Shoestrings―No Time For Dinosaurs
the 2005 "Parent To Parent
Adding Wisdom Award" recipient.
Hi!
Coming soon: I will make Shoestrings--No Time For Dinosaurs free as an e-book right here on this page. You will be able to download a PDF file (if you have Adobe and that's free, you can get the whole book). Along with it, I will make the study guide and play available, too. I especially encourage schools to take advantage of this. Stop back soon and I will explain why I am doing this (it's not a scam and there is absolutely no hidden agenda) and I will explain the advantages.
Respectfully Yours,
John Benjamin Sciarra
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Read a review on Shoestrings from Deepa Kandaswamy, a well known writer in India:
TIME AND TIME TRAVEL
Separating Fact From Fiction
By
John Benjamin Sciarra
TIME: THE THEME OF SHOESTRINGS
The theme of the Shoestrings series revolves around the concept of time. What is time? How does it relate to us every day? How can we use it wisely and avoid having it rule us? Some common phrases such as, “time flies”, “time is money”, “I don’t have time” and “time stands still for no man”, are a few example of how time influences everything we do and when we do it.
Other questions revolve around the idea of time travel. Can we go back or forward in time? If we went back, could we change the future? If we went forward and met ourselves and didn’t like how things turned out, could we then go back and make changes and thereby alter our own destiny? If we changed something in the past, could we cause a paradox—change the time line so much that it causes everything to collapse, which is the premise of Shoestrings—Paradox?
These ideas are fascinating and so much fun to play with, that much of science fiction and even some of the theories of the newer sciences, such as quantum mechanics and astrophysics, delve into this subject with much passion and fervor. Can we separate the fact from the fiction and understand what time is? I believe we can, at least to a certain extent, and Shoestrings will give us the tools over the course of the series to decide for ourselves if, in fact, anyone can go back or forward in time. Let’s see if we can’t clear up the concept of time.
CLOCKS RULE
The movement of the clock governs so much of what we do. Watch a clock and it moves slowly. Become engrossed in an interesting and fun activity and time moves so fast you don’t know where it went. Time is an extremely complex and almost mystical concept because our perceptions (the way we view time) are shaped by it, and it becomes so distorted that it becomes an enigma we can’t easily define.
Theoretically, time began billions of years ago (some astrophysicists say 20 billion, others argue 40, but what’s a billion years here and there when we weren’t around to notice anyway?) at the “Big Bang.” The Big Bang theory astrophysicists speculate that all of the galaxies, with their planets and stars, came into existence in a microsecond (can we say “of time” since it wasn’t a concept? See how complex it is?) when what they refer to as an infinitely small, infinitely dense ball of matter (called a singularity) suddenly exploded. The singularity is said to have been smaller than the tip of a pin—a very bizarre idea to grasp is that all the matter in the universe came from a pinhead (no jokes, please). Don’t feel bad; few adults understand the concept and I can’t say I understand it completely. However, the better our understanding of time, the better our chance of controlling it rather than having it control us.
DEFINITION OF TIME
Webster’s New Century Dictionary (2001) defines time this way:
“time n. the past, the present and future; a particular moment; hour of the day; an opportunity; the right moment; duration; occasion.”
Does it seem to you that the dictionary is confused? Here is a better definition; although, rather than define time itself, the authors chose to define the measurement of time.
“The measurement of time is a system for describing the continuous passage of events from past to present to future[1].”
These authors avoid defining time itself, but indicate that it can be measured. Inadvertently, they help to define it. I would like to add to that definition one of my own which may help one to understand the concept, at least as it is used in the Shoestrings series.
“Time is the measurement of an event relative to the movement of an astronomical, atomic or subatomic particle or object.”
Therefore, time is not so much something that can be measured, but is, in fact, the measurement itself—the measurement of an event in relation to something else. I know, it’s a mouthful, but as the series progresses, this definition will begin to make more sense. Let’s start with the most obvious aspect of that definition: events that occur in relation to an object. The object then becomes the focal point of the event and several reference points can be used to define the instant (or time, if you will) when that event takes place. Let’s start with the most obvious and easiest reference point to grasp: time in relation to an astronomical object.
ASTRONOMICAL TIME
By the term astronomical, we mean the heavenly bodies. This includes the movement of planets, stars, asteroids, comets, meteors, and galaxies. Let’s start with the one with which we are most familiar: solar time. The word solar refers to our sun. Our earth revolves around the sun in a fairly predictable and consistent pattern. If it didn’t, we’d be in a heap of trouble. We wouldn’t want to be late for school, would we (maybe you better not answer that question)? Every 365 days, the earth orbits the sun. We add a day every four years to make up for slight differences in time keeping. That’s our problem, not the reliability of the earth’s orbit.
Centuries ago, the Egyptians figured out that the sun threw shadows at consistent intervals and, for reasons no one is quite clear about (but may have involved superstitions about the number six), the Egyptians broke up the day using variables of the number six. 60 minutes, sixty seconds, 24 hours, etc. They invented the first clock (called a sundial), which, incidentally, never had to be reset after a power failure. On the other hand, if it was a cloudy day you never knew what time it was, so there were drawbacks to this method (they never did manage to invent a wrist sundial, for example). Never the less, it helps us to schedule our days, weeks and years in advance, and to record the history of events in relation to these.
However, not everyone is in the same place at the same time. It might be night in China when it is daylight in New York. To compensate, the earth was divided up into time zones. These adjustments keep us from confusion, although our ability to jet from one place to another at the farthest corner of the earth in just hours can give us what we refer to as jet lag. That’s because of another clock entirely, which we’re not going to get into: the biological clock (also called Circadian Rhythm), a built-in system in our bodies which seems to know what time it is (but let’s not make this any more confusing than it already is).
When we look at the time zone, we find an interesting conundrum or puzzle. If we get on a jet at 7:00 AM and it takes two hours to get to California where it is 7:00 AM, have we gone back in time? In some ways we have, but we don’t think of it that way, since time is a measurement of events in relationship to where we are geographically on the earth. The only thing that changes is our movement across the time zones, not time itself. Events continue to happen regardless of how we fit into the scheme over the course of our trip.
EVENT
This is a good time to define event. By event, we mean anything that involves movement. Virtually everything in the material universe involves movement of some sort, even if we can’t perceive (see) it. That atoms are objects that move is an accepted fact. For anything in the material universe to exist, it must have movement. The beauty of Einstein’s formula (E=mc˛) is that energy moving at twice the speed of light is required for anything to exist in the universe. Now, that doesn’t mean the atomic particles actually move that fast. It is an equation that explains how energy is combined to produce matter so something can exist. The atomic table shows us how these combinations of atoms yield different matter. The world discovered the validity of this formula with the development of the atomic bomb, which involved the release of energy by splitting the atom (we could have done without that demonstration).
Without getting too deep into this subject, the point we want to understand is that everything has motion; thus, we can introduce the part of the definition I refer to as atomic time. In this way, time exists because we can measure movement in virtually everything in relation to the movement of something else. Therefore, we have the movement of the earth rotating every 24 hours as it moves in its journey around the sun every 365/6 days. Now all we need is the occurrence of an event on earth to demonstrate or predict the time something will occur.
Let’s say Mom calls the dentist and schedules an appointment for you to have an examination (oh, boy!). The appointment is in two weeks at 10:00 AM (at least you get out of school for the morning). Your mother will have you at the office fifteen minutes before your appointment is scheduled because of the reliability of the movement of the sun and the earth’s rotation. The event is the appointment with the dentist. Unfortunately, your dentist isn’t as good with the concept of time as your mother, and you don’t actually see the dentist until fifteen minutes after the scheduled event. (That must be why they call their clients patients; because they have to have so much patience while they’re waiting!) Maybe you should give your dentist a copy of Shoestrings—No Time For Dinosaurs, so he or she can understand the concept better.
Of course, other things in the universe also move. Planets in our own solar system rotate much more rapidly or slowly, depending on their individual orbits around the sun. Comets reliably move in and out of our solar system predictably (Halley’s Comet, for example). And then our entire galaxy, which we call “The Milky Way,” is rotating—moving at an extremely high rate of speed although, we can’t see it. Stars in other galaxies are rotating as are the galaxies themselves. Dizzy yet?
In one sequence in Shoestrings—Paradox, the professor points out a galaxy to Kyle. Kyle, apparently, had a natural fascination with the stars and knew most of the constellations and even a few of the stars. But he was in the future, and things weren’t quite where they were in the past. The professor pointed out to Kyle that he was seeing a group of stars as they looked 65 million years earlier. How can that be if he was looking at them in the future?
Light travels at 186,282 miles a second. The distance light travels in a year is called a light year. That star was 117,000 light years away from the earth. By the time the light from that star traveled across that distance at that precise moment it was seen by an observer on earth, 65 million earth years would have past (I’m no mathematician, so don’t hold me to the details, but you get the idea). The point here is that our perception of time is another consideration.
PERCEPTION OF TIME
By the term perception we mean observing, seeing an event. Here is where time gets complicated. So much so, in fact, that Einstein had to adjust his theory of relativity, which defines time to compensate for things moving at the speed of light. Don’t try to absorb all of this at one time! You’ll go wacky. However, as you read the series, you’ll encounter situations and scenarios that will clear up some of the concepts of time, while other areas may still remain cloudy. The cloudy areas I introduce are the ones that, maybe, you will some day solve. There is no doubt in my mind that one of the readers of Shoestrings will become inspired to understand and explain the concept of time to the world more clearly than Einstein or Stephen Hawking did; a modern day genius whose ideas of time are fascinating, but may not be correct either.
There are places in the universe where, theoretically, time doesn’t exist, or at least our definition may need to change, such as a black hole where the forces of gravity are so strong that light can’t escape. They call the point where this phenomenon occurs, interestingly enough, the event horizon. It has been theorized that, if a person could go through the center of a black hole, he would come out in the past—assuming that a person could survive. I have my doubts about that one, so you won’t find me volunteering to test that theory out. Maybe Kyle would. Hmmm…an idea for a future novel?
WORMHOLES
Another theory says that the universe is made of layers that fold over itself like ribbons, and that there are tunnels between the layers called wormholes. Wormholes seem to be the prevailing way for people in science fiction stories to travel to the past or future. I opted not to use that idea in Shoestrings, since it doesn’t make the most sense to me. However, I am an author, not a physicist, so I can’t defend my reality with mathematical equations, and that is what is needed to have a scientifically accepted theory. Equations must balance. I can balance a broom on my nose, but I’m not so good with a checkbook!
MULTIDIMENSIONAL STRINGS
Another theory has to do with multiple dimensions. String theory is usually closely linked to this idea of the multiple dimensions theory of the universe—that there are infinite possibilities for every conceivable event—existing simultaneously. For example, let’s say you are sitting in your living room trying to decide what movie to see tonight. You make your choice and go to see Superman Returns. However, the multiple universe theory says that there is another time-line in another dimension where another you decides to go and see Star Wars III. In still another dimension, another version of you decides to stay home and watch television. And the choices go on and on until they are infinite (go on forever). You can only begin to imagine how the choices of everyone overlapping in all of these other universes occurring simultaneously would present some interesting possibilities—for science fiction. Whether they hold any truth in reality seems implausible, but who knows? We must keep an open mind if we are going to solve these questions someday.
STRING THEORY
The concept of string theory I presented in Shoestrings is based on yet another twist of the multidimensional idea, but without the dimensions. I tried to stay true to my definition, which I presented at the outset:
“Time is the measurement of an event relative to the movement of an astronomical, atomic or subatomic particle or object.”
The strings in this scenario are based on a theory utilizing quantum mechanics—a science that tries to explain the universe at the sub-atomic level. It suggest that electromagnetic strings of ridiculously small size exist inside subatomic particles that make up all matter, including neutrons, electrons and protons, the very building blocks of atoms. These strings are said to vibrate, which gives them a certain unpredictability or randomness. They have been described as being similar to a violin string, although of infinitely smaller size. I elected in my story to make them predictable (or controllable, if you will) by using the science of harmonics, which, I presumed, can mathematically predict sound waves. Since these, then, are moving objects, we can now introduce the idea of subatomic time.
I played with the idea of using music with harmonies or harmonics (exactly matching scales of sound waves) to control matter, and the movement of matter, back and forth in time. I do not explain how this works, since I made up my science based on a real theory to create my world. The capsule I envisioned moves through time at the quantum level. What Kyle observes and interacts with is referred to as echoes.
ECHOES OF TIME
If this idea is to hold true, I present an enigma for the reader: can anyone really go forward or backward in time? The key is in something the professor Kyle said that will show up again and again in the story. He told the younger version of Kyle that what he was observing (think perception, observation) was just an echo of time.
An echo of time? What does that mean? That, my friends, is what Shoestrings is all about. That is the mystery of the story. Does Kyle really go back in time? We shall see. However, I promise you, you’ll have a better understanding of what time really is once you read all of the novels.
So then, how many novels of the Shoestrings series will I write? That depends. On what? Time—which could go on forever!
∞
SYMBOL FOR INFINITY
[1] The Handy Space Answer Book by Englebert and Dupuis (Visible Ink Press, 1998).
TIPS ON STORYTELLING
By
John Benjamin Sciarra
INTRODUCTION
Could YOU write a novel? Who, me? Yes, YOU! Young people are writing novels and books about all kinds of things at younger and younger ages. Why not you? You never know until you try.
Writing is like anything else in life. The more you do it (practice), the better you become. It is rare that someone sits down to write a story without ever having had any instruction. There are techniques to telling a good story that readers just cannot put down.
Here are some tips about story telling that I learned. Maybe you will be the next best seller when you try them out!
THE THEME
What is your story really about? What is the story’s objective? Once you know that, you have your theme. We might start writing a story without knowing the theme. That was true when I started to write Shoestrings—No Time For Dinosaurs. It took me several chapters before I really understood what my main objective was (other than writing a really exciting and fun story). However, it was critical I have a theme that ran throughout the story and, eventually, the series.
I didn’t figure out the theme until I wondered what my title was going to be. The title, I knew, should have elements of the story that would 1) appeal to my audience and 2) contain enough information to tell the reader what the story was about. Okay, so my story had dinosaurs. Dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago, but Kyle wanted to bring one back to the present time. Hmm.
The story I wanted to tell would have some science and help the reader to grasp the difficult concept of time. Okay, element number two was time. Now I had TIME and DINOSAURS. Dinosaurs can’t live in our present time. AHA! No Time For Dinosaurs! Nevertheless, I wanted to write a series. I needed something to tie the books together—like a thread, the title needed something, but what?
Let’s see, the time capsule was based on string theory—the little threads of electromagnetic strings inside the tiniest particles in the universe. I thought about my story. It dawned on me that I didn’t have a strong idea of how this time capsule was going to get back to the present, once in the past. It needed a connection—something to tie it from the present to the past. There was that concept of string again.
I started thinking of things that are made of string and it hit me—SHOESTRING! Yes, that would tie the books together: Shoestrings—No Time For Dinosaurs. In the process, I figured out my theme: Shoestrings was about time (Now you know why I write, “It’s about time” when I sign my books!). Therefore, my theme is what time really is.
There can be sub-themes and underlying themes as well. The more you dig into the concepts you read about in Shoestrings, the more you will find. To quote a famous ogre: “…it’s like an onion, it has layers.” (Shrek).
Once you have your theme clearly in mind, everything falls into place. Do not get discouraged if you change your theme as you write your story. A story is like a living thing: it changes as it grows, so don’t hesitate to change your theme, even if it means you have to go back and change a few things. By the way, learn how to write your story on the computer early on in your career as a writer (oh, you didn’t know you were going to be one?). It makes changing things MUCH easier!
CHOOSE INTERESTING CHARACTERS
The Protagonist
The “star” of your story is called the protagonist. The protagonist is the main character of your story. He or she should have qualities and a personality that you find interesting. You can pick different qualities or personalities from different people that you know to create your protagonist.
In Shoestrings there are qualities I gave Kyle that are like me, such as my dislike of math, for example (I’m better at it now, but I still don’t like it), and my sense of humor. There are other qualities I gave him that I wish I had, such as his ability to remember details.
The Antagonist
Often, a story will contain an antagonist. This is usually a person (it can be a thing or group of people), with bad or evil qualities. He or she is primarily pitted against your main character, and gives him or her something to overcome. In doing so, it helps the protagonist to improve, learn, or grow as a person—usually in a positive way.
In Shoestrings, the antagonist is Kyle’s father, Dr. David Donovan. While Dr. Donovan is not an evil person (Shoestrings—Paradox explores this idea further), his expectations of Kyle are unreasonable. While, we don’t find out why that is until much later in the series, it frustrates Kyle, who is much more intelligent than his father realizes. Both Kyle and his father learn and grow throughout the story, and this contributes to the main theme of the series.
Teresa and Sonja are interesting characters, as well. Kyle’s relationship with his sister represents the friction that can develop between brothers and sisters. Although they do not always appear to get along, the love they have for one another becomes apparent when they are faced with danger.
Sonja represents a different relationship and a different type of character. She is from another culture, and the difference presents opportunities for Kyle to learn and grow as a person. Sonja develops a “crush” on Kyle because she recognizes his intelligence. Though not “book smart”, she is attracted to his quick wit and ability to figure out complex problems.
The Foil
All contribute in some way to the protagonist’s (Kyle’s) growth. This type of character is referred to as a foil. Even minor characters can have a role as a foil, such as the museum guard. The museum guard really represents adult authority to Kyle—something he feels compelled to overcome. That is the reason he decides to go back in time to try to bring back a dinosaur, as well as to prove to his father that he isn’t stupid.
So, look around at your friends, family and acquaintances—even inside your own personality for interesting characters for your stories.
PAINT PICTURES WITH YOUR WORDS
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but it is also true that pictures can be painted in the mind of a reader with just a few, well-chosen descriptive words. Consider, for example, the description of what the children saw as they stepped out of the time capsule for the first time in Shoestrings—No Time For Dinosaurs at the bottom of page 18 to the top of page 19.
“A thick cloud rose from the ground giving the impression they were standing on a high mountain. Lush vegetation jutted above the thick fog and filled the horizon. The trees were bizarre looking. It was as if they had been transported to an alien planet.”
Close your eyes after you have read this passage. What do you see? In just a few words, this description paints an entire scene. You feel like you are there, standing alongside Kyle, Teresa and Sonja. How was this accomplished?
Use Action Words
This passage uses several different techniques that you can easily use in your stories. The idea is to draw the reader into the story, not just describe scenery. I could have easily said, “It was foggy.” That would be accurate. Instead, I said it was “a thick cloud” and that it “rose from the ground”. By using action words to describe the scene, the picture comes to life and moves in the mind of the reader.
Metaphors and Similes
Then I used something called an analogy. By describing something else with which the reader is likely to be familiar, the scene takes on an added feature: depth—3D special effects, as it were. What do I mean? The phrase, “…giving the impression they were standing on a high mountain,” is a type of analogy called a simile. A simile is a word or phrase similar to what you are describing that gives it greater depth and enhances its meaning. Usually the phrase, “as if” or “like a” appear before a simile. For example, “It was as if they had been transported to an alien planet”. Obviously, they were not on another planet, but the scene was unlike anything they had ever seen before. It gives the scene greater meaning.
A metaphor is yet another kind of analogy. It differs in that it represents another object to describe the object in your story. For example, where you might use a simile to say, “He sat in a chair that was as cold as ice,” you could make a stronger statement by using the following metaphor: “When he found the chair he sat down on a block of ice.” Now that’s a cold chair! See the difference?
As the scene continues to unfold over the next several pages, more details are added to the strange world of the dinosaurs. We find out how the children felt (the air was hot and humid), what they heard (violins, dinosaurs, screams), even what they smelled (dino poop!) By describing the scene as it unfolds and not all at once, the story seems to move more quickly, thereby creating a sense of excitement for the reader. It should be as if they are watching a movie in their heads (there’s one of those similes again!).
THE CLIFFHANGER
To write a story that is difficult for the reader to put down involves yet another technique I like to call “The Cliffhanger.” Television series are well known for “leaving you hanging” at the end of every season. You only hope the show isn’t cancelled before the next season, because then you’ll never know what happened. You are left with an unsettled feeling when a show ends in the middle of an exciting scene. You just have to know what happens next! That technique can be used in writing your story from beginning to end.
The cliffhanger is a technique I used in Shoestrings—No Time For Dinosaurs, not only at the end of every chapter, but frequently at the ends of sub-chapters, as well. It is extremely easy to use and makes the story zoom along at the speed of light (which is 186,282 miles per second, by the way!). Let’s look at a couple of examples to see why it is so effective, and how you can use it in your writing.
Right from the first chapter I used the cliffhanger to get the story off to a blistering start, like an afterburner on a jet fighter. On page 4, for instance, I left the girls staring at all the laboratory equipment while Kyle was trying to figure out how to get into the strange room with the vault-like door. His curiosity was eating him alive (Hey, there’s one of those metaphors!). The excitement is heightened when Kyle puts a glove with either his father’s or Sonja’s father’s fingerprints on it (By the way, this really wouldn’t work, since the fingerprints would be reversed. However, that’s why we call this fiction—it’s make believe).
The reader flashed green and read, “Authorized.” Kyle turned the handle and went in.
Weren’t you anxious to know what was behind that door? However, I didn’t tell you right away. Did you find yourself reading faster just to find out? By waiting even a page or two, the excitement for the story grows.
Let’s look at another example. On page 57 of Shoestrings—No Time For Dinosaurs, a mysterious ending to the chapter raises the reader’s curiosity.
“And then—everything ceased to exist.”
You might have wondered, what on earth does that mean? Why, even my editor wondered if I made a mistake and asked if I wanted to make that passage clearer. What? And ruin the mystery? NEVER! As the story develops, it all becomes clearer, in a foggy sort of way, later on. After all, time is a very deep concept and it may take me 10 or 20 Shoestrings novels to figure it all out anyway.
Does this technique really work? Well, how did you feel when you read the last sentence in Shoestrings—No Time For Dinosaurs? One young person wrote me to say how much he liked the book, but he said he “hated the ending!” He did not really hate it. He was just so anxious to find out what happens in the next book that it was driving him crazy! I took it as a complement. I hope that’s how you felt when you read it, too.
FORESHADOWING
Another fun technique to use in writing fiction is called foreshadowing. This can best be described as dropping a hint about something that will come later on. It is like a shadow—you know something is there, but you can’t tell what it is.
One example can be found on page 47. The children are in the past and have just witnessed a fiery rock ejected from a volcano. Frightening enough, but then the sky darkens. They see what appears to be another fiery rock streaking through the sky. Kyle points at it.
“Look!”
“What is that?” asked Teresa in horror. “Another rock?”
“No. It’s something much worse,” said Kyle.
In this instance, the answer comes relatively soon—just a page later. You sense that something is coming, but it isn’t clear what it is. You want to have an answer to this mystery.
Another example of foreshadowing where I make you wait much longer occurs on page 69.
What they didn’t know was the power they had unleashed on an unsuspecting world—and that the children were the only ones that could save the universe from extinction.
In this case, it doesn’t become clear what that means until the next book: Shoestrings—Paradox. It’s fun to leave these little clues along the way about something you plan to reveal later on. It builds anticipation and drives the story forward.
RESEARCH
For me, one of the most satisfying benefits of writing fiction is doing the research to make sure I get all my facts straight. Unless you are writing a fantasy novel where you can make up everything, really good fiction uses many facts, and then the facts are cleverly stretched so the reader can’t tell the difference between what is true and what is not. If you do a good job, the reader will become interested in finding out, and do some research of his or her own. In this way, you learn a great deal about the world in which we live.
For many, research is an ugly word. It means work. However, work can be fun and rewarding. Imagine hunting for hidden treasure. If I told you there was a chest of gold in your backyard, how hard would you dig to find it (There isn’t, so put down the shovel)? The root word of research is search. So, re-search, then, would be to search repeatedly until you found the answer to your question or problem.
For instance, I wanted to use sound waves to vibrate the electromagnetic strings in my time capsule to make it appear possible. I searched the Web and read a couple of books on quantum physics and string theory. I read about something called harmonics, which are sound waves, and wondered if that sounded like a real theory enough to make it work. So, where did I draw the line between my use of harmonics and quantum physics? I’m not even sure I know the answer to that one. It is a highly complex science, mostly theoretical, and it would take an expert in quantum physics to figure it out.
Your school’s library, public library, and the Internet are places where you might start your research. The better you know your subject, the more realistic and believable your story will be.
GRAMMAR, SPELLING, AND PUNCTUATION
Telling a good story is an art; grammar, spelling and punctuation are a science. There are rules to good writing that, for the most part, must be adhered to closely. The best place to learn the rules of writing is school. Your teacher is the key to learning how to use proper English (or whatever language you are writing in). There was a line in a movie I saw called “Finding Forrester,” about a high school boy who wanted to be a writer. He meets a legendary author, played by Sean Connery, and Connery gives the young man some excellent advice that helped me in my writing.
The boy was staring at his typewriter. Sean Connery’s character asks, “What are you doing?” The boy says, “Thinking.” Sean says, “Thinking? Don’t think. You can do that later. Just write.”
What he was really saying is, don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation unnecessarily. Getting the story out of your head and onto paper is the first goal. After you have written your story, then go back and edit. Every smart writer has an editor. You can do most of the editing yourself, but when you become a published author, you don’t want any mistakes. I had a couple of mistakes get by me and then my editor. They wound up in Shoestrings—No Time For Dinosaurs. Maybe you found them. The second printing will not have those mistakes. It happens to even the best of writers despite professional editing. Read your newspaper and every day you will find errors. Just do the best you can and learn from your mistakes. Soon, after a lot of practice, you will be able to write with less and less errors in this area. Your teacher will guide you in this process. Listen to him or her.
That’s all I’ll say about this subject, since there are volumes upon volumes of books about writing. Besides, if you’re writing with a computer, it can correct many of your mistakes, but not all of them, so don’t rely on your computer all the time. There is just one more topic I want to caution you about.
PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism is the intentional stealing of an idea or work that someone else has the copyrights to and calling it your own. Many writers get into deep trouble because they do not give credit to another person’s work. It is a form of stealing. It would be like stealing a painting by Picasso, scratching his name off the painting, and signing it yourself. How would you feel if someone did that to your work?
The quotation I used from the movie is an example of how you can give proper credit. You will hear a lot more about this subject from your teachers as you progress in your writing skills.
HAPPY WRITING!
