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Transcript

Plot & Setting

Characterization

Pitfalls and Helpful Hints

How Do I Start?

Generating Ideas:

  • Think about what's important
  • Cherries and pits
  • Life changing moments
  • Themes

Organization:

  • Event map
  • Story map
  • Chronological order (list?)

• Topic is too broad - "My childhood" - trying to cover too much time and space for 1 event

• The event seems unimportant to the writer (it will then be unimportant to the audience)

• You trivialize major even or overstate a minor event

• Your event is not clearly framed

• Narrative drags on in some places but doesn't give enough time to the action

Thundercats goooooooo!

Time to Write

• Dialogue does not ADD to the narrative

• Lacking details - you're trying to give an impression

• There is NO apparent significance - stated or implied

Chapter 2 offers many ideas on topics/themes (in black, bold).

Let's start on page 11

More on the Narrative

Point of View

Think: Purpose!

Point of View: who is narrating the story

First person: the narrator uses "I" to tell the action, and is involved in the story.

Third person: the story is told from a perspective outside the story. The characters are referred to by name, or as he, she or they.

Conflict

Atmosphere

Conflict: the central problem that drives the action of a story.

Internal: The conflict happens in a character's mind. A character with a guilty conscience is an example of internal conflict.

External: The conflict happens between characters, or between a character and some outside force, like nature. Sherlock Holmes pursuing a criminal is an example of external conflict.

We've discussed reasons why people write, in general, or at all, but...

Why might an author decide to write a personal narrative?

What Are You Writing About and Why?

Atmosphere: the general mood or feeling established in a piece of literature. Atmosphere is created through word choice and pacing.

Word Choice: the author uses words that make the reader feel a certain way. A spooky atmosphere is created in "The Tell-Tale Heart" through the use of words like "hideous," "marrow," "chilled," and "nervous."

Pacing: the author controls the speed at which we read through sentence length, punctuation, repetition of words and other techniques.

Dialogue & Humor

Plot: the sequence of events that take place in a story.

Setting: the time and place in which the events of a story take place.

Verb Tense

Free Writing

Dialogue: If you're going to use dialogue, you've got to use it correctly. Quoting dramatizes the dialogue through a combination of actual spoken words and descriptive "speaker tags" that surround them.

Separate by a comma and use quotation marks

Use simple past tense:

The simple past tense is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. The simple past is the basic form of past tense in English. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past and action duration is not important.

What is your main purpose?

Is it to understand something that happened, and why?

To confront unconscious and uncomplimentary motives?

To relive an intense experience?

To work through some complex feelings?

To justify, rationalize, or make sense of choices made, actions taken, or words used?

To reflect or report on cultural attitudes or an event?

To contrast current ways of thinking?

Direct: the author describes the character. Example: She was a small woman with a large purse.

Indirect: the reader judges what the character is like based on what they say or do, or what other characters say about them.

Example: We believe the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is crazy because he talks nervously and frequently repeats himself.

Humor: Be creative but relevant!

What is one thing you wish you could uninvent?

-or-

What do you struggle with the most?

-or-

Anything!

Temporal Transitions

Simply put, make sure you are consistent. Be careful when switching from past and present tense, make sure that you are VERY CLEAR about where you are and where you are heading.

Temporal Transitions

Common Transition Words and Phrases Transitions clarify the logic of your argument by orienting your reader as you develop ideas between sentences and paragraphs. These tools should alert readers to shifts in your argument while and also maintain the smoothness and clarity of your prose.

Transitions Can Indicate a Sequence in Time; Sequence or Progression in Time

Setting Up Your Paper

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