The Kids' How to Do (Almost) Everything Guide

A variety of experts provide instruction in activities from acting and Web publishing, to giving a manicure or a speech, to escaping quicksand and communicating with space aliens

HOW TO Write Fiction by James Morrow I have a great job. My editors expect me to spend several hours each day putting nonexistent people through imaginary adventures. It's like getting paid for dreaming. Most of the novels and stories I write are labeled science fiction. However, the following principles apply to all types of fiction, from stories set in your own backyard to stories set on the back of the moon.

DIRECTIONS 1. Write about what you don't know. Trust your imagination. Too often the beginner hears: Write about what you know. (I can't speak for you, but if my life were made into a movie, I wouldn't go to see it.) A much more useful rule: Write about what you can fool people into believing you know. You don't need to have lived through a shipwreck, a tornado, or your parents' divorce before treating such subjects in fiction. But you must do the researchreading nonfiction books, talking to informantsthat will enable you to lie convincingly about the matter at hand. This principle applies even with the wildest fantasy. If your main character is a dragon, don't settle for an off-the-shelf dragon. Base the dragon on your Uncle Leon. Trick of the trade: First write the story, then do the research. If you're going full blast on a fable about a penguin who learns to fly, and suddenly you need to specify an Antarctic sea, write Lake Michigan and keep on going. 2. Be nice to your mother but mean to your hero. The difference between life and fiction is that fiction has a plot. In most well-plotted stories, the main character wants something, badlythe mining rights on Ganymede, a game-winning home run, a math teacher's approvalbut some obstacle stands in the way. When the character encounters the obstacle, conflict results. Fiction feeds on conflict. Without the Big Bad Wolf, The Three Little Pigs is just a catalogue of building materials. When I've finished a story or novel, I can always point to one particular element and say, That's my obstacle. That's my Big Bad Wolf. The wolf might be another character (a tyrant, a little brother), a force of nature (a storm, a disease), or even a flaw in the hero. Trick of the trade: If you're being insufficiently mean to your hero, the classic playwright's formula can sometimes help. In Act One, put the hero up a tree; in Act Two, throw rocks at him; in Act Three, get him out of the tree...or let him fall. 3. A word is worth a thousand pictures. When producing the first several drafts of a story or chapter, I usually concentrate on getting the plot to work. Then the fun begins: rewriting each sentence until the reader starts to experience the scene. With drafts three, four, and five, my energy goes into finding the exact wordssometimes the exact wordthat will make a given character, object, action, or setting come alive. Trick of the trade: Post the names of the five senses in your work area. Your task is to make the reader see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.

James Morrow has twice received the Nebula Award, given each year by the Science Fiction Writers of Americaonce for The Deluge (voted Best Short Story of 1988) and once for City of Truth (voted Best Novella of 1992).