For the first three months of the site's existence, we know lots of people sent text from existing stories,
originally meant to be experienced as an illustrated story.
This showed up a lot of issues, that writers should consider when writing a Smory story,
one that has to be narrated by an 6-11 year old, without the aid of pictures.
We hope that identifying these issues will help writers, and that these issues will become
less common over time as you get used to writing Smory stories.
Our ambition is that Smories will provide a new platform for writers, where you are freed from
the usual constraints of having to illustrate your story to have a shot at publication.
Maybe these new parameters will provide an inspiration to your writing talents!
[1] Comprehension of the young viewer
Don't use tricky words: You can be more ambitious with vocabulary in an illustrated book,
where a child will have a picture to give the word meaning/context.
Even for a conventional story book without pictures, the child can see the word, and go back
to it, or ask an adult for meaning. With smories the meaning of important words should be
immediately obvious.
Beware of information overload: As above, it's easier to introduce lots of characters/plot twists
in an illustrated book. Having too many characters/things happening can confuse the child.
[2] Sometimes you need to state the obvious
Spell out the main characters: If the main character is a dog, the kid needs to know it's a dog
(sorry to be obvious but this was a common problem).
Spell out the physical action: You may have to do this in a way that you wouldn't have to
if supported by pictures.
[3] Attention span of the young viewer
Whilst we hope that the child will be carried along by the flow of words, the story and fascination
with seeing another child reading, s/he will be in a web context where they are used to clicking around.
There will also be a collection of others stories they know they can click on if their attention wanders.
Think about attention wandering - every sentence has to count.
In general (with lots of brilliant exceptions) short stories with punchy endings work better than long stories.
[4] Reading skills of the young narrator
Whilst we aim to get competent, clear readers, the story reader is still a child.
Dialogue can be difficult for children to read.
Long paragraphs and complicated sentences can feel like they are dragging for the reader,
which conveys itself to the viewer.
Going Forward
One way to tell whether your story is working as a Smory is to READ IT ALOUD, preferably to a
child but not necessarily. If you can read to a kid, keep an eye on their attention wandering or
their face looking puzzled or confused and edit as necessary.
Look at the films when they go live. See which stories we think are working as a smories.