Holiday activity: Design a Spaceship
Space Tales is a new workshop that we have not run before. Thanks to you-know-what, it has been planned twice in 2021, and cancelled twice! We know we’ll get to outer space eventually, though.
Space Tales was inspired by long discussions at the Christmas table with my super famous sister-in-law, Dr Alice Gorman (aka Dr Space Junk), who is a space archaeologist. It occurred to both of us that looking up into space has inspired humans to tell stories since ancient times.
I’m not going to give too much away as we plan to unveil this new workshop in October. However, like Mystery Mayhem I have developed some Space Stations to help young writers develop story elements such as characters (think aliens and astronauts), settings (spaceships and new planets) and space plots. (Will it be exploration or a mission to save our planet? A lot can go wrong in space!)
A great book about space is The First Hippo on the Moon by David Walliams, illustrated by Tony Ross
One space writing activity you may like to try in the holidays is Design a Spaceship.
What to do:
Grab an A3 piece of paper and some black fineliner pens. You might want some coloured pencils to colour in your spaceship too.
Younger writers might benefit from starting from an outline of a space shuttle (here’s a good one you can print out). Older writers will enjoy drawing this from scratch.
Make sure you create a number of compartments, label them and write a detailed description for each of them. What goes where? How does it work? Where will you sleep, eat and of course go to the bathroom? What super technologies does your craft have? What is its top speed?
As you draw and write, you may start to have other ideas to help supercharge your story. Make sure you have another piece of paper handy to write your ideas on. Things to think about:
What is the name of your craft?
Who is the captain? Who else is aboard?
Where is your spacecraft headed?
Describe the planet you land on.
What is your mission?
Do you meet alien life forms? What do they look like? Are they friendly?
By the end of your drawing you will be ready to blast off into your Space Story!