Tips for Writing Your Own Weenie Stories

By David Lubar

Based on my visits to schools all around the country, I know that many of you don’t just like to read Weenie stories—you also like to write your own. Since creative kids make me happy, and I love to encourage young writers, I’ve put together some tips to help you write your own warped and creepy (or weird and funny) tales.

It’s okay to start with an ending.

Because the Weenie stories need strong endings, I often come up with the idea for that part, first. I might decide it would be awesome to have a character catch moonlight in some sort of mirror-filled jar and then use it to prove that someone is a werewolf. (I haven’t actually written that story, yet, so feel free to use the idea.) Or I might realize it would be wonderfully ironic to have a kid run away from a snarling dog, only to stumble right into the waiting claws of a lion. (That one’s up for grabs, too.) If I have an ending that excites me, the next step is to come up with the main character and the setting. There is no single answer to this. On two different days, I might write entirely different stories for the same ending. But once I have an ending, a setting, and a main character, I’m in good shape.

Only one fantastic element.

Readers will accept a fantastic element in a story. You can write about a boy who is a werewolf, and everyone will enjoy your tale. But, if halfway through the story, the werewolf invents an anti-gravity machine, you might have a lot of unhappy readers. And if the anti-gravity machine causes the very fabric of space to tear open, releasing an army of ogres riding broomsticks, you’ll probably have lost all of your readers.

Fantasy and science fiction work best when the writer sticks with one kind of magic or advanced technology. It is also good to introduce the magic early in the story. (Though, if the magical element is part of a twist ending, you obviously have to hold it off until the end. However, in this case, make sure to pay attention to the next tip.)

By the way, like most tips, this is just a guideline and not a rule. It’s fine to break the guidelines, as long as you understand them. Your story might need three different types of magic. That’s fine, as long as you keep the reader happy and enchanted. Sometimes, you can do great things by not just breaking the guidelines but by totally destroying them. I suspect a story with twenty different types of magic popping up could be awesome. (Feel free to give that one a shot.)

Seed your foreshadows afterward.

After you write your story, look for ways to give hints about the ending without spoiling the surprise. For example, if your story ends with the main character discovering that the hill he is climbing is actually a giant spider, think about things that are found near spiders—webs, dried out insect husks, etc. You might even be able to get away with calling the hill “Spider Mountain,” but that’s a bit of a risk. I feel that the best endings are both surprising and inevitable. I want my reader to be amazed at what happens, but to then think back, see the hints, and realize the ending had to happen that way.

Don’t be afraid to think big, or small.

I’ve destroyed the earth fairly often in my stories, and I just wrote one where the universe is almost wiped out. You can go as big and as bold as you want in a story. But you can also go small. I’ve written a whole story about a boy whose hand won’t stop growing, and another about some kids chasing after a cricket. The trick is to make the story interesting. The reader should care about what has happened to the characters, and wonder what will happen next.

Use your memories and feelings.

What scares you? The answer can give you ideas for stories. What are some of your earliest memories? The stuff that lingers in our minds is a perfect platform for fiction. I remember being in the back seat during family trips, and feeling that we’d be on the road forever. So, years later, I wrote a story about a trip that really does last forever.

A while back, I started a story with a scene where a kid walks into a barber shop. At that point, I didn’t know I was going to put the kid face to face with a stranger instead of his regular barber. But the basic memory of something that made me uncomfortable was a great launching point for a story. You don’t have to use an actual incident. (It would probably be boring if I just wrote about my memories of sitting in the barber’s chair and getting my own hair cut. That’s why I tossed in a stranger with a razor.) You can use the one little piece that made an impression, and build from there. As a kid, I hated getting haircuts.

You can be funny and scary in the same story.

Humor and horror are just two sides of the same unpleasant coin. We laugh and we scream on roller coasters. We laugh in relief when something unpleasant, like a pie in the face, happens to someone else. We scream when the thing becomes really unpleasant. Don’t be afraid to mix things up.

Out of ideas? Build on a well-known story.

Attack of the Vampire Weenies contains a story called “Rapt Punzel.” Obviously, this is a takeoff on Rapunzel. (Fear not—it doesn’t end happily.) The previous book, The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies, had a story about “The Princess and the Pea Brain.” For my next collection, I have “Little Bread Riding Hood.” Fairy tales and folks tales are fun to play with. Interestingly enough, the endings of the original versions of many fairy tales are actually much more horrifying that most of my stories. (Though “Into the Wild Blue Yonder,” from The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies, probably tops the Brothers Grimm when it comes to unpleasant endings.)

Beside working with a fairy tale, you can take any sort of classic story and have fun with it. Imagine a short story about Aladdin and the Man Eating Carpet or Ali Baba and the Forty Zombies. There is an endless supply of material out there, just waiting to be twisted.

Find a way to trigger the magic.

In one of the early Weenies stories, “The Touch,” I knew the main character would end up losing each thing she loved after she touched it. While I could have just written a story where the bad things started to happen, it always feels more satisfying if there is some sort of cause. In this example, she breaks something at a flea market and hides her misdeed. But the owner spots her and makes a scary gesture. At that point, the magic is triggered. Whatever the magic is, try to find a way to let the reader know it has been activated.

As a side note to this, I should point out that the Weenie universe doesn’t follow common concepts of justice such as “an eye for an eye.” One common trait among many of the Weenie stories is that the punishment far outweighs the crime. (Think of it as a head for a hair.) But that’s part of the fun.

Have fun. Feel free to experiment.

I don’t think I would ever write a 300-page novel where the main character is a bowl of oat meal. But I can’t see any reason not try write a short story like that. Stories, just like poems, give us the freedom to try whatever we want, because they don’t take a long time to write. (They also don’t take long to read. This is important because readers are usually willing to try anything for a short period, but might not enjoy a long piece that’s too experimental.) Play around with viewpoint, voice, and anything else that catches your interest as an artist. (Writers are artists. That’s a good thing to keep in mind.)

Revise.

The truth is, I’m not a dazzling writer. But I’m a super rewriter. I get my ideas onto the page in a flurry of typing. The story is a mess. Ideas are tossed out as they occur to me, even if they’re in the wrong order. Weak and uninspired word choices abound. But then I get down to the real work—the work I love more than any other part of writing. Most students dislike revision because they see it as something they’re forced to do.

If you are serious about writing, you need to view revision as a chance to turn bad things into good things, and good things into great things. (If I had more time to revise this piece, I’d replace “things” in the previous sentence with something better.) Put your story away for a week, and then come back to it. Read it out loud. Have a friend read it. The key to revision is learning to see, and hear, what you actually wrote, and not what you think you wrote. (The other key to revision is to learn to enjoy the process. Think of it as a combination of creativity and problem solving.) This is important enough that it bears repeating: My first drafts need lots of work.

Okay—that’s enough for now. Go forth and dazzle the world with your writing.

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Don’t mix up your Weenies—download your guide for the perplexed here!

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From the Starscape/Tor Teen Educator Spring/Summer 2011 newsletter. Sign up to receive our newsletter via email.