On the first school day, Johnny’s English teacher gave a homework assignment. “Your paper isn’t due until next Monday,” she said, so you have plenty of time to make your story interesting. Write three pages on what you did this summer.”
He tried to think of something his classmates would want to read. Okay, so he went fishing. What was so special about that? He played video games. The family watched an old black-and-white movie. That was boring. Billy slept over one night, but that story could be written in one sentence: We hung out and did ordinary stuff.
With blank paper and empty mind, Johnny sat at the kitchen table on Sunday afternoon, staring out the window, drumming his pencil.
“Are you still working on that story?” Mom said.
“Yeah, but I can’t think of anything good.”
“Why don’t you write about a problem?” She looked like she had something in mind.
Johnny silenced his pencil. “Like what?”
Mom smiled. “Come on, you can figure it out. Think of a problem that taught you an important lesson. There’ll be a story in there somewhere.”
Then he remembered getting lost in the woods, wishing for his cell phone, and praying to survive the night. At the top, he wrote the title: “The Cops Came Looking.” And he had no problem filling three pages.
Great stories present a problem in which readers eagerly follow the character’s emotional journey to find out what happens. The problem and solution are the “bookends” for the pages in between, which show how the character is changed by the experience.
With one of the following prompts, can you think of a problem worth writing about?
- My best friend became an enemy when…
- I used to love playing ________ until…
- When people called me __________, I laughed but wanted to….
- Every time I see a freeway accident, I remember the time when…
