This writing project explores the idea of captivity in many forms helping young authors think about different ways characters might not be free to do as they like. Introduction to this Stone Soup Writing Activity In this story by Nicholaus Curby, the eagle, locked in its cage, is obviously a captive. The eagle is a captive in the same way a person in prison is a captive. Most people, when they think of captivity, think first of this type of imprisonment—the kind where locked doors keep you in. But in life, and in Nicholaus’ story, being captive has more meanings than simply that of being locked in a small space. Sam, the man who owns the service station, is a captive of his selfishness. He can only think of himself and can’t think of the eagle and what is best for it. Will, who works for Sam, tries to see life from the eagle’s point of view and comes to the conclusion that the eagle should be freed. But Will is himself not really free to do what he thinks best for the eagle. You could think of him as captive of his position as a boy and employee. As a writer you will find that if you can show the ways your characters are held captive by their emotions, or by their role in life as parent, teacher, child, etc., your characters will come alive and seem more like real people. Project 1: Captive of an Emotion Sam seems like a nice man so you’d think he would feel in his heart that the eagle, once so strong, should be allowed to fly again. But during the first part of Nicholaus’ story Sam doesn’t seem able to spend any time thinking about what life might be like for the eagle in the cage. Why not? In my opinion the reason is this: Sam’s selfishness. Sam’s “likes” the eagle and that is why he keeps it. This selfish attitude makes Sam captive, keeping him from his better, more generous self. Using your own life and that of your family and friends as references, create a character or characters who are captives of their emotions and feelings. Create a character or characters who, because of how they feel—selfish, tired, lonely, happy, angry—can only see life from one perspective and thus can’t act exactly as they or we might wish they would. Project 2: Captive of a Social Situation Sometimes we are prevented from doing what we want to do by doors that are locked—like in prison. But most often we are kept captive by less obvious means than locked doors. Create a character like Will. Will could easily have let the eagle go. All he had to do was open the cage. No one used physical force to keep him away from it. But Will wasn’t really free to do as he liked. As a boy, and as an employee of Sam’s, Will wasn’t free to let the eagle go. As you create your character, try to keep clear in your mind the limits imposed on your character by his or her position. The Captive By Nicholaus Curby, 12, Vallejo, California Illustrated By Justine Minnis, 11, Santa Cruz, California First published in the November/December 1985 issue of Stone Soup Will Turner scrambled down the mountain trail from his house to the valley. He couldn’t be late for his first real job! Although early morning mist half hid the valley, he could see the big sign that marked his destination: SAM’S SERVICE STATION: FASTFOOD AND FUEL Then Will saw something move outside the building. It looks like an animal inside a cage, Will thought, as he started to run. But investigating had to wait. Sam Dickson was standing at the station door. “Hello. I’m glad you’re here!” Will’s new employer tapped the walking cast on his left leg. “This broken ankle makes working hard. I can use your help.” The morning was busy. Pumping gas, wiping windshields, fetching soda pop, Will forgot the movement he had seen in the fog until eleven o’clock. Then he ran around the building. In a cage, a large eagle ruffled his bronze feathers and cocked his head as Will approached. Mr. Dickson hobbled up. “Isn’t he a beauty? Found him hurt, but he’s well now.” “First one I’ve ever seen,” Will said. “How’d you like to take over feeding him?” “Yes sir! But keeping an eagle, isn’t it against the law? Why don’t you let him go?” “Let him go!” Mr. Dickson echoed. “Why, I saved his life, besides, I like him.” Later, Will carried out a tray of meat scraps. He slid it into the cage. “Here, old fellow.” The eagle’s strong beak tore the meat scraps, and soon the tray was empty. Will stared uncomfortably as the bird pushed fiercely against the cage. “If you were free,” Will declared, “you could find your own dinner.” Will loved his new job. Only one thing bothered him—the eagle. Somehow it seemed wrong for such a splendid creature to be trapped. “I’ve been reading about wild birds,” Will said one afternoon when Mr. Dickson was resting his leg. “Did you know eagles keep the same nest year after year?” He glanced at his employer. “Bet your eagle’s thinking about his home right now.” “Nonsense,” Sam Dickson said sharply. “That bird has a good home right here.” “I guess so,” Will murmured, afraid to say any more. When Will arrived early the next morning, heavy clouds were gathering overhead. He knew they signaled a big storm. “Maybe you should go tomorrow to go for supplies,” he said to Mr. Dickson who was writing a list. “Nope, I always go on Tuesdays. Don’t worry, son. I’ll be fine.” Sam Dickson climbed awkwardly into his red pickup truck. “Remember to buy ketchup,” Will called as the truck pulled away. Before it disappeared, thunder sounded, and a downpour began. Only one customer appeared all morning. “Roads are bad,” the driver
Activities
Writing Activity: biography, war, and the power of what is not said, with “My Story” by Yuthilcar Sokban, 12
Introduction to this Stone Soup Writing Activity Map showing Cambodia in relation to its neighbors Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Yuthilkar Sokban’s story, simply titled “My Story,” is about war. It starts in 1975, the year Yuthilkar was born and the year a group of people, the Khmer Rouge, led by a man named Pol Pot, came to power in Yuthikar’s country, Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot was one of the more murderous governments of the twentieth-century. Between 1975 and 1979 millions of Cambodians were forcibly displaced from their homes, including the family of Yuthilcar Sokban, the author of this story. Many people were tortured and between 1 and 3 million people (nobody knows the exact number) were murdered. Cambodia only had a population of 8 million. The murderous Pol Pot regime ended in 1978 when Vietnam invaded the country and put an end to the horror that had been visited on the country by the Khmer Rouge. This story was originally published in Stone Soup in 1985. Pol Pot had only been out of power a few years. Readers of Stone Soup at the time could ask their parents about Cambodia as memories were fresh and Cambodia was still in the news. Refugees, like Yuthikar and his family were still arriving in the United States. But as all this happened what is now a long time ago, in addition to asking your parents to tell you about what they may remember of the historic events that underpin this story, you may have to do some of your own research. Yuthilcar’s story is largely about how his family was repeatedly moved from one place to another under Pol Pot, and about their final escape from Cambodia in 1979, after the Vietnamese overthrew the Pol Pot regime, and their subsequent move to the United States in 1981. This is not a story that is rich in detail about place or about character. It is a story that chronicles repeated displacements — including the several moves after arriving in America. As Yathilcar arrived in the United States in 1981 and this story was published in Stone Soup in 1985. The actual physical and mental pain of the hardships suffered is implied but never explicitly described. In this story, for years, the family is hungry, tired, and scared. Though it isn’t mentioned, we have to assume that they experienced and saw frightening things, including other people who are sick and dying or dead. But all of that is outside the scope of the story. This is a story by a survivor. It is a story about surviving from day to day. It is a story about finding life and a future by putting the bad things outside of oneself and just focusing on getting through the day, the week, the month, and finally the years to get to a better place in a better time. Yathilcar does write about his family’s suffering, but offers few details. For example, early on in the story he writes, “Our family life was harder than the first place because we ate only corn.” What he doesn’t say is that corn is not a complete food. If you only eat corn you will eventually get sick and it is even possible to die from a corn-only diet. As a reader, you need to imagine that Yathilcar’s family, and the others living with them, had too little eat and were also all weak from not eating a balanced diet. But, even hungry and weak, they still had to work because the army was telling them where to go and what to do. One way to think of it is that they were enslaved. As you read the story, try to imagine the context and what is not being said or described. For example, throughout the portion of the story that talks about their movements within Cambodia there is a “they” that is never described but is clearly all-powerful. For example, after a mosquito infested night with little food in their bellies Yathilcar writes, “In the morning, they told us to leave the place for a village about three days’ walk away.” This is not a friendly “they.” Bottled water and food are not provided. Nor are proper clothes and shoes or a place to sleep. Being tired or sick made no difference. An entire family, including very young children, is sent on forced moves in a tropical climate. The “they” are soldiers of the Khmer Rouge. You can imagine them armed and brutal. For Yuthilcar’s family, peace comes to them when, with good luck, the arrive in a refugee camp on the border of Cambodia and Thailand, and then are able to move into a United Nations refugee camp inside of Thailand, and then are finally allowed to come to the United States. During the period this story was written the United States was taking in tens of thousands of refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos–countries that had been upended by years of war in which the United States was a participant. As I write this today (in 2016), there are again millions of families on the move escaping war–but this time the families are from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Few of these refugees are allowed to come to the United States. Project: Make a Screen Play There is a way that you can think of this story as an outline for a screen play. It offers a plot outline, some characters, and general settings. The opening scene takes place when the author, Yuthilcar, is three-years-old. The Khmer Rouge army captures Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and then forcibly empties it of all the people living there. In this opening scene Yuthilcar’s family is forced to walk for 15 days in the tropical April heat carrying little more than the clothing on their backs. Imagine the chaos! The fear! The crying! The shouting! The soldiers, the families, the old people, the toddlers like Yuthilcar. What does his mother say to her family? What do the soldiers say to them? What do the adults say to each other? There are
Writing Activity: 4 projects to bring your (animal) characters to life
Introduction to this Stone Soup Writing Activity These writing activities are built around the story “Lone Wolf,” published in the January/February 1985 issue of Stone Soup. What is exceptional about this story of a lost wolf cub is that the characters seem so real. Julie Frazier, the 14-year-old author of “Lone Wolf,” takes us far beyond a simple listing of events—Mike did this and Julie did that and then Lone Wolf did something else—into the inner thoughts, perceptions, and reactions of the characters. Mike, Julie, and Lone Wolf are real enough to become our friends. Read the story and then work on one or all of the projects. Project 1: Points of View At important moments in “Lone Wolf,” when the characters do not share the same perceptions about what is happening, such as when Mike and Julie first find the wolf pup, the author explains to us the different perceptions by showing us the identical scene from different viewpoints. In real life we say there are “two sides to every story.” Another way of saying this is that there are always two stories. As an author you can make situations seem very real (and show how individuals relate to each other) by telling the “same” story twice. Think about a situation in which your side of the story was very different from another person’s. Turn this situation into a short story, giving it a beginning, middle, and end. Explain the characters’ differing points of view by telling the important moments of the story twice, once through your eyes and a second time through the eyes of the other person. Project 2: Internal Dialogue In fiction, as in real life, there is nothing more boring than cardboard characters who reveal nothing about their inner life. One reason the characters in “Lone Wolf seem so real is that we are shown something about their personality. We learn what makes each character a unique and very special individual. For instance, while Julie is walking, holding Lone Wolf, we learn about her dreams, about her past, quite a lot about her relation to her husband, and something about why Lone Wolf comes to mean so much to her. While on the “outside” Julie isn’t doing much, just walking along a forest path, “inside” she is alive with thoughts and feelings. Make a list of times when you appeared to be doing nothing but were in fact thinking hard about something. Expand one of the times on your list into a story. Remember to describe where you were, what you appeared to be doing, and what was actually going on in your head. Project 3: Emotional Responses Another way the author of “Lone Wolf” brings her characters to life is by telling us how they respond to what they see. In “Lone Wolf we learn what Mike sees when he encounters the wolf mother for the first time. But the author, Julie Frazier, shows us more than just what Mike sees, she shows us how what Mike sees makes him feel. When writing stories remember that a camera can see but only living things can feel. Think of a time you went someplace and responded very strongly to what you saw — responded, for example, with happiness or sadness or confusion or curiosity. Describe this time in the form of a short story. Describe where you were, what you saw, and how what you saw made you feel. Project 4: Broader Applications Go back through stories you have already written and think of ways you can make your characters seem more like real people. When writing your next story at school or at home, keep in mind the goal of giving your characters the feelings and emotions of you and your friends.
