Gothic stories and plot.

1. Gothic stories and plot. L.O. – To be able to understand how a writer structures a story to try to involve the reader.

2. Complete the following table in your books, adding the correct suffix.

3. We are going to play the plot game.I will start with the sentence below, and each of you will have a turn to add just one sentence. You will only have 4 seconds to think of one or you can pass. The castle sat on top of a hill.

4. In pairs, discuss the following questions: Does our story have an interesting plot? What are its positive features? What are its negative features? Would it be easy to convert it into a realistic story? Why/why not?

5. What are the essential elements of a plot in a good story?

6. Think of a TV programme you saw recently. Write down a summary of what happened ( 1 or 2 paragraphs).

7. Think of a TV programme you saw recently. Write down a summary of what happened ( 1 or 2 paragraphs).Now try writing it as an interesting story. Write down the opening few lines underneath your summary.

8. Put these in the correct order: A Even at the grave side my great-great-grandfather sobbed and pleaded for his wife to come back to him. As the rain fell and the first shovelful of soil was thrown onto the lowered coffin, he half jumped, half fell into the grave and draped himself over the coffin lid, hugging it, and begging us to let his wife out. In the end a doctor had to be called to give him a sedative. B There was no careful preparation of the body in those days. Corpses were put in coffins and then lowered into the grave as quickly as possible. Funerals were conducted with a haste that we today might think undignified, but at least my great-great-grandmother had a decent, strong wood coffin. C In the night he had a terrible nightmare in which he imagined his wife waking up and desperately trying to claw her way out of the coffin. He screamed and flailed his arms around in tormented sleep, and when the doctor arrived he begged him to have his wife’s coffin dug up. The doctor administered another sedative, but my great-great-grandfather was revisited by this nightmare every night that week, and every night he begged the doctor to remove his wife from the grave. D It is 70 years since my great-great-grandmother died. She has been ill for some time and her body has wasted way until she was little more than a scare-crow: tatty, dark clothes draped over her stick-thin frame. Her collar-bones were as fine and fragile as a bird’s. But my great-great-grandfather was devoted to her until the very end, and when she died he was devastated.

9. Now try to write the final paragraph to the story in no more than 100 words. C In the night he had a terrible nightmare in which he imagined his wife waking up and desperately trying to claw her way out of the coffin. He screamed and flailed his arms around in tormented sleep, and when the doctor arrived he begged him to have his wife’s coffin dug up. The doctor administered another sedative, but my great-great-grandfather was revisited by this nightmare every night that week, and every night he begged the doctor to remove his wife from the grave. What happened next? How does the story end?