace play.

 

You're not done until draft ten, and then you're still not done

            Don't let that number ten scare you. Once you learn to enjoy poetry, there will never be enough drafts. Don't envision revising as a chore; see it as a perk. It's a gift—one that gives you the ability to fail without consequence and fumble in order to express your point of view. Keep this in mind: whatever you write can always be erased. Probably, you can write a good poem, but crafting a memorable poem takes several edits and revisions.

Letting your work "sit" is vital to the revision process. Your poetry needs to collect dust for a little while. I have been working for years on several of my poems. Each time I close the documents, I think the poems are ready. When I revisit a poem a month or two or five months later, I still can find places to revise and perfect. In "Revising Poetry Just Got Easier," David Biespiel says revision allows us to "see afresh the way a reader sees afresh."

Embrace the life of revision. You no longer have to worry that writing poetry is too hard or impossible. You'll understand that you are going to revise the poem several (*cough, a billion) times anyway, so have fun exploring and trying new things.

 

Represent yourself well

If you claim yourself as creator of a piece of writing, be sure you are proud of it. Never turn in work you haven't spent adequate time fine-tuning. If you are completing a poem (or research paper or short story) at the last minute, you might submit work that misses its chance at greatness. Give yourself needed time to create something meaningful. All assignments should pass the sniff test: Am I proud to label this work as mine?

About the author 

Aimee Romano is set to graduate in the summer from Texas Tech University, with a master's in English with a creative writing concentration. After working as a journalist for years, she received her teaching certification. When she is not in the classroom, she can be found binge-watching True Crime documentaries.

What’s in a name?

Open a newspaper or an on-line report. Take the first four names you encounter and make them into characters in a story.  Write a scene that takes place between them.

Creating the character

You might assign the characters roles:

Which ones is which?

The friend?

The mentor?

The enemy?

Think carefully about each character.

Way are they like physically? Intellectually? Emotionally? What is their greatest fear? What do they most want? What do they need?

Find a scene

Choose a scene from:

Inciting incident

Growing complexity 1

Growing complexity 2

Growing complexity 3

Crisis

            Climax

Resolution

 

See what happens

Put your two characters together and see what happens. Show your work to a writing buddy. Do they get what your mean them to get?  And do they understand more about your characters than you show them here? (They probably do – which is a little bit spooky!)