Writing Like Readers

There's a problem. Seriously. Every story we read has had a problem. The problem happened because one or more of the characters wanted something. Getting what we want is rarely easy, so there's the problem.

As readers we have noticed these problems. Today we opened our writer's notebooks for the first time and started thinking about the stories from our lives. Guess what. There were problems:

• dog bites
• cuts
• broken bones
• accidentally left a child at home and drove away (Yes family, you know who you are.)
• fell off a bike
• fell into a lake
• got sick and couldn't go outside
• lost in the store...dun, dun, dahhh

Oh my, the list goes on. Now that we know there's a problem, we will write like authors and think like readers. We will plan our stories, just like authors do, to include characters, settings, and events that tell the story in the best way we know how. It's the way the stories we have read work, and it's the way we are working too. How nutty is this? A problem is a good thing for a writer. Ha. So here's to problems, and here's to Seconds!