Write a detailed character profile of a new main character for a story. Ask yourself as many questions as you can about your character, and really get to know them. Who are they? What do they look like? Where do they come from? Do they have any special skills? Can they speak, and if so, what language(s)? What do they do with their time? Do they have a family? What kind of personality do they have? Where do they live? Are they funny, smart, ordinary? Do you know their name? Once you have gathered as much information about them as you can, write a paragraph introducing them to your readers.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Author Interview: Damian Dibben, author The History Keepers, talks to blogger Madeline Sornson
Recently Stone Soup blogger and book reviewer Madeline Sornson had the opportunity to read The History Keepers by Damian Dibben, and ask the author some questions about the book, research, and his writing process. Read their conversation below. MS: How did you come up with the idea for The History Keepers? DD: Growing up, I loved two things. Firstly, history, with its epic sweep, colour and darkness, and its incredible characters. And I loved adventure stories, classic books like the Narnia series and films such as Indiana Jones and James Bond – with their similar casts of heroes and villains, exotic locations, mysteries and romance. I knew one day I wanted one day to write my own series. I was reading a picture book with my nephew about the history of all civilizations and how they linked together, from Ancient Egypt and China; from Roman to the Renaissance. I thought that history itself, would be the most amazing place in which to set my series. Everyone likes imagining escaping to the past. Once the story had begun to set in my head, it was a question of researching the periods so that I could really bring them to life and make the reader feel they are really there. MS: Did you always know you wanted to be a writer? If not, what did you want to do when you grew up as a child? DD: I never thought I’d become a writer. Although I loved stories, more than anything, I was only moderately good at English at school. I was much better with anything that was visual, in particular art, design, film and theatre. I used to put on plays and make short films. I then trained in scenic design, became an actor for a while and, through a series of chances, started writing screenplays for movies. I realised I’d been writing all along, since I was young in fact. I don’t see it as a ‘literary’ pursuit, just the means by which you do absolute justice to an image, scene or character that’s in your head. With all this said, if I hadn’t have become a novelist, I would have loved, for obvious reasons, to have been an archaeologist or an explorer. MS: How do you feel when you finally finish a book? DD: Excited and very content, as if I’ve just polished off a delicious ten course meal. I’m usually in the mood to throw a party. MS: What do you think is the hardest thing about writing? DD: I talk about the easiest parts first. For me, these are at the beginning and the end of working on a book. The beginning is all about research and forming ideas and I find this thrilling, how the story grows organically in my mind, from tiny seeds until it has almost fully taken shape and the arc of each character has fallen into place. The end is satisfying too, tidying up, and signing off on artwork. Luxury jobs! So the hardest part is the long stretch in the middle, particularly the first draft. I liken the process to carving a sculpture out of marble or wood. Exciting to have the concept and do the first sketches, exciting to almost finish – and in the middle a very large amount of difficult, sometimes grinding work. MS: How did you develop the series? (did you plan it all out or piece it together as you went?) DD: I had an idea of how the larger, emotional story was going to play out over the series, particularly with regards to Jake’s family. (The first book starts with his mother and father being lost in history). I knew also that I would be travelling to ancient Rome in the second book, after Renaissance Europe in the first. Some of the other elements, and indeed characters, fell into place as I was writing. I carried on plotting throughout. There is supposed to be a fourth book, probably set in Ancient Egypt, but I am waiting for the go-ahead from the publishers, whilst I finish off two new books not connected with The History Keepers. MS: Do you have a favorite character in the History Keepers series? If you do, why is he/she your favorite? If you do not, why is that? DD: It’s incredibly hard to pick as I developed a bond with all the characters over the years, even some of the nasty ones. In a way, Jake is the closest one to myself (I felt very like him when I was fourteen!) so I’ll chose one of his friends. Nathan always makes me laugh and he’s only vain on the surface. Underneath, even in the first book but increasingly throughout, he has many noble qualities. Like all the History Keepers, he’s incredibly brave, faithful and dependable – and when a situation requires him to be serious, there is no one more decisive. Perhaps more than any though, I love Charlie, his dry wit, can-do attitude, love of food and kaleidoscopic mind. A picture of the author MS: Did you enjoy your research for these books? Was it difficult? DD: I love research and of course it’s a vital part of writing books like the History Keepers. I like to know the facts, what a place would sound like, feel like, smell like; what it would be like to arrive on a ship, on a dark night, into Venice during the Renaissance or come into Circus Maximus on a sweltering day in ancient Rome and witness a hundred and fifty thousand people (double the size of Wembley Stadium) cheering on the charioteers. I start off by reading kids encyclopedias (they often paint more enticing and vivid picture) then I go into more depth, often at the British Library. I like to travel to the country too. I went to Rome for a month to research Circus Maximus and could have walked around the Forum blind I’d done so much research beforehand! The
Weekly Writing Workshop #10, Friday June 5, 2020: Fairytales With a Twist
An update from our tenth Weekly Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop, plus some of the output published below The Stone Soup Weekly Writing Workshop is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers during the COVID-19-related school closures and shelter-in-place arrangements. Every Friday, we meet for an hour and a half via Zoom to respond to a new writing challenge, write together in our virtual room, and then share what we have written with one another. Lena Aloise, 11Harvard, MA Our session on Friday June 5 was the first at our new time (09:00 PST), the first that we had a participant in Europe joining us, and–most exciting of all–the first run by one of its participants, Lena Aloise! Lena gave a wonderful, detailed presentation on the history and standard tropes of fairytales, and proposed ways of using those typical characteristics of traditional fairytales to subvert the form–and write a fairytale with a twist! After a lively Q&A discussion, the group got down to some serious writing, and came up with some marvellous variations on a lot of popular fairytales. Participants turned villains into heroes (and vice versa), played with setting and time period, recast the tale as a news story to look at things from a whole new perspective, and even combined multiple fairytales to make something new. What a great session. Thank you, Lena! The Writing Challenge: Write a fairytale–with a twist. The Participants: Lena, Ever, Peri, Katie, Tilly, Lucy, Georgia, Analise, Djin, Lalia, Emily, Anya, Gracie, Aditi, Ethan, Vishnu, and more! Anya Geist, 13Worcester, MA The Stowaway Anya Geist, 13 In the middle of the night, when the sky was clouded and dark, when fog cocooned all land, a plane took flight. But it was no ordinary plane, no. It was special, in a way. For this plane intended to travel to space. The planet Earth was growing crowded, stuffed with people like water in a glass, only this glass was spilling over, was dripping onto the ground, little droplets running away, falling off the edge of the world. And so evacuations had begun, begun with the magical citizens of Earth. And the two magical people in the world, whose powers could erupt like lava from a volcano or could be still, like a forest at night, were twins. Moon and Sun they were called, though no one knew their actual names. At any rate, they were the ones on the plane that night, being sent far into space, to some unknown planet, where their magic could help life begin anew. However, unbeknownst to them, there was a stowaway on board. You see, Sun and Moon lived in a grand palace, not in the north, south, east, or west, but in all places at once. And the children of Earth’s royalty, the ones who wouldn’t grow up to inherit polluted cities and razed farmlands, were often sent to the Palace of the Sun and Moon as pages, as servants. The stowaway in question was one of these servants, a messenger whose job was to bring notes from the people of Earth to the Sun and Moon. There was something about this stowaway, however, that was different than all of the other servants in the Palace. First, the stowaway–whose name was Mason–had chocolate-colored hair and caramel-colored eyes, and the sweetest temperament of any eleven-year-old to date. The other servants whispered about him, though, for his parents, the Lord and Lady Alberts of the North were dead. Their entire land, all of their cities and fields, their palace and their forests, had burnt. And Mason, their only son was left without an inheritance. There was another thing about Mason, though. Both of his parents had golden-blond hair, the color of honey, and their eyes were as green as the grass on the prettiest field. Rumors spread around the world that Mason was not actually the son of the Lord and Lady Alberts, that his parentage lay elsewhere. At any rate, Mason had stowed away on the plane because he had learned something very valuable in his job as a messenger. A secret about the world that could save it, and that could destroy Sun and Moon. One day, Mason had a job to deliver a message to a man underground, a man who lived deep inside the Earth. So Mason traveled to the location on the letter, somewhere in Antarctica, and while he crossed the beautiful snowy plains of the continent, something strange happened. The sun shone down on him, and for a moment, he was ablaze with light, as if wreathed in flames. He dropped the letter, and its seal broke upon the ground. It fell open, and Mason saw no option but to read it. This letter, as it happens, was intended to be of the utmost confidentiality, and had been sealed with an unbreakable seal. When Mason saw its contents, he was aghast. But he came to a resolution. The Sun and Moon were evil. Mason recounted these events as he hid in the back of the plane with the Sun and Moon. They were breaking through the cloud cover, and soon, Mason knew, they would emerge into space. It was then that he would have to confront them. The time came and Mason stood up. He coughed, and the Sun and Moon turned to look at him, with anger in their metallic, gleaming eyes. Mason winced as they began to advance. “What are you doing here?” they asked in perfect unison, their voices tempting and soft. “I know what you did,” Mason replied shakily, forcing himself to stand tall. “I know everything. And–and I’m here to stop you.” “Well, well,” they said, each seeming incapable of speaking on their own. “He knows.” They smiled and their teeth were horribly pointed, like jagged mountains erupting from the Earth. “Welcome, brother.” Mason paused, frozen. “You knew?” Then he shook his head. “Of course you knew. And you hid it from me. You let me be
