Fictionsmith Family

One of the reasons stories are as interesting as they are is because it opens a window to us to places we've never been before. Having new places described to you allows you to be teleported into the shoes of the character, and it lets your imagination soar. I know everyone is different, but I have to ask myself how often I actually go new places. Sure, there's the occasional family vacation, and...

As you write your story, you may eventually hit points where things feel like they've stopped being interesting. You may have the major events figured out by using your outline so you know how to get from Point A to B to Z, but sometimes when you are at those points, your characters may kind of run out of things to talk about or do. How do we fix this? Conflict. What is conflict? Things going wron...

When I set out to create the Summer Writing Project, I wanted to create something that parents and kids could join together and tell a story. I had no clue how many people would actively keep up with these episodes and how many projects would be written in real time as I send out these lessons. As of early July 2025, we crossed over 1,000 podcast downloads ( mostly on Apple Podcasts , but it is av...

I want to offer a quick reminder as we’re moving forward: This is the First Draft. We are in a magical time when it comes to telling a story. This is a time that belongs to you. Before this, the story existed only in your imagination, but that's not something that can be shared with others. This version of your story, the first draft, is something that nobody else is going to see, but it's finally...

One of the things that kicked all of this off and made it possible to do Fictionsmith Family was because of a noticing of a small detail that I had missed after passing it by dozens upon dozens of times. My oldest daughter, who was six at the time, saw a mailbox sitting on an otherwise empty grassy lot and came up with the idea of an invisible house. I had walked along that sidewalk countless time...

Did you come up with your tense, perspective, and first or third person? I did find it a little funny that all of this is written and recorded in second person since I'm addressing you. Or y'all, which I feel qualified to say based on where I was born and raised. With some of the basics out of the way, it's time to put yourselves into the shoes of your protagonist. It takes a little while to get c...

Welcome to Act Two, the writing phase! We've spent a month and a half getting on the same page and brainstorming ideas to come up with the story that only the two of you can tell together. You might have pictures of awesome scenes dancing around in your mind and when someone asks what your story is about, you might even be able to walk them through what happens. But we're starting with a blank pag...

We have reached the end of the planning phase of your story! I know this has been a lot of information, but I sincerely hope that it has helped get your imaginations going and that you understand what goes into story structure a little more than before. I know when I started writing my first stories I would meander around trying to find things that were interesting to add into the story and it fel...

It’s showdown time! We've come out of the lowest point of the story as our hero has reached a moment of failure and introspection and learned something about themselves and why they are doing what they're doing... and why they can't give up. There is still a villain out there or an injustice or something that is causing a problem that they need to finally face ( sometimes it could also just be the...

It's time to rise like a Phoenix! Or at least shake off the broken pieces from the crash our character just went through. Hopefully at this point our hero has discovered their motivation for picking themself back up, whether it is out of selflessness or duty or love or whatever it is they needed to learn at the beginning of the story. For example, in The Wind Merchant , the story starts off with a...

I think we might need a break from the heaviness of hitting the low point in the story. We talked about how to get our character to a low point by having failure hit them and taking away the things they've been relying on to get them this far into the story. Let's look at your story like a rollercoaster. It's going to be the most fun if things go up and down . There are two types of ups and downs...

Were you mean to your hero? Was it hard putting them through a tough time? We spend so much effort to create these characters ( and often we put parts of ourselves into them ) so it can be especially difficult to see them go through trials and struggles, because it's hard when we go through things like that. Something that I find helpful is that if there is similarity, your hero gets to do somethi...

Let's face it. This is not an easy section of the story to plot out and write. We've created these characters, given them hopes and dreams and a quest...and now we have to make their lives more difficult. As much as it pains me to say it, if we skimp over this part, the story won't be very strong. Part of the hero's journey is being tested. If all they ever faced were easy things and everything we...

After today, we have hit the halfway point of our outlining proces! Which means... we're at the Midpoint of the story. We've just visited a new location or three and met at least one new B-story character. The story should have ramped up in fun and started to escalate. Our main character should have taken some positive steps toward their goal and the thing that they are pursuing seems attainable s...

Now that we are out of Act One and have a mission in mind of what our hero needs to accomplish… what now? We leave the world of the familiar. Let's see what that looks like. We will set out to get where we know we need to go, and maybe initially our character has an idea of what they need to do, but very quickly they are going to feel like a fish out of water. This is an opportunity to introduce a...

When the world is shaken up, what will your main character do? Hopefully you've gone through some fun options about what your inciting incident will be, so the next question is...are they going to feel ready? They probably shouldn't. Or, if they do, they need to be mistaken about something. We're in the last part of Act One now, which is often referred to as the Debate . What is being debated? The...

A lot of stories start off just trying to get the reader or viewer comfortable with the world they've entered into by using the main character as the eyes and ears ( and nose and tongue and, you get the point ) to experience the story. Some stories are easy to get the hang of because they’re so similar to our own world, sometimes you have laser swords and spaceships and elves and dragons and it's...

We have our starting line, hopefully we have at least a name and general idea of our main character and how they start off the story... now, let's make them likable! As I've said before, there is a fantastic screenwriting book called Save The Cat that I am drawing pretty heavily from here, which for movies, you don't have as much time to develop the characters as you do a book, so sometimes you ne...

We’ve made it out of the prologue, and here we are in Act One, Chapter One, Page One. It's okay to be nervous or excited, and it's also okay to make mistakes and realize you have to change things later. A lot of times when I had an idea I loved, I got a little ways down the road and realized that maybe some things needed to change before I could get off to the races. But what I learned from that w...

I can't believe we're already at the end of the prologue! Two weeks in, and I'm proud of you both for sticking with this. I know it's a lot of time to invest in a project, but it's going to be worth it. I hope the ideas you came up with has gotten your minds spinning with characters, places, story ideas, and more. And if you're not quite sure yet what you want to tell a story about, that is totall...

I hope you had a fantastic movie night and came up with some ideas for your story and what kind of character you might want to write about. Did you figure out what they wanted, what was stopping them, and how they realized what it was they really needed? Now, interesting characters are great, but they don't exist against a blank background. They're in a place, maybe a world like our own or somethi...

Welcome to the weekend, or whenever you’re watching this video through the magic of time travel! Now, the way I’m structuring this is that there are two lessons and activities during the weekdays are shorter to account for any work days or school or extracurricular activities. But the weekend task is something a little bit longer, and hopefully something extra fun to look forward to. So this weeke...

Welcome back! Hopefully you’re starting this up having spent some time together learning about each other’s favorite stories... and maybe learned a little bit about each other. Let's see what common ground the favorite stories share. Adventure? Humor? A really cool world where the story unfolds? We call that world building ( which we’ll cover later ). Is there a genre or a type of story you both l...

I hope the bracket exercise was as fun for you as it has been for my family and that there weren't too many arguments along the way. But if there were arguments, or any of you felt particularly strongly about one character over another, I want you to pay attention to why you cared so deeply. Maybe the character was from a book, film, or game that connected deeply with you. Maybe it brought back a...

Welcome to the Summer Writing Project, or as I like to call it The Society of Time Travelers ! I am genuinely so excited that you've joined us on this storytelling journey. I know it can be hard to find time in your day to do things like this. First off, why am I calling this The Society of Time Travelers? Well, as far as we know, the only way to travel in time is forward, one second, then another...