If you’re writing a story about time travel, the options are endless: You could set your story in the distant past, the distant future, or anywhere in between! Here are just a few of the many, many options
•Prehistoric times!
•Ancient civilizations like Rome, Egypt, or China
•The Middle Ages
•Big moments in the twentieth century: World War I and II, the moon landing, the sinking of the Titanic, and more
•The future: What will life be like in ten years? One hundred years? Ten thousand years? How will people be different, and how will they stay the same? What kind of inventions do they have, and what kind of vehicles do they use? The answers are up to you!
Idea Storm: Settings
Now you try it! Plan out a setting for your story by drawing a map or picture and labeling all the important details.
While you’re brainstorming, don’t forget to give yourself PERMISSION TO GET WEIRD! Draw as many maps or pictures as you want, and don’t worry about whether everything you draw will end up in your story. The more details you can imagine about your setting, the more it’ll come to life in your mind.
Storytelling 101: Reversals of Fortune
Oh, no! Marisa’s plan to get everyone’s attention with her invention was going great. BUT THEN Dr. Vasquez totally overshadowed her with the time machine!
This is a great example of one of the basic building blocks of any story: the reversal of fortune. A reversal is a change that flips the character’s situation from good to bad or from bad to good. Reversals are what move a story forward. If only good things (or only bad things) happen to your character—or if everything they do works out just like they thought it would—the story isn’t very exciting.
Think of a reversal as a “BUT THEN …” moment. The story is going one way for a while, BUT THEN something happens that causes the story to change direction. These can be small moments, such as this example, from Chapter 3:
•Tom gets a job offer! BUT THEN he finds out it’ll never lead to the scientist job he really wants, so he turns it down. BUT THEN Dr. Palindrome lies to him, so Tom takes the job after all.
Or they can be really big moments:
•BUT THEN they accidentally travel back to the Stone Age! (More on that one soon!)
How do you put a reversal of fortune in your own story? One way is by doing what you just saw with Marisa. Your character thinks they’re about to get what they want…BUT THEN something surprising happens, and they don’t get it after all! This will be very disappointing, and they’ll have to try something new to achieve their goal.
There are also lots of other kinds of reversals. Keep reading to see many more examples!
Write Like a Pro: Research vs. Making Stuff Up
When you write a story, you’re creating a made-up world. You need to know enough about your world to make your audience feel like your setting could be real.
If you’re writing a story about your own life, or a story with a setting that’s similar to where you live, this isn’t hard. Since you live in that world, you already know everything about it!
But if you’re writing about a setting you’ve never been in yourself—like, say, a lab full of brilliant scientists or a prehistoric forest—it’s much harder. You need to know enough details about your made-up setting to make your audience feel like it’s real. But how can you come up with all those details?
You have two basic options:
First, you can use your imagination and just make everything up!
Second, you can do research about actual worlds like the ones you’re writing about. For example, if you’re writing about a scientist who just invented a new solar panel, you can go on the internet and search for stories about real solar panels. If you’re writing about a world set in the Stone Age, you can read books about what experts think life was really like back then.
The best approach is usually a combination of these two: Do some research to learn more about your world, then use your imagination to fill in the gaps.
That’s what Geoff Rodkey did when he wrote Stuck in the Stone Age. For example, when Marisa introduces her amazing new solar panel invention, she says it’s made from “graphene and molybdenum disulfide.” These are real-life compounds that are used to make real-life solar panels, which Geoff learned by searching online for articles about solar panels. Does Geoff actually know how to build a solar panel? No way! He did enough research to make the solar panels seem real.
Even if you have an amazing imagination, a little research will help you make the most of it.
Science Fiction Zone: Mostly Made-Up Inventions
Just like its name says, science fiction is a mix of science and fiction. Adding some real science can help turbocharge your made-up fiction.
For example, in Chapter 2, Tom mentions the word fluotanium when he’s talking about the Star Trip TV show. Is fluotanium real? Heck no!
BUT, there IS a real element called fluorine. And there’s another real element called titanium.
Does Geoff Rodkey know anything about fluorine or titanium? Not really. But by mashing two real words together, he made up a fake word that sounds real. All it took was a little bit of research and some imagination. Look up “periodic table” online to find tons of science words you can mash up yourself!
Sometimes, the things in a science fiction story are so advanced that they’re mostly made-up. Here are some common made-up inventions that show up again and again in sci-fi:
•Hyperdrives that let spaceships travel between stars
•Superintelligent robots
•Teleportation devices that send people or objects from one place to another instantly
•Aliens that can control your mind
•Machines or potions that give you superpowers
•Portals that let you travel to another dimension
Inventions like these are great in a sci-fi story. They might be something that causes a big problem, like our time machine will; they might help solve a big problem; or they might just be a cool vehicle your character drives.
Turn the page to see an example of a Mostly Made-Up Invention: the time machine from our story.
If you’re writing a sci-fi story, you might want to use a Mostly Made-Up Invention Organizer of your own. If so, just grab some paper and draw one!
Storytelling 101: We’ve Got a Problem!
Finally! We’ve reached the main problem of our story: Tom and Marisa have just accidentally transported themselves back to the Stone Age.
The main problem is the heart of a story’s plot. Just like protagonist is a fancy word for “main character,” plot is a fancy word for “everything that happens” in a story. The plot starts with whatever causes your character’s problem and ends with whatever they finally do to solve (or fail to solve) it.
The moment a problem first appears is a major reversal of fortune that turns the story in a completely different direction. For Tom and Marisa, suddenly going from the present day to 10,000 B.C. changes the story completely.
If you’re creating your own story, any problem you think is interesting for your character to try to solve can be a good one. Here are some ways you can brainstorm a main problem:
•What Does the Character Want? This is the simplest way to create the problem. Is your main character a basketball player who wants to win the big tournament? Or a flying hippopotamus on a quest to find a magical ice cream cone? Trying to win that tournament or find that ice cream cone is now their problem.
•A Terrible Mistake Is Made: The main character accidentally causes the problem by trying to get what they want. Is your character an astronaut who gets lost while on a mission to fly a spaceship to a new planet? Are they an absent-minded delivery person who accidentally lets a dinosaur loose in the city? Just a normal kid who makes their best friend extremely angry by saying the wrong thing in front of a group of other kids? These can be great problems, especially if the main character is responsible for causi
ng them.
•What’s the Main Character’s Weakness? Sometimes you can imagine a good problem by looking at your character’s weaknesses. If your character is terrified of children, what if they’re forced to become a teacher? If your character has tons of energy and can’t sit still for more than a minute, what if they get seated right behind the president during an important and incredibly long speech that millions of people are watching on TV?
•What’s the Main Character’s Job? If they’re a firefighter, do they have to put out a huge fire? If they’re a superhero, has a supervillain taken a whole city hostage? If they’re a detective or a police officer, is there a crime they have to solve?
•Something in the Setting Goes Wrong: Take a look at your setting. Is there a problem that might be exciting to see there? Does an undiscovered volcano erupt in the middle of your main character’s town? Does a tiger get loose at their local zoo? What if a new kid arrives in school and is just plain mean? Problems can come from anywhere.
Science Fiction Zone: Sci-Fi Problems
As we’ve said, science fiction stories are full of wild, strange, and amazing but true things (or at least, things that might be true someday). So the problems in sci-fi stories can get very weird:
•A Mostly Made-Up Invention goes horribly wrong: Does a spaceship break down in a dangerous place or accidentally travel hundreds of light-years in the wrong direction? Maybe a superintelligent robot goes haywire and becomes very dangerous. Or a scientist creates an invention that seems great but has terrible side effects.
•Aliens come to Earth: This is a classic one. There are tons of exciting problems that can happen when aliens come to Earth. Are the aliens unfriendly and try to mess up Earth? Or are they friendly, but the humans misunderstand them and try to make them go away? What if their only food is pencils, and suddenly there’s a worldwide pencil shortage?
•Humans go to a strange new world: There are a lot of reasons humans might end up in a strange new world. Do they get trapped there and have to find a way home? Maybe their home is in trouble, and they’re looking for a new place to live. And this strange new world can be anything from another planet to a totally different dimension.
•Extreme disasters: Some sci-fi stories take a real-life problem but make it extreme. There’s a tornado coming, but it’s a super tornado, the biggest ever seen! Or there’s a volcano the size of Texas! What if the moon is exploding? Or Jupiter is crashing into the sun? To solve an extreme problem, your characters will probably need to find extreme solutions. They might even have to bring in a Mostly Made-Up Invention to save the day!
Idea Storm: The Main Problem
What kind of problem do you want in your story?
•Do you want your main character to spend the whole story trying to get something they want?
•Do they make a mistake that causes a problem they didn’t see coming?
•Does the problem hit them at a point of their greatest weakness?
•Does something bad happen in the setting, and they’re forced to do something about it?
There’s no wrong answer, and you definitely have PERMISSION TO GET WEIRD.
Storytelling 101: Make Your Problem HUGE
We’ve almost finished the beginning of our story. We’ve met our characters, we know their setting, and most importantly, we know the main problem they’re going to spend the rest of the story trying to solve: Tom and Marisa are stuck in the Stone Age.
Before we move on to the middle of our story, we need to do something fun for us but not so fun for our main characters: turn the problem into a huge problem. The bigger the problem seems and the harder it is to solve, the more your audience will be on the edge of their seats. They’ll be eager to know what your characters will do to get themselves out of trouble.
In Tom and Marisa’s case, just accidentally traveling back to the Stone Age would’ve been scary. But look at what happens in the first few minutes after they arrive:
•The green lever that should send them back to the present doesn’t work.
•The time machine is on the edge of a cliff, and cavemen are trying to knock it off.
•Tom and Marisa have to jump out, or they’ll be killed!
•They escape certain death, but when they try to get back to the time machine, it disappears!
Now Tom and Marisa don’t just have a problem, they have a HUGE one: They’re stranded in the Stone Age with no way to get back to the present. Not only that, but the cavemen who were trying to kill them are still running around!
When you’re planning your story, sometimes it’s helpful to draw a chart like “Make Your Problem Huge.” It maps out how you’ll crank up the tension by making your character’s problem as hard to solve as possible.
How will our characters ever get out of this mess? As huge as their problem is, could it get EVEN WORSE? That’s what we’ll spend the middle of the story trying to figure out.
Idea Storm: Make Your Problem HUGE!
Try taking the problem in your story and making it HUGE. Think about how you can make it bigger, more threatening, and harder for your character to solve. It might help to grab some paper and draw a chart like “Make Your Problem Huge.” Here are some examples to get you started:
•If your problem is that a volcano is erupting in your character’s town … Does their house catch on fire? Are they stranded in the middle of a ring of fire, cut off from their friends? Do lava monsters suddenly appear? (Lava monsters?! Why not? Remember to give yourself PERMISSION TO GET WEIRD.)
•If your problem is that your characters want to win a basketball tournament … Is there a reason why it’s important to win the tournament? Is their family or their school counting on them to win a cash prize? What could make winning even harder? Does a rival team show up with a seven-foot-tall center? Is the rival team notorious for sneaky, underhanded fouls—and when the hero’s team plays them, the referee gets something in her eye and can’t call the fouls?
•If your problem is that your character gets in a fight with their best friend … What can make the fight worse or make it urgent that they find a way to make peace? Is the friend about to move away forever, so there won’t be any time to make up? Does the fight happen on the day they’re supposed to go on a long trip together?
No matter what your character’s problem is, there are ways you can make it even bigger, more urgent, or harder to solve.
Write Like a Pro: Pacing for Excitement
Go back and take a close look at the way Chapter 9 of Stuck in the Stone Age is written, especially the second half of it.
You might notice something.
Something about this chapter.
The sentences are very short.
There’s quick, no-nonsense dialogue.
We’re in suspense about each …
… exciting …
… MOMENT.
When you change the speed or rhythm of your writing, you’re controlling the pacing. It’s like when a movie goes into slow motion—or, the opposite, cuts between images in rapid-f ire fashion, leaving the audience breathless with excitement. Instead of watching this happen on-screen, you’re making it happen in the reader’s mind by making the flow of words faster or slower.
When you write a scene with a lot of exciting action, pacing your writing will draw attention to each individual moment and keep readers on the edge of their seats. For example, one sequence in this chapter could have just been written as:
Instead of answering, Marisa jumped off the cliff and landed safely in the water.
That’s exactly what happened, but it’s not exciting to read. Instead of writing it that way, Geoff Rodkey stretched the moment out. He let us feel the same “what’s going to happen?” suspense that the characters are feeling:
Instead of answering, Marisa jumped off the cliff. Tom gasped.
An endless second later, she hit the water and disappeared.
“DR. MORICE?” Tom yelled.
Marisa’s head
bobbed up from below the surface, so far away it looked to Tom like it was the size of a pea.
This makes the scene much more fun to read, because it keeps the reader guessing about what’s coming next.
You can use this in your own writing! Control the pacing of an action scene by following these tips:
•Focus on exactly what the characters are doing in each moment. Describe action.
•Don’t give everything away all at once. Take it one thing at a time. Keep your reader in …
•Suspense!
•Mix in dialogue with the action. If your characters are frightened or excited, make them sound that way by speaking in short bursts, with a lot of emphasis. “You know! Like THIS!”
•Imagine YOU are the character experiencing that moment. Would your heart be racing? Would you feel like you want to throw up? Let your audience know what your characters are feeling and thinking.
•CRASH! Sound effects can be exciting.
THE MIDDLE
Now that we’ve got a character with a problem, things are really heating up. We’re in the MIDDLE of the story!
Storytelling 101: Obstacles
In the middle of the story, our characters try to solve their problem (which is now HUGE), but we can’t make it too easy for them. If they solve the problem right away, it’s not much of a problem—and not much of a story, either. Here’s an example:
The Pirate Who Wanted Some Cheese
Once upon a time, there was a pirate who wanted some cheese. But there was NO CHEESE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!! “OH, no!! What a huge problem!” he screamed.
Then the pirate noticed some cheese right next to him on the counter. “Oh. There’s some cheese. My mistake.”
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