Shannon Dittemore is the author of the Angel Eyes trilogy. She has an overactive imagination and a passion for truth. Her lifelong journey to combine the two is responsible for a stint at Portland Bible College, performances with local theater companies, and a love of all things literary. When she isn’t writing, she spends her days with her husband, Matt, imagining things unseen and chasing their two children around their home in Northern California. To connect with Shan, check out her website, FB, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.
This week has been all about fictional siblings here on Go Teen Writers and I thought we’d have some fun with that by venturing into the world of fan fiction.
For the uninitiated, fan fiction is when a fan takes a work of fiction created by someone else and tells their own stories about those characters or that setting. The Harry Potter books are wildly popular in fan fiction circles. In such stories, you might find Hermione desperately mooning over poor, dejected Malfoy, while characters you long-believed dead, are alive and well and raising their furry werewolf child on a sprawling English estate.
There is really no end to what the imagination can come up with–especially when you start with a delicious prompt full of ready-made characters.
On Wednesday, Jill provided you with 10 Examples of Realistic Siblings in Fiction. Your job today is to choose one of these ten examples and write a scene featuring fictional siblings. If you’re unfamiliar with the characters Jill mentioned, of course you may choose another set of fictional siblings, but in the spirit of fan fiction, please choose characters from a published story written by someone other than yourself.
In your scene, one sibling must be teaching the other–or others–how to do something. It doesn’t matter what it is. In fact, it can be just about anything at all. The goal here is to show off the relationship between your siblings.
Things to consider:
1. Think carefully about which sibling should be giving the instruction. It’s possible one sibling makes considerably more sense than the other(s), but what kind of tension can you create by reversing their natural roles?
2. Where will your scene take place? Many of the examples Jill provided us are siblings who traverse several different settings over the course of the story. Put a little thought into which setting will allow you to highlight the relationship.
3. On Monday, teen writer, Abigail Wiley, shared a few tips on Making Sibling Relationships Realistic. If you’re stuck, pop over and have a look. Perhaps her thoughts will jump-start your writing.
Please leave your response here in our comments section and be sure to come back throughout the weekend to encourage the other participants. You guys are fantastic at this, by the way. I love the community we’ve created here and I can’t wait to see what you all come up with!
If you’re new to our writing exercises here on Go Teen Writers, give this article a read. It will explain how writing with us can earn you the right to ask us almost any question to be answered on an upcoming episode of Go Teen Writers LIVE.