Fiction Writing

1. Fiction Writing February 14th, 2008

2. Today’s Agenda • Writing prompt • Discuss tension • Review examples • Perspective exercise

3. Reminders • You must post to the wiki by Tuesday of each week if you want to earn credit • You will lose points if posts are late and will not receive feedback • Wiki posts and personal journal are worth 100 points—don’t lose the points by not posting!

4. Fiction Workshop • Next week, your first draft of fiction is due and there will be a slight change in the calendar • Please bring enough copies for everyone in the class • You will take the copies home with you, read them and write a one page critique letter to the author. • We will discuss the details of the critique letters next week.

5. Writing Prompt • If you could travel to anywhere in the world where would you go and why?

6. Writing RemindersEssential Elements of Creative Writing • Images • Energy • Tension • Insight • Pattern • Structure

7. Tension • Tension= Conflict • Tension creates interest, intrigue and generally charges a piece of writing with energy • Tension keeps the story alive and moving

8. Tension • Four elements of tension • Person: a person with a problem. Your character should have some type of struggle • Desire: Character wants and needs something • Stakes: As a result of a want, what is at stake for this character if they DON’T get what they want? What are the consequences? • Obstacles: Struggles the character must face in order to achieve the desire

9. Tension • Building tension • Tension is easier to build when there are multiple characters. It is not unheard of to have one character stories, but creating tension becomes a greater challenge • Be specific about what your character is going through: use images and energy to let us experience everything the character is going through

10. How to Create Tension in Fiction • Through essential elements of fiction writing: • Plot • Character • Setting • Point of View

11. Plot • A simple, formal, organizational device that almost always develops some sort of conflict • A plot has five main parts: exposition, rising action, conflict/climax, falling action, and denouement

12. Diagram of Plot Structure

13. Exposition • Background information about characters, setting and conflict: • Naming the protagonists (main characters) and antagonist (opposing force against protagonist) • Defining the nature of the conflict • Giving characters a place to be (setting)

14. Rising Action • Events leading up to the primary conflict • Longest part of the story • Develops the conflict • Reveals more and more about the protagonists, setting, and themes

15. Conflict/Climax • The pivotal moment of a story • Most dramatic part of the piece • Places characters in opposition to one another • Reveals themes most clearly • Sets up the terms of the resolution of the story

16. Falling Action • Action following the conflict before the resolution • Typically much shorter than the rising action • Fills in any necessary gaps before a resolution can be made • Leads up to the final resolution of the story • Not all pieces have a definitive falling action. It is not uncommon for a story to move very quickly from conflict to denouement.

17. Denouement • Resolution • Resolves the conflict established in the climatic part of the piece • Brings the conflict to a state of equilibrium and suggests the meaning of the conflict either implicitly or explicitly

18. Activity: Reread the fiction piece “Bodies” by Jessica Shattuck on page 180 of your book and take note of the elements of plot structure: exposition, rising action, conflict/climax, falling action and denouement. Understanding Plot Structure in Action

19. Moving on to Character How will your characters walk, talk, act, dress, tnd so on??

20. Character • Characters must be more than imaginary—they must be real, vivid and clear to the reader • A good character is one that elicits empathy from the readers • A convincing character is one that evokes knowledge that extends beyond what is strictly on the page, visible to the reader • For example: When we close a book or put down a story, we should be able to imagine these people going on with their lives, just as we might imagine a sister, an uncle, an acquaintance on a train, moving through the world when we’re not there.

21. How Do You Develop Good Characters • A character sketch: • Before writing a story, it is a good idea to write a brief character sketch on the main characters that reveals bits and pieces about who they are • This will help YOU gain sense of who they are so that you can accurately reveal them to the reader • You must first know your character’s habits, daily routines, language, and personal characteristics in order to successfully translate that to others. • You will, of course, develop and add more attributes to your characters as you write but you should go into your fiction piece with a general guide of who your characters are.

22. Setting: Where Will You Tell the Story?

23. Setting • Location, location, location! • Readers must know where they are • How characters fit into the location—why are they there? Is it their hometown? Did they just move? • In this sense, location can reveal characters • Purposeful, concrete descriptions

24. Point of View: Who Will Tell the Story and How? • First person • Second person • Third person

25. First Person • Usually employs the “I” voice and sometimes the “we” voice. • A first-person narrator tells the story through their eyes. • This point of view often implies intimacy as the narrator speaks directly to the reader

26. Second Person • Second person affords a different kind of intimacy where the “you” voice is used rather than “I.” • “You” can be singular or plural: “you” as in “you, Robert Burns,” or “you” as in “you, the Scottish people.” • Second person is more challenging than first and third

27. Third Person • Third person limited • Story is told from the point of view of a participant in the action. The point-of-view character must be present for any action or dialogue because they are filtered through that individual’s consciousness. • For example, if you are writing third-person limted from Michael’s point of view, this doesn’t work: “When Michael was out of the room, Andrea walked over and whispered a secret to Mary.” • Third person omniscient • Can switch back and forth between observations about “he” or “she” and then refer to “they” when observing families or societies • The all-knowing narrator • Seemingly can reveal more information about characters, but is often less person than third-person limited because the narrator is not a character.

28. Point of View, Perspective and Character Development Activity • Objective: To recognize the power of perspective and point of view in fiction writing and to understand how to incorporate varying voices through the characters in your writing. • Assignment: You will each start a short story with the same line. After five minutes of writing you will get up and move to your neighbor’s computer and write the next portion of their story. You will continue to rotate computers until you return back to your computer with a completed story.

29. Begin Your Story… • Background: Thomas, Sydney and Alex are childhood friends now in their early thirties living in New York City. Begin your story with the following line… “Thomas glanced at Sydney, noticing the slight curl of her lips as she laughed, and he wondered…”

30. Writing Your Fiction Piece • You can choose to write in any of the following styles of fiction: • Short shorts • Short Stories • Novellas • Novels

31. Homework • Write your fiction piece and bring enough copies for everyone in class, including myself • Reread the fiction piece “What I saw From Where I stood” by Marisa Silver (page 167) and outline the plot structure: what is the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement? Post to your wiki by TUESDAY. • Read pages 229-239 in your textbook about insight • Post to your wiki a brief response to the above readings by TUESDAY.