I just wrote an adorable little-kids story., enjoy to your inner child's content. |
I just wrote an adorable little-kids story., enjoy to your inner child's content. |
Apr 10 2011, 03:44 AM
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#1
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An artist of many sorts Group: Veterans Joined: 16-October 09 |
The girl and her dog Once upon a time, there was a dog who had gotten lost from his family. He got very hungry, but living on the streets had made him look scary, so people were afraid to become friends with him, and wouldn't feed him. One day, the dog was stumbling around, on the verge of starvation, when he met a little girl named Mary. Mary helped the dog get better. She cared for him and fed him until he looked and acted like his old self before he'd gotten lost. He asked her, "Aren't you scared of me like everyone else?" Mary said, "No. I'm blind, and can't see what you look like. But I can tell, just by your voice and what you do that you're a nice dog who just needs a friend." The dog became very attatched to Mary, and wanted to help her like she had helped him. Mary's parents couldn't afford to buy a professionally trained seeing-eye dog, so the dog decided that he would lead Mary wherever she went. Since Mary had just about saved the dog's life, she decided to name him Chance, and they went everywhere together. One day, Mary's parents found a missing dog poster for Chance, and knew that his original owners missed him very much, and decided that the best thing to do was to return him. They brought Mary and Chance to the family, and told them how much the two had become friends and helped each other, and how much the two had changed each other's lives. The family decided to let Mary keep her new friend, and the two grew up together happily ever after. I totally got this idea after watching Dogs101 all day......... |
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Apr 11 2011, 06:32 AM
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#2
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The World Traveller Group: Global Moderators Joined: 14-June 09 |
Rebecca, the story itself isn't bad in its conception. Teaching young children not to discriminate against others based upon appearances has been the basis for many a childhood story, and is an idea that authors really should continue to use in fiction; however, in your story you use vocabulary and (occasionally incorrect) sentence structure that would leave most children utterly confused and ultimately fail to deliver your desired message.
A story of this length would most likely be intended for children five and under. If you want to reach children of a higher level reading group, you'd need to add quite a bit story-wise and rewrite the tone so that you don't come off as if you're trying to teach them a lesson. If your story was intended for children five and under, though, what you need to do is much different. First you'll need to simplify your diction. Children can understand complex and compound sentences if the vocabulary and general concepts presented don't go over their heads, but you should try to limit yourself to writing simple complex and compound sentences. Don't use too many conjunctions or combine too many phrases or ideas within a single sentence. Keep it basic. If you write a complex sentence, make sure that it only focuses on one thing and that all extraneous phrases (of which there should be very, very few) directly and succinctly describe what the singular subject of your sentence is about. Furthermore, if you write a compound sentence, try and keep it a simple compound sentence. We're talking plain old subject-verb-predicate simple. Don't over-complicate things by writing complex-compound sentences. Young children generally aren't developed enough to comprehend several different ideas at once. They need to get through each idea presented to them one step at a time, and as such, your story should follow a very linear progression path. Another thing you need to think about is that you're writing a picture book. The story needs to have ideas that can be illustrated. Your story has too many complex ideas and concepts that aren't easily drawn and can't be explained well with a visual aid. Take for example something like this: This cat was the ugliest cat anyone had ever seen. It had a squashed in, mashed up face, with eyes so thin you woulda sworn it had no eyes if it wasn't for that green glow coming from between the lids. Its nose was black like a dog's and wetter than a dog's too, with shriveled up folds leading down in a zigzag line. (This is an excerpt from something I wrote more than five years ago. I don't claim it to be perfect or even particularly good. Also, each line corresponds to a page in a picture book, hence the odd format.) While it may not be simple enough in some aspects (as a teenager it can be hard to really understand just how simple a child's mind can be), it has several ideas that can be easily depicted in simple illustrations and properly explain to the child just how "ugly" the cat is, even if they fail to understand the actual language used. EB has the right idea when he says that young children can't understand the concept of a talking dog, but it's not actually the talking dog itself that goes over their heads, but rather the concept that a talking dog is unusual. Animals are a very common personification tool in children's media and so talking animals are something they'll have come across time and time again, but to them a talking animal is the same as a talking human. They cannot grasp the idea of "something doing something it shouldn't" and as a result just won't get that the dog shouldn't be able to talk. If you're going to include a talking dog, it needs to have a reason for being able to talk. If you just throw it in randomly, the child won't be able to differentiate between the girl and the dog because the concept of "girl" and "dog" will be far too similar. Anyway, the power's about to go out here, so I'll continue on this when there isn't a storm trying to knock out my electricity. |
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