Writing Tips — Stories on Sustainability
This week at my young writers’ workshop, Story Club, we created stories around the topic of our sustainable Earth.
I was in part inspired by The Last Bear by Hannah Gold, a beautiful book where a polar bear is separated from his community due to melting Arctic ice and gets entangled in plastic. April, an eleven-year-old girl on a remote, northern island, befriends this stranded polar bear, heals him and (spoiler alert!) helps him find a new home.
I love this book because it deals with pressing issues: melting Arctic ice, disrupted habitats and the plastic waste in the ocean. I also love that there is a solution (at least for this bear). The courage of young April and her love of the bear, along with the deep friendship that forms between them, is powerful. I even feel that April’s lonely situation ends up being empowering, because she recognises the loneliness of the bear and his own need for a friend.
At Story Club, I suggested we focus on a theme we feel passionate about, a theme that we personally connect with. I then gave guidance to write a story highlighting a problem and a solution, with a character who has something special about them that allows them to solve the issue. (In April’s case, I think her special superpowers are her loneliness, her desire or need to make a friend, her compassionate heart and adventurous spirit).
What came out was a fantastic story about hedgerows that were cut too low! I loved Mika’s story, based on a farmer who consistently cuts their hedges too low, preventing birds and other animals from using them for feeding or nesting. I could feel the frustration of seeing and hearing these hedgerows cut down again and again. The solution in the story? Filling the hedgerows with all the metal spoons in the kitchen, so they couldn’t be cut down because the equipment would be destroyed. I love the very ‘everyday’ problem of low hedgerows many of us witness. It was a tangible and satisfying story.
What’s your story? I’d love to hear what you come up with. Here is my guidance:
- Choose a topic you care about, for example:
- Plastic waste in the ocean
- Polar bears losing their homes due to Arctic ice melting
- Low hedgerows
2. How will your character solve this problem?
- A magical solution to remove all the plastic waste
- A practical way to find polar bears new homes
- Spoons!
Once you decide on the problem and solution in your story, create your character.
3. Describe your character using the five senses.
4. What is special about your character, why can they solve the problem? (They might have a great ability to make friends, they could be courageous, compassionate, clever.)
5. Write a scene where your character solves the problem.
