Writing Structures

1. Writing Structures The Narrative Grand Valley State University Writing 150

2. Purpose of the Presentation • to offer alternative structures for the telling of a story • to consider the methods of several masters • to help our students to understand how structure contributes to the idea of the story • to enjoy the fun of building

3. Description of person Narrative of event Student’s essay Elimination of extraneous detail Things that are useful for advancing the story Placing description into narrative Adding dialogue Framing--example from “The Story of the Barber’s Fifth Brother” from The Thousand Nights and One Night Framed narrative Unstructured structured story

4. Frame Description Narrative Frame Unstructured Structured Narrative

5. Time of Day Structure • Model--“There will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury • “In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o’clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o’clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would.” • Analysis: use of structure to communicate an idea without saying it

6. Imagination/reality Structure • Model-- “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber • “We’re going through! The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking.” • Use of the structure to approximate emotional disjuncture and subsequent retreat from the discomfort of being henpecked

7. Imagination Imagination Imagination Reality Reality Reality Imagination/Reality Structure

8. Story within a Story Structure • Model--“The Musgrave Ritual” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle • “An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was nonetheless in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction.” • Use of structure to embed a tale of murder within the vault of the story in a way that is analogous to the content

9. Doctor Watson’s story Sherlock Holmes’ story Musgrave’s story Maid’s story The Story within a Story Structure

10. What do these words and sentences have in common? • Level, radar, and Hannah. • Draw, o coward! • Madam, I’m Adam. • Ten animals I slam in a net. • Able was I ere I saw Elba.

11. Why would an author want to construct a palindrome?

12. Authors like the palindrome because it has a pocket in the center where the he or she can put things.

13. Palindromic Structure • Model--the exemplum of The Pardoner’s Tale of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer • “Thise ryotoures three, of whiche I telle, Longe erst er pryme rong of any belle, Were set hem in a taverne for to drinke;” • Use of structure to offer an alternate meaning to the story

14. 3 rioters boy taverner 3 trees apothecary man 3 rioters (alive) (dead) Palindromic Structure

15. Writing Structures The Narrative Grand Valley State University Writing 150