Beginning with characters

In StoryArk workshops, we encourage character creation as the basis of storytelling. Cartoon characters especially lend themselves to the curiosities and imaginative depths of their creators. We've seen kid create characters as diverse as dogs, ants, space creatures and French fries! Given freedom and encouragement, students will create the characters and stories that best enable them to investigate their own mind and their own patterns of engagement with the world.

Some kids, given paper, their new character and some free time, will fill up panel after panel of drawings and stories. Others will need spurring on, and to these kids We teach a simple structure of "two changes." We ask them about their character's ordinary state- what is he or she usually doing? Do they have friends? Where do they live?

Tried and true structures

Tom says: In an example that I hand out to younger students, Sappi is a character with a strange lizard mask, who is hungry and has been fishing for 6 years without ever catching a fish. This is his ordinary state. On top of that he is down to his last cracker.

I tell students that changes in a character generally makes an interesting story. One is often a surprise at the beginning of the story, and the second settles the story down at the end. This second one can also be surprising, but it usually tends to bring the character to a new ""ordinary state" or happily back to his or her older one.

In the Sappi example, Sappi suddenly catches a magic fish (first change.) When the fish asks for his last piece of food, he gives Sappi his balloon and Sappi floats up to the clouds (2nd change) where he feasts on clouds made of crackers (new ordinary state.)

This simple formula often gives children who feel unimaginative to instantly make a unique story that often surprises and delights them.

This structure is a loose simplification of the structure of classic myths; the purpose of which has been to familiarize us with the patterns that life's obstacles and complexities often take. Storytelling is invaluable to us as humans. StoryArk workshops help kids integrate these understandings into their daily lives.