Learning task 2: Taking up the challenge

Doing the Hard Graft - Getting the Ideas

The series of exercises in this module will take you through the process of creating the various elements and then developing them into an original short story.

WRITING YOUR OWN SHORT STORY:
Over the next two to three weeks you will be involved in developing and writing a short story.

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR?
Challenge: Go back to the beginning of this unit. Revise Edgar Allan Poe_'s rules for a short story (RTF 12KB) . NOW... Write a short story that uses ALL of Edgar Allan Poe's rules. You have a word limit of a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 70. Time limit: 5 minutes.

Swap your story with the person sitting beside you. Read the story you've been given. Does the story use all the elements of a short story ? Discuss the story with your partner. Comment on the ways the story does or does not comply with the "rules."

Sample: A woman went to a séance with hopes of getting in touch with her dead husband who, during his life, had been a waiter in a big restaurant. The lights dimmed, the medium went into a trance, the table began to make knocking sounds.
"Fred," she said, "Fred ... is that you? Speak to me."
"I can't," said a ghostly voice, "It's not my table."

no more characters than are necessary for the action. - A woman , a medium and the voice of her dead husband.
a good opening sentence that is developed throughout the story. - A woman went to a séance with hopes of getting in touch with her dead husband who, during his life, had been a waiter in a big restaurant.
uses every word for important effect - the lights dimmed, ... The table began to make knocking sounds...
ends at its climax. "I can't," said a ghostly voice, "It's not my table."
can be read in one sitting.
is complete by itself.

These elements need to be considered as you craft the somewhat longer short story you will write from the tasks in this unit.

WHERE DO THE IDEAS COME FROM?
Essentially the ideas come from within you as a writer. It is from your past and the interpretation of the events and situations you have experienced that the motivations, the situations and the characters come.

TASK 1:
To focus the mind on the inspirations for a story try developing a "life chart" or "life map" that traces the "highs" and "lows" of your life. You can even identify people that you've met on this journey who may have been important to you. From these points you can develop ideas for your stories. Take 10-15 minutes to do this. Look at the life_chart (RTF 270KB) for an idea on how to create one of your own. You could illustrate the chart with drawings of events to help you focus your ideas.

TASK 2:
Once you've finished the chart choose ONE of the events and describe what happened to another person in the group. Take 5-6 minutes on this (2 -3 minutes of telling each). WHEN each of you has told your story . Write for 10 minutes retelling your story as if it had happened to someone else.

By retelling the story as if it had happened to someone else you have begun to use the same process that many established writers use as they sit down to create a short story. The important thing to remember is that you are creating a new character who will live through and learn from the things that have happened to you.

The life map can become the source of much of the writing you will do in the future. The events can belong to the characters you create. The events can be useful indicators of possible actions, of things you want your characters to learn or come in contact with. The people you remember and identify on the chart can become the characters in the stories as well.

It is important to remember that once you begin writing the events into a story you won't be keeping to a strictly factual account. Your story is, after all, a work of fiction.

EXAMPLE OF STORY WRITTEN FROM A LIFE MAP
The story: Front Rooms and Photographs was written from a life map and grew from a recollection of a photograph of my great-grandfather and a comment about a family resemblance. The episodic structure made use of four recalled memories from the life map - the things we did, as children, at my Grandparents' house, being ill one holiday while staying with my grandparents, hitch-hiking from Wellington to Wanganui, and the comment about the family resemblance to my Great Gandfather. The photograph and the character's concerns and fascination with it are all fictional so that the final story is not a factual account of the character's life between being seven and nineteen. The character is no longer me, as the author, but a person in his own right.

The Setting

Setting is defined as the time and place in which the action occurs. It fulfils several purposes:

providing a credible situation for the character/s to be in. - the physical landscape.
giving insights into the behaviours and attitudes of the character(s) - the mental landscape.

The way in which you write about the place in which your story happens can add to the mood or ideas of the story itself. Remember that place and time exist in relationship with your characters.

Creating a Setting:
The setting can be an important part of the story but too many times, in the short stories contributed for competitions, the setting becomes a description based entirely on what can be seen. It reads like:

"Mary woke up. Her bedroom was beautifully decorated with pale pink wallpaper, light coloured curtains and a neutral, wool carpet. The quilt across her bed was covered in patch-worked dolls and pink roses. Through the window she could hear the birds..."

There may be something in this description that tells us something about Mary BUT if the writer keeps on with this for too long the reader will not learn anything about Mary or, for that matter, will the story make any progress.

If the setting is important to the story the writer should, as well as establishing time and place, attempt to create a scene that makes use of the other senses the writer has. TASTE. SMELL. HEARING. TOUCH and SIGHT.

TASK 1:
Close your eyes and focus on the classroom. Sit in silence for a minute. Listen for the sounds around you. Smell the smells within the room. Can you taste anything? What does the area around you feel like? Can you touch anything? If so what and what does it feel like? Sit with your eyes closed for a minute listening, smelling, tasting and touching the room.

Open your eyes. Make FOUR columns on your page: TASTE. TOUCH. SMELL. SOUND. For the next three minutes Write down all the words, images, phrases that occurred to you about the room as you had your eyes shut.

Share these sensations with the group by building up the lists on the whiteboard.

NOW: You have five minutes to write a description of this room that uses ALL the senses available to you. Concentrate on using the impressions you gained while sitting with your eyes closed.

Here are some examples of descriptions of a classroom written by students:

The desks stand straight like obedient dogs at attention.
The low grade hum of the class next door filters somehow into our room. We are in English, our teacher at the front, the voices of the class merging in a tumultuous medley of melody, sky rocketing high and diving lower, skipping into our ears with cheerful abandon. The desks around us are smooth above but chewing gum rough underneath, pitted and dry....
While the fading loud boisterous voices of third formers melted into insignificance.
The smell of "god what a stink" the vulgar smell of sulphur wafting through the windows and the warm stale air sat in the classroom...
The irritation of a fly on my skin as tiredness crept in...

As you can see the students have noted the way the room is through their senses and in so doing made the classroom appear to be more than the desk filled room it normally is in many student stories. Compare these extracts from student descriptions of a classroom with your own. Then attempt the next activity.

You have ten to twenty minutes for the next activity.

Share your description with the group. Each member of the group will listen, in turn, to the descriptions. Once each member has read his/her description, the other group members will offer comments on the writing. The comments will be limited, for this exercise, to ONE positive and ONE constructive, improvement offering comment.

Start your comments like this: "I really liked your description because..."
or: "I felt that your description could be developed (improved) by ... because..."
DO NOT REPEAT WHAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS SAID.

The process you have just done is called peer review or editing and is used to encourage writers to develop their writing as well as react as a critical reader and comment constructively to the author. In later tasks the peer review can involve making more than one comment.

TASK 2:
You have ten minutes. In those ten minutes you can go as far as you can walk in any direction for five minutes and then return. During that time you are to observe with all your senses everything around you. As you observe try to think of exciting and interesting phrases that can describe what it is you experience. As you walk look around you. You're seeing your school for the first time. Where in the school did you go? What sort of school is it? Is there traffic passing on the street? What kind of traffic and how much? Are there other people around you? What sort of people are they? What are they doing there? Listen to the sounds around you. What separate sounds can you hear and identify? What are your feelings as you walk across the roads? What things do you smell as you walk? What do the smells remind you of? What things do you taste? What do things you touch feel like? Why do you have to touch them?

DO NOT TALK TO ANY OTHER MEMBER OF THE GROUP.

When you come back into the room sit down and write for ten minutes describing the places you experienced during your walk. Record as much as you can. Concentrate on creating vivid word pictures of the places. Jot down any other ideas as they come to mind. File your description in your workbook. This will become the skeleton for the setting of your short story.

Creating Characters - Making them Walk & Talk

Appearances:
The characters in your short story need to have some credibility if your reader is to accept them and the situation you have placed them in. Good writers observe the people around them and identify the things about them that make the people different, idiosyncratic and real. These features are not always the immediate, readily apparent things like the "police report description" eg.

"He was about 160cm tall, with brown hair and a graying beard. He had a round head and wore glasses over his blue eyes.

Look closer at the person. Look for the "warts", the "imperfections", the "behaviours", that may show the reader, and you, something about the person. Like:

"He was an intense person whose blue eyes stared out from behind thick glasses. His hands never stopped moving as he talked. They stroked his graying beard, pulled his ear lobe, pushed the nose piece of his glasses into his board forehead and reached for words from the air in front of him.

The writer has done a little interpreting here with words like "intense", "stared", "stroked" and "reached" but here the character is actually doing something - interacting with the world around him. He has become real.

TASK 1:
You have five minutes. Walk around the room. As you walk look carefully at the other people in the group. You can talk during this exercise. Choose ONE person but DO NOT LET THIS PERSON KNOW THAT YOU HAVE CHOSEN THEM. Observe the person carefully. As you observe ask yourself "What is this person doing here?" "What sort of background does she/he come from?" "What does she/he do as a job?" "What sort of hobbies might he/she have?" "What distinguishing features does the person have?" Try and work out the answers from the clues the person may exhibit (like the way they dress, do their hair, speak, react to others.) At the end of five minutes sit down and write a description of the person. If you know the person's name DO NOT USE IT in your description. Take five minutes for this.

Warning: Your descriptions should focus on the positive rather than the negative features of the person you are describing. You are writing about your friends not creating a fictional character yet!
Once you have written your description pass it to the teacher. When all the pieces have been collected the descriptions will be read out. Your task is to see if you can correctly identify the person being described.
The physical description of the character doesn't always make the person credible. Characters need to feel something about themselves as well as speak and act

Feelings

It is important to discover how a character feels about him or herself as they act in the situations you create in your story. These feelings can provide motivation for the character.

TASK 1a:
Create some feelings for your characters by writing answers to the following questions as if yourself or as if you are the character.

Three things that make me happy are:
Three things that make me unhappy are:
Three things that make me feel good about myself are:
I can talk about my feelings to: (which other characters or persons in your story)
I felt bad when:
When I feel bad I would like it if: (think about who you would want to help and how)
How I feel today:

These answers can inform your later writing.

Here are some responses to these questions that were used by other writers to create characters in their own short stories. What sort of characters could you develop from these responses? Jot down a few ideas in your journal based on your response to these answers.

GIRL A: "I wish I could just get away. I feel so depressed. I just can't cope with the work at school. I hate life!"
BOY A: "I feel good about myself, about what I've achieved because I'm in a good class and get good grades."
GIRL B: "I feel loved because I know my family and friends love me and care for me."
BOY B: "Life's crap. Nothing to do that hasn't already been done before. Not allowed to do anything till I'm over 16 or 18... You can just have stay-overs, but there's nothing exciting to do apart from get drunk and play with fireworks and shoot air guns at things, which we just get into trouble for, and then we're stopped from having stay-overs so we can do something else, somewhere else. What can we do? Life's CRAP!"
GIRL C: "I don't feel I can talk to anyone. No one seems to take me seriously. I tend to bottle things up."
GIRL D: "My Mum says she was 14 once but I don't see how she could have been."
BOY C: "My Mum has been frustrating me; she thinks she knows how to talk to me because she is a counselor. She is so patronising, and she only wants to know what I'm doing that I shouldn't. She thinks that stuff I do is a cry for help, but she doesn't know what it is like and she doesn't ask. I wish I could talk to my mother without her criticising me."
GIRL E: "I wonder how it's gonna be today between me and my best friend and this other girl who's kinda her best friend, but she says she's my best friend too. I feel like there's some kinda stupid competition between me and this other girl which is just so annoying. She always copies her and agrees with anything she says just to get her attention."
BOY D: "I feel as though I want to get extremely drunk and then beat up the person who killed my brother. Then I would feel better. I want to go out to lunch and eat fast foods. I feel fed up, confused, angry, brave, frustrated and annoyed with God. I want to go out and enjoy myself with my mates, spend lots of money, be generous and go out with some girls. I want to beat up another few people and I want to be very cheeky to someone in authority."

The Character's Voice:
The way any person comes alive is when you hear them speak. It is the person's accent, vocabulary and ways of speaking that will make for credibility.

When you first write a story you tend to keep the speech in a simple reporting style like:

I said "Let's go to the beach." So we got our togs and gear and set off.
"Hey! I've forgotten my towel." said Peter.
"You'll have to use mine." I said.

This style doesn't allow the writer or reader to explore or get involved with the characters in your story, particularly if this type of conversation goes on for several paragraphs without achieving anything or making the action move along. Good characters need a voice - a way of speaking that makes them unique and different. A good way of finding a voice for a character is to write as one character speaking directly to the reader - ie. as a monologue.

In a monologue you don't have to worry about style, because the character is speaking as him or herself. You can create a feeling of natural speech because you are focused on the way the character speaks. There is no need to have a plot but the way your character speaks will reveal his or her way of thinking and behaving.

Here are two monologues (RTF 11KB) written by students. They show you what can be done, as well as showing what type of person each character is.

In the first monologue, the speaker reveals a lot about himself as he talks to the reader about the tattooed man and his own reaction to tattoos. Discuss what the writer has revealed in this monologue and explain how you came to these conclusions from your reading of the extract. The second monologue explores more than just the character - she also examines her reactions to falling in love and boys.

While the monologue can reveal a great deal about a character it is the dialogue (conversation) between several characters that moves the story along in a short story and allows the characters to develop and become believable.

"Listen" to the following characters and see what you can tell about them solely from their speech.
For example: In passage A Ruth is pleased to see Harris. She exclaims when he appears "He never forgets!" The other people at the house are in a party mood with their apparent cry of "Drinkin' whiskey!" They have not taken a lot of notice of Harris except the girl in a white dress. Her question indicates some interest in Harris which Ruth does not welcome although she does not want to admit it. Her actions are a contrast to her statement that "He's no kin of mine."
Now try to comment on the remaining passages in the same way.
1. "He never forgets!" cried Ruth.
  "Drinkin' whiskey!" everyone was noisy again.
  "So this is the famous "he" that everybody talks about all the time," pouted a girl in a white dress. "Is he one of your cousins, Ruth?"
  "No kin of mine, he's nothing but a vagabond," said Ruth, and led Harris off to the kitchen by the hand.
  (from Killer Diller: Clyde Edgerton)
2. "Stand up, boy," says Hollister.
  "Wesley, you can sit over here in this chair by the door," says Dr Fleming, "I was just telling Mr. Jackson and Vernon about Project Promise, about how we hope to set it up and run it. Did you get a letter?"
  "Yes ma'am."
  "We believe this can be a positive experience for everyone involved. Mrs. White speaks highly of you. We will be able to pay you for your time, and our graduate students will be able to assess how these kinds of programmes might work in other, similar settings."
  "That's the messiest desk I ever seen," says Vernon.
  "Who you talking to?" asked Hollister.
  "Her," says Vernon. "I mean I seen messy stuff in the shop and all, tables, but I ain't ever seen nothin' that. messy. That is messy."
  (from Killer Diller: Clyde Edgerton)
3. "Anyhow years and years went by and one morning I woke up and found I was twelve years old. It was all too marvellous for words. At breakfast mother gave me six new handkerchiefs and said that no decent twelve year old by ever went anywhere without a clean handkerchief in his pocket. And father told me he'd bring the box of paints when he came home from work that evening."
  (from: Boy: Frank Sargeson)
Like the physical existence of the character whose being you may have "stolen" from your observation of the people around you, a writer needs a keen ear for speech and the way people speak to make the characters live for the reader. It means listening carefully and "stealing" people's conversations and making them your own.
When you are writing speech it pays to remember the characters' ethnicity, ages, sexes and occupations because these factors will influence their vocabulary and speech patterns. A common fault with many young writers is to write every character as though they were the same age and experience as the writer. This is fine if they are all 15 or 50 or 70+ but not good if they are of varying ages and experience. Tom Liner, an American writing teacher, talks of three different types of talking:
Mad talking... Soft talking.... and... Fast talking.
Mad talking occurs when someone is angry. It is speech that is characterised by loaded language, abrupt sentences, repetition of key words and phrases and, sometimes, profanity. Often rapidly delivered with emphasis!
Soft talking occurs when someone is comforting another. It is speech that is characterised by repetition, rhythmical sentences linked with conjunctions and little punctuation. It is delivered at a slower pace than mad or fast talk.
Fast talking occurs when someone is trying to persuade another to do something or to believe. It is speech characterised by logical construction, parallel sentence patterns (basically saying the same thing in a slightly different way within the same sentence structure), strong, active or imperative verbs.
A writer should be aware of the different voices required for each type of "talking" and use them when the dialogue requires the variations.
In this exercise you have to adopt the voice of another character. As you write keep in mind the type of "talking " you are wanting your character to use as well as the individual's public and private (if known) personae.
TASK 2:
You are to try and create the character through dialogue. You have five minutes of writing time for each part of this exercise. Your teacher will have issued with you a slip of paper on which you will find
names (RTF 5KB) . The first name is the character you are to become. You may not describe the person whose character you assume. You are to try and write part of a conversation as the person. When you finish swap the passage you've written with the person in your group who is matched with your character. Read their conversation opener and write a reply. Keep in character as you write. You are writing to the other person to give advice on anything at all, or you could decide that your dialogue will be a friendly exchange on a social level. Share your exchange with the other members of your group. Choose the best exchange to be read to the workshop.
You should have noticed how you used voice tone, chose the words and sentence structure to "become" the character whose voice you used.
TASK 3:
This is an extended homework task. For an hour you are to sit at a table in a cafe or around school or on a seat in town to eat your lunch. You may work in pairs if you want. Observe the people around you. Ask the questions you asked about the person in the earlier task. Select two or more people. Observe them closely. Make notes about their clothing, the way they move, the way they interact with one another and other people around them, the way they speak. If you can over-hear what they are saying to one another try and jot some of it down. If you can't overhear some conversation invent some based on the way they behave towards each other. Watch for any idiosyncrasies of behaviour or speech the people may have.
Take twenty minutes and write descriptions of the characters you selected during your observation. Try and describe the characters as fully as possible. Try and "explore" them physically and psychologically so that you "know" them well when you come to put them into your story.
Share your descriptions with another member of your group. Ask for comments on the effectiveness of your description, observation and "knowledge" of the characters.

Who Tells the Story?

When we studied narrative (RTF 8KB) we talked about point of view and the necessity of creating a credible narrator. The writer has several options:

The single major character:
If you select the major character as the viewpoint you do not enter into the mind of any other character. You must rely on the experiences of the character to carry the entire story through to its conclusion. You are writing in the First Person. A writer needs to watch out for the tendency to clutter the story up with "he saw", "he heard", "she said" as you re-establish the viewpoint during long periods of action or thought. The viewpoint has been established there is no need to re-establish it. Remember that the operating pronouns are going to be: I, me, my. whenever the character speaks or thinks.
Another technique using the single major character viewpoint is to write as if you are recording the thoughts as they occur to the character during the story. This is known as the stream of consciousness technique and, despite it looking random and easily written, requires a great deal of crafting and care in its writing.
It is possible to write such a story in the Third Person (see Omniscient viewpoint) by standing outside of the character and observing him/her in action to the exclusion of other characters. Here the operating pronouns will be he, she, him, her.
Your choice of first or third person narration here will depend on the type of character you want to project to the reader. A rough rule on choice is "If the character is to be an outgoing, enthusiastic person use the first person narration. If the character is a more conservative and introverted person use the third person."
Single Minor Character:
From this view point the author is writing about the major character from the point of view of a minor character. This technique is often used when the major character is particularly unsympathetic or has limited appeal to the reader. The minor character can continue the story when the major character is outside of the action as well as providing for alternative interpretations of the major character's actions or motivations. It does help if the narrator is the same sex as the major character (not always necessary) - it helps the reader's identification with the story-line. It is possible to use this technique as an "implied narrator" who never identifies themselves with a personal pronoun but provides a subjective and emotionally coloured interpretation of the events. The difficulty with this variation of viewpoint is avoiding going into the character's mind.
Multiple Viewpoint:
Here the writer, as an omniscient (all knowing) being, enters the minds of two or more characters and reveals their combined interpretation of the complications and events that are central to the plot. The difficulty here is that the transitions required to move from character to character may take too many words out of an already restricted word limit of perhaps 3000-5000 words. This is a difficult narration technique to master without lots of experience as a writer.
Omniscient Observer:
This is the detached third person narration where the author sits above the characters and recounts the story without becoming a major or minor character. The writer knows all, sees all, hears all and feels all that happens in the story.

How do you select the viewpoint best suited for your story? The rule of thumb is: Ask yourself what are the functions the character performs in my story? The functions being:

EMOTION: Does the character telling the story supply the need for love, popularity or recognition necessary for the action? The way the character attempts to satisfy this need will supply the emotion such as humour, romance or drama.
CONFLICT: The conflict comes from the character telling the story, from his/her problems, efforts to solve them, the interaction with supporting characters and the setting. The character with the most pressing problem to solve will become the one whose viewpoint will dominate.
SUSPENSE: The story telling character will carry the suspense by being in the action scene at all times in the story in an effort to solve the central problem. The decisions taken by this character will create new problems and complications which often stem from his/her having the least information about the true situation.
READER IDENTITY: The character should offer the reader the quickest and strongest identity and thus be lead into the action easily.
AUTHOR'S MESSAGE: The character will deliver the author's message to the reader through the action. This character has the most to win or lose by the outcome of the story and must show a believable change. The change usually is one of bringing one wrong facet of the individual into the correct focus.
ABILITY: The character is the one who can solve the central problem of the story.

So how is this done?

By Action: Action without conflict reveals nothing. Provide some stress for your character to cope with if you want him/her to be believable.
By Dialogue: The reader becomes more aware of the character when he/she speaks to another. The speech should characterise or be in character with the image of the character you have created.
By Thoughts: The viewpoint character confides his/her thoughts to the reader. This allows him/her to tell the reader why one thing may be said while another thing is done. The inner conflict of the character is what sustains the action.
By Reaction of Other Characters: The viewpoint character is shown through the reactions of other characters. The author's direct interpretation should not be obvious. Remember you should be a character within the story not always the supreme external puppeteer.

ACTIVITY:
Write an opening paragraph for your short story. using the first person viewpoint. Rewrite the opening using a minor character as the viewpoint. Try writing the opening in the third person. Check your paragraph for techniques of character revelation with action, dialogue, thoughts and reactions. Share your paragraphs with another member of your group. Ask that person to comment on the effectiveness of your use of the different viewpoints.

Plotting the Action

With the characters in place the writer now needs to set about putting them into action because the story does not exist until they interact and play out "their time upon the stage" created for them. No doubt as you observed the people you are going to use in the story you began wondering why and how they were in the place you observed them. You began to attempt to explain the relationship the people may have had before, during and after the time you observed them. The process of asking questions, of creating scenarios for the characters to interact in, is part of the author's craft. The ideas, the scenarios become the basis for the plot/storyline that you, as the writer, want to explore.

The search for a storyline must be a conscious effort for the writer. The life map you created earlier gives you the starting points for countless storylines that can be developed, mixed and utilised in many many ways. The process of using the events from the writer's past to create a new event, a new storyline is probably best demonstrated with Maurice Gee whose novels, both children's and adult, use events from his past over and over again ... a sort of motif if you will. As short story readers you will be aware of the stories of Katherine Mansfield, Yvonne Du Fresene, of Patricia Grace and Witi Ihimaera where events from the writers' pasts form the basis of the events the stories explore.

What sort of events are possible?
Essentially the writer is looking for a variation on the dramatic situations that occur between people in the course of their lives in some way.

The children's writer, Janni Howker, suggests that there are three simple bases for storylines that make plots become exciting:

THE RELATIONSHIP: This represents the pattern by which the life paths of two strangers meet - the moment of encounter that will decide whether or not further meetings will take place.
Most stories of this pattern start at the decisive moment where the two paths meet, eg. "Romeo sees Juliet... Macbeth meets the witches..." We follow the process of encounters down the stem of the Y, wondering about and anticipating the outcome of this relationship. Without the meeting and mating of strangers none of us would exist. When you use this pattern ask yourself: Who are your characters? Where will they meet? What happens to make them meet again?
THE INVITED/UNIVITED GUEST: The successful outcome of the relationship structure is conception - a baby is either an invited or uninvited guest. The arrival of death (another guest) is a conclusion of the life. Stories developed on this structure explore how a pre-existing circle of people is affected by the arrival of a stranger. Will the stranger be benign or a threat, be assimilated or destroyed? This is the basis of genre writing... horror, ghost stories, westerns and science fiction. Our own lives in terms of news stories are patterned on this as well - a hurricane, a disease, a fire are the uninvited guests. This structure has, according to Howker, got the most power because it deals with the greatest mysteries and fears. We have all, at sometime, been invited or uninvited guests in a circle of people.
If you are using this structure ask: Who is in the circle? A family? A gang? Who or what is the invited or uninvited guest? A disease? The death of a grandparent? Will the guest be assimilated or ejected?
THE QUEST: A quest is a journey with a purpose. We set ourselves goals as we attempt to make sense of our lives. Some of these are conscious (I want to become a ballet dancer. I want to become a millionaire). More powerful, perhaps, are the sub-conscious ones (I want my father/mother to love me). The diagram shows the ditches and hurdles that make stories about quests interesting - the obstacles that must be overcome by Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker. A quest need not be spiritual for it to be profound. You could be searching for your parents (The Silver Sword ), trying to find something you have lost.
When you use this form of structure ask: What kind of person is your main character? What is the goal? What obstacles must be overcome? The more complex the narrative the greater the possibility that there will be more than one plot structure operating. For example, You could start as a invited/uninvited guest then develop into a quest or a relationship structure. The possibilities are bounded only by the limits of your own imagination.

ACTIVITY:
Quickly brainstorm some of the possible dramatic situations that can occur or have occurred to you during your interactions with people. The ideas generated here can be used to develop the story you are creating during this unit of work. Build up the list on the whiteboard. Now attempt to classify the situations under general headings, eg. Revolt, Escape, Rivalry, Hatred, Love.

Some possibilities for categories and events could be:

Revolt:

Standing up for something you really believe in then discovering one's self wrong.
Attempting to get another to stand up for his/her rights even though the person would rather not.
One person getting others to support him/her in revolt against a powerful person.
The defence of the seemingly hopeless cause because you believe in it.
An attempt by a person or group to place the blame for something on an innocent person and that person's attempt to get out of the situation.

Rivalry of Relatives:

Two brothers at odds over the same girl.
Two sisters at odds over the same boy.
Rivalry over attempts to win a contest.
Brother and sister in competition for the same thing.
A dare or bet between members of the family.

Love:

How to get the girl/boy your character is interested in to become interested in him/her.
Falling in love and not having that love returned.
Aspects of love... seeing the relationship from differing points of view.

Conflicts:

Man against nature - the "man alone against the elements" motivation.
Man against an element of his/her own nature or character - the "Jekyll and Hyde" motivation.
Man against Man...

While the motivations are useful to get the story up and running the writer does need to have, either consciously or subconsciously, a skeleton formula for the story development. A possible formula could run:

Meeting... the people involved in the situation. Remember to have some EMOTION associated with the meeting..
Purpose... what is the reason for the meeting and their behaviour?
Encounter... why are they meeting? Is it to question, to inform, to argue, to convince, to persuade, to influence, to impress or to compel.
Final Action... win, lose or draw or give in and give up..
Sequel or aftermath... what things will lead to the next scene?

Throughout the planning of your story you should be asking yourself the constant question: Is this possible and believable?

If the event or situation does not appear to be possible then it is probably in your interests to scrap it because it will not give your reader any satisfaction from reading the story. The plot is this framework. It is the series of complications that dog the characters until the premise that underlies the story is solved. Essentially the plot can be summarised as: because of A... then B happened... because of B... then C happened... and so on until the final "and". Because of the situation the characters realise or accept the situation they have found themselves in.

It is, however, important to provide the basis for the plot early on in the story so that instead of starting with "Mary decided to dye her hair and go to bed early," a start that runs, "Mary looked at her hair in the mirror. The roots were already showing dark. She thought about John's behaviour last time she had told him that she'd dyed her hair and decided that it would be better to go to bed early after putting the dye through her hair." Here we have an indication of the possible direction of the story and the situation the writer is going to explore.

Hooking the Reader

Once you have got the story up and running on your page you need to keep in mind the readers and what you expect them to get from the story, ie. Emotional Satisfaction. As you write and read you should ask yourself the questions:

Are the plot complications too much like those encountered in real life? A plot that runs along the lines of: I wake up in the morning and think "Damn it all I've got to go to school today and I hate my teacher who is always going on at me for not doing my homework." To many writers this is it - the sum total of their school existence, which doesn't make for an exciting or interesting plot situation.
Are the plot complications too easily solved? The cliché resolution for a plot complication is "And then I woke up.. it had all been a dream."
Are the plot complications solved by a character other than the protagonist? Eg. if the character who is the focus of the protagonist's problem breaks out in pimples because another character intervened or appeared on the scene and fed him too much chocolate just at the right moment, as far as the protagonist is concerned it may solve the problem but it doesn't actually involve the central character in creating the solution to the problem. The basic premise of any short story is that the protagonist should be involved in solving the central problem at issue in the story.
Are the plot complications solved by chance or coincidence? If the problem is solved by having the antagonist be hit by a truck and killed then the solution to the protagonist's problem is unsatisfactory. She has not contributed to the resolution of the problem that has dogged her throughout the story. For many writers the ending that reads: "... and then, just as I was going to ring Todd up and tell him that I thought he had a cheek to ask me out there was a knock on the door. It was my friend Mary who told me that Todd had fallen off his bike and cracked his head open on the lamp-post. I knew that Todd would never ask me out again. I was so happy." is the easy way out of a series of complications that they haven't thought through before getting their characters entangled in them.
A writer must remember that "In every complication something of importance must be at stake and that the solution to the complication must be found within the complication itself."
Eg. Complication: Maree is keen on Logan but is going out with Troy who is Logan's best friend. How does she dump Troy to get Logan interested in her? Solution: Maree rings Troy and says things aren't working out as she thinks they should.

Plotting the Story:
A writer, working at an initial draft of a story, may use a simple chronological plot structure, which for the purposes of the workshop will be all that is necessary for plotting the story you are to write. Note: You can use this structure as the framework for the story you are developing.

A simple chronological plot structure could run:

Beginning:

Set the scene.
Introduce the principal character or characters with an idea of their approximate ages, and establish the point of view.
Suggest in tone and style of the prose what type of short story the reader is reading.
Background the circumstances that eventually lead to the complication.
Trap the reader into reading the rest of the story with a narrative hook - a minor problem that results in a later complication or creates an interest in the welfare of the character.

Middle:

Present the complication.
Present a series of efforts in which the protagonist attempts to solve the complication only to meet with failure.
Present a situation of anticlimax in which it appears that the character will finally solve the complication only to be met with such a disastrous failure that the reader is convinced that there can be no really satisfactory solution.
Force the protagonist to make an agonising decision that will point the solution to the complication... usually a result of actions taken in step 3.

End:
The solution to the complication must be satisfactory and believable to the reader.

When you need to dramatise a big scene do so only where two opposing forces meet.

ACTIVITY:

Use the example of Maree and her boyfriend problem as the starting point of a story. Quickly sketch in the scene, introduce the characters and the initial complication that will form the narrative hook. What is the complication that follows? How does the protagonist attempt to solve the complication? Provide at least three attempts to solve the problem. What anticlimax could eventuate that puts the protagonist into a seemingly hopeless situation? Now provide the decision that will point to the solution of the complication. What could be a believable and acceptable ending to the story?
Now do the same exercise with the characters in the setting you have created for your short story. If you need a complication look for one in your life map.
Discuss your plot complication sequences with another member of your group. Check for plausibility and credibility of the complications and consequences you have plotted.

Intensifying the Message

In order to intensify the story, to make the story carry more meaning than the limited number of words can do, the short story writer, like Eudora Welty, will use symbols and images to illustrate the theme(s) that run through the stories.

Themes can be judgmental, preferential, optimistic, pessimistic, sentimental, cynical, realistic or romantic depending on the writer's attitudes to the situations created.

To some writers the theme is identified as the "universal truth" that illustrates the point learnt by the protagonist during the twists and turns of the plot. Remember that it is the point central to yourself - the reason for your writing the story in the first place and is often discovered only after you have completed the story and analysed what you have written. As a workshop exercise it is useful to look closely at your preliminary plot outline and attempt to discover the possible direction your story will take and with it the theme it will illustrate.

TASK:
Quickly read over your plot outline of the emerging short story and see if you can identify a possible theme that you want your reader to discover. Write it down to remind you of a possible direction for your story.

Like the theme the symbols and images you use in the story will emerge as you write although imagery can be consciously structured during the writing. Imagery keeps the reader interested by making your writing interesting, vital and appealing to the senses. What one American critic calls "Synaesthetic imagery" - the combination of two or more senses in one image, eg. "Brass bands blowing cubes of sound echo their way down clefts of buildings." It is the same process that keeps poetry interesting and surprising to the reader.

TASK:
Try writing some descriptive images that combine two different senses in a "new" perception of the scene or object you are describing in your potential short story.

Try the exercise by creating metaphors or similes that use animals as the basis of comparison of the scene, eg.

"They rounded the corner and there lay Rotorua, seething, bubbling and fuming its anger over the houses in a white haze of sulphurous steam. They could feel the city moving against the mud grey skin of the earth, from between the skeletons of manuka protesting mud pools plopped, flicking little balls of grey stickiness against their legs.
As they pressed forward through the bones of manukas they could feel the thick wolf breath of the city licking their faces, creeping around their noses, looking for a way inside them, to lead them off the paths and into the thick, yellow-grey streams of mud and down, deep into the mouth of the earth." (written as an exercise for a Fifth Form class)

Warning: Be careful that you don't over do the imagery by becoming too clever for your own writing. Use the images to create and add to mood, emotion or descriptive response and then leave to get into the action.

Symbolism:
Symbols are associated with the meanings of words and statements on differing levels. Remember that words have several layers of meaning.

Denotative or reference meaning: when the word applies to a specific object such as a bush, egg, creek... The synonyms of such words are also available here.
Associative meaning: includes all the objects or ideas that use of the words bring to mind such as egg = chicken = Easter = Life = sacrifice... Bush = wilderness = tramping = freedom...
Connotative meaning: are the emotional attitudes words bring to the mind of the reader such as eggs = life = happiness... bush = freedom = oppression... creek = evil = dark thoughts...
Collocative meaning: is the association of words that are closely linked often in combination like egg = shell, tree = house.
Universal symbols are those held in common by a group of people such as cross = help = religion = sacrifice... the elements of fire, wind, water and earth... birds: doves, kingfishers, eagles, phoenix... the seasons: summer, autumn, spring, winter.
Personal symbols: are those held by the writer and made obvious to the reader by their use through out the story.

For most writers the symbols used in a story emerge as they write and become obvious only to the careful analytical reader. Remember, though, that their use, conscious or unconscious, will serve to intensify the meaning of your story and thus illustrate the theme that has run through out your work.

ACTIVITY:
Take the notes and ideas you have gathered together during this unit read them through several times over night. Draft out a skeleton for the possible story or stories the ideas have generated. Begin the opening paragraph/s of the story you think you want to write. The story Front Rooms and Photographs was written from the notes made from the tasks you have just worked through.

NOTE on "Front Rooms and Photographs":
How this story came to be written.

This story was developed using the same processes outlined in the earlier tasks. It was written from a life map and grew from a recollection of a photograph of my great grand father and a comment about a family resemblance. The episodic structure made use of four recalled memories from the life map - the things we did, as children, at my Grandparents' house, being ill one holiday while staying with my Grand-parents, hitch-hiking from Wellington to Wanganui, and the comment about the family resrmblance to my Great Gandfather. The photograph referred to in the story does not exist and the character's concerns and fascination with it are all fictional so that the final story is not a factual account of the character's life between being seven and nineteen. The character is no longer me, as the author, but a person in his own right.

Taking all these elements and working them through produced the story - Front Rooms and Photographs. It took three drafts before I was able to present it for publication. It was rejected by the first magazine I sent it to with the comment: "This needs to be reworked and pruned if it is to be accepted."

I then reworked the story twice more before submitting it again and having it accepted for publication.

Assessment Activity - Putting it All Together

You have four periods and three homeworks to write your first draft of the story you began work on during this unit. If you want to discuss anything about your story you are to discuss it only with your teacher. The other writers need to focus on their own creative impulse. Once everyone has a draft written, exchange your work with your neighbour who will act as an editor/critic as explained below.

Using your ideas developed from the exercises plan and write a short short story that involves the character(s) in a situation that is believable and interesting. Your short story should be at least 600 words long if you are to create an interesting story with something happening to the characters which can reach a climax and be resolved in an acceptable way.

NCEA 3.1 Exemplars Meeting Kurt

When you have finished your story exchange it with a classmate for editing (RTF 10KB) .

Assessment Criteria

Peer Editing
As editor you are to read the story carefully. With a pencil circle any punctuation mistakes the writer may have made. Where the writer has, in your opinion, overwritten underline the sentences or paragraphs and suggest a possible way of rewriting the passage:

So far I think you have said...
I think that in your opening paragraphs you sound...
At this point I hope you are going to...
I especially like this passage...
I'd like to hear more about this point...
I am unclear about this matter...
I hope you are going to finish by...
The strongest feeling I am left with is...
I found your ending...
When I think back about your story you sound like...

When you have edited the story initial the bottom of the page and return it.

Group Editing
Earlier in this unit you were working in groups of two to share your responses. Today you are to work in groups of four. Each member of the group is an editor reading your work with a view to publishing it. Without comment to each other each person must read the other three scripts. On a separate piece of paper jot down any comments that occur to you about the stories as you read. Keep in mind the questions "what to look for in a short story?" asked yesterday. Keep your comments constructive.

When all the stories have been read by everyone each member of the group shares the comments about the stories and offers suggestions for developing and refining the stories. The writers should keep notes on what is said and commented on for the next session. Using the Review... the second draft.

During this period each writer redrafts the story bearing in mind the comments made by their group in the earlier session.

The Writer's Job
When you get the story back from the editor check the suggested corrections and changes to your story. Rewrite the story using the corrections and changes. You can add more to the story if you want to. When you have rewritten your story and made the necessary corrections and alterations to it hand your first draft as edited by your classmate and your final copy of the story to your teacher for assessing.

Redrafting your Story
This does not mean just rewriting your story in your neatest handwriting. It means making the changes and developments that you and your editor think are necessary to keep your reader's attention and to keep her or him reading. There are many ways of redrafting your story. Some writers start with a new page and, keeping the first draft in front of them rework the story making the changes line by line, paragraph by paragraph as they write. Another method is to use a word-processor with the writer cut_paste (RTF 6KB) the story. Each of these methods help the writer in seeing how the story can be changed and developed so that a better and more interesting story is created. As you rewrite words will be changed, inserted, or crossed out of the story. Every writer does this because writing requires you to think about what you are saying and how you are saying it. When you write, rewrite and develop your story you will make many changes. It does not mean that every time you make a change that you have to scrap what you have written and start a new page.

Once you have re-drafted your story you should carefully proofreading (RTF 33KB) it, make corrections and submit it for assessment.

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