Fiction Workshop 4 Point of View

These are the narrative points of view you may choose:

First person

Very intimate relationship between reader and character or reader and author.

Only tells one story at a time.

May be main character, author or fictionalised author 

Allows some discussion of the story.

Character has had the growth and reader cannot have growth with the character.

Third person

Close third person

• More intimate even than first
• Reader can experience growth with protagonist

Removed third person.

• Gives author a stronger voice.

·         Allows points of view to shift.

Second person

This can feel very intrusive to the reader but can also be very strong. .   

Omniscient author

• Allows a commentary from the author
• Allows changes of point of view
• Allows different scenes with different people, a little like in a play.

Story teller

• Tells more than shows.  
• Tends not to moralise.
• Is more engaging as a performance.

Writing Exercise

1. Rewrite the opening lines of a story you like in a different person e.g. if it is written in first person, change it to third or even second.
2. Now write another part of the story from another character’s point of view. Perhaps take a minor character or even the “enemy”.
3. Write a personal first person narrative; it is really you telling this story.
4. Now write the same narrative, still first person, as if you were a different person.
5. Take one paragraph form a story you are writing and do a “patch test”.  Try it out with different persons and different tenses (past, present, future). Use at least three different combinations. Which works best? Try to get into the habit of using this “patch test” in all of your writing. Ask a writing buddy for their opinion.           

Fiction Workshop 3 A basic plot shape

This is based on the theory presented in Robert McKee’s Story. It is really written for the film industry but is also very useful for fiction writers. I suggest you read the whole book and then go back and reread Chapter 14. The shape he suggests can be condensed into:

• Opening.

• Growing complexities 1, 2, 3…  
• Crisis  
• Climax     
• Resolution

Some notes

1. A short story will probably only have three growing complexities. A novel will have more and will also include sub-plots – more about those later.
2. Note the climax is the gap between the crisis point and the resolution. This is where the car chase tends to be and in commercial literature one more awful thing will happen just before the resolution.
3. The climax usually happens somewhere between 2/3 and 4/5 of the way through the story.
4. The resolution often lets a story down – it may be too melodramatic, unbelievable or a bit of a damp squib. This happens if you’ve not really worked out what your story is about before you start.
5. Some writers plot in detail, others – ‘pansters’ – just put their characters together and see what happens. Stephen King is a panster but his plots are technically perfect. If you’re a panster you might use the template above for editing your work rather than creating it.   

To do

1. Reread a story that you like and work out if this plot shape fits the story.
2. Use the template to write a brief bullet-pointed outline for your story.      

Fiction Workshop 2

Recipe for a story

Create four characters or reuse the four characters you created in Workshop 1:

Protagonist

Friend

Enemy

Mentor

Put the protagonist with the enemy. See what happens. The story usually comes out of the tension between protagonist and the enemy. But the friend sympathises and the mentor advises.

Can you describe your story in a couple of lines?

E.g. Cinderella does go to the ball despite the best efforts of her step-mother and sisters; there she meets the man of her dreams and her life is transformed.     

Now decide how the story will begin and end.

Number 1 -6

At number 1, put the beginning

At number 6 put the end

At number 2 put what happens after the beginning – make this a growing complexity.

At number 5 put the crisis point – what is that happens that changes everything?

What happens after 2? Make this 3?

What happens before the crisis point? Make this 4.

What happens between 4 & 5?

If you do this in a Word document you can expand the list as much as you like. You might have the crisis point much further on if your story becomes complex.   

Note: some fiction writers are “pansters” – they write by the seat of their pants and don’t plan at all. At the other extreme you have people who put everything on to index cards and spread them over the whole house. Most people are somewhere between the two.  Whichever you are, keeping in mind that two line description of your story is a useful way of keeping you on track.   

Use the button below if you would like feedback, pay £5.00 via the button below, send your work as word attachment to gill dot james at btinternet dot com. Put the PayPal transaction ID and the name of the exercise in the subject line.  In the body of the email, just say "Hi" and remind me who you are.

Buy here:       

 

When you retire and you have generous colleagues

... this happens:

 

I haven't finished teaching by any stretch of the imagination  and of course I'm sneaking back to the University of Salford for a few weeks January 2017. 

But yeah, afternoon tea is one of my pleasures.Cake and writers, don't you know? 

It was fab. Thank you all so much.

Fiction Workshop 1 Character Magic

Think of four main characters in your story:

The hero – the person whose story it is e.g. Harry Potter

The friend – totally on their side but just or almost as powerless e.g. Ron, Hermione, Hagrid

The mentor – someone who can help and who does teach them e.g. Dumbledore

The enemy – Voldemort

Sometimes the mentor and the enemy may not be human.

Anyway, take your hero and one of the other characters. Think about them for a while. Make notes if it helps. This is the sort of exercise you can do whilst waiting for a train or whilst sitting in a café . Or even if you’re stuck in a traffic jam.

You must know:

• What your character is like physically, emotionally, intellectually
• What their personality is like
• What they most desire in the world
• What they are most afraid of
• What is their motivation in this story ( if you don’t have a story yet, what is their motivation right now)

When you know your characters well, put them together in a short scene and see what happens. Spend no more than thirty minutes writing. You may even have enough within ten. Up to you.       

Now show your scene to a writing buddy. Ask them what they’ve understood. Are they getting the same picture in their head as you had when you started?

Then ask them some specific questions about the characters, INCLUDING MATERIAL YOU’VE NOT SHOWN IN THIE BRIEF EXTRACT. For instance, you might ask what colour hair they have, even if you haven’t mentioned it.

Now, here is the spooky bit. If you’ve spent enough time on your character your writing buddy will get at least 70% of the answers right. I’ve used this exercise for ten years and only had one fail. Most people get more that 70% right. That extract carries all the DNA of your character.

Please share your experiences of doing this exercise in the comments box.    

If you would like me to give feedback on this story send £5 via the pay pal button below, email me on gill dot james at btinternet dot com, quoting your paypal receipt number.
      

A slight change: free creative writing ideas to follow soon

I’m not actually teaching at the moment – expert in the sense that I’m writing a lot of posts about writing and in a way that is teaching.

 I return to the University of Salford in January 2017 and no doubt then I shall have some more to say then. 

I do want to keep this blog live, so from now on, every time I post here I shall be offering a writing tip or idea. Do feel free to use them.   

Once I have posted a substantial number, I’ll gather them all up into a book.

So watch this space – the first one goes up in a about a week’s time. In the meantime, happy writing.