(subtitle)
The vaporings of a shoddy aesthete without
talent.
Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again
General comments regarding writing fiction
•
(scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
Version one—telling
Alice was a timid young woman who looked like a mouse. She was short and
skinny, with brown hair, small eyes, and a pointed face. She always peeked inside
the doorway before entering a party, thus giving herself a chance to flee in case
she saw no one she knew.
Version two—showing
Alice hovered at the door of Everett’s apartment, chin lifted, tiny feet balanced on
their toes. She peered inside, shrinking at the loudness of Everett’s new stereo.
She breathed quickly, her black eyes darting back and forth, as if keeping her face
in motion might prevent her from toppling over. When she finally spotted the
wide-grinning Everett approaching, she scurried to the punch bowl, her flat shoes
making a scritching sound on the polished wood.
From “Description” by Monica Wood in the “Elements of Fiction” series
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue,
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
)
Narrative summary mixed into scene
A spindle-legged stork stalked the shallows, hunting frogs or minnows. Some called
the boy “Stork,” teasing him about his too long legs and pointed beak-nose. He wished
they would call him by his name, Paulos, or “Saul” as old Eli the sage called him, using
the Hebrew form of his Greek name.
It was the ninth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius Caesar Augustus; according to
the Hebrew calendar, the year was 3783, the number of years since God had created
the earth, 23 C.E. The night before, a thin slice of a new moon appeared: Rosh Kodesh,
the start of a new month, the month of his fifteenth birthday. A shooting star had
arced across the heavens before the crescent moon swallowed it—an omen, he was
sure.
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
•
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
The stooped elder
into the
spacious room that served as Sabbath
meeting place. His willow cane
cadence for his ambling entrance.
the
Steaming dishes filled the room with rich
aromas of spiced
, nutty
in a
vegetable stew, and green onions.
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
•
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
•
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• commercial vs literary fiction
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Dialogue
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
What does a character want?
What obstacles are faced?
How are they overcome?
How is the character changed?
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
•
• commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
How to characterize:
Through an action: First she curled her eyelashes, holding a mirror in her hand.
Then, out of the blue, she picked up a lipstick, smeared it on, and kissed the
mirror. Kissed it. She made little kiss marks and looked them over real close,
studying them.
Through a comparison, a metaphor, especially an exaggeration: On this night,
Hal was Michael Jordan.
Through dialogue (characterizing both speaker and the one spoken about):
My father is still living, but less and less. Judge James Charles Endicott Jackson,
his “appellations” as he called his full name, that tall, lean, hollow-cheeked
man who made such a religion of the law, preached from the head of our
dining-room table each evening of my young life.
From The Best Revenge by Jane Riller
Through objects: clothing, possessions, trinkets, especially when combined
with a mannerism:
Through posture, appearance, physical behavior:
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
•
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
•
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
Allegory - a symbolic representation
i.e. The blindfolded figure with scales is an allegory of justice.
Alliteration - the repetition of the initial consonant. There should be at least two
repetitions in a row.
i.e. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Allusion – A reference to a famous person or event in life or literature.
i.e. She is as pretty as the Mona Lisa.
Analogy - the comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship.
i.e. shoe is to foot as tire is to wheel
Assonance - the repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence.
Climax - the turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. The climax represents
the point of greatest tension in the work.
Foreshadowing - hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story
Hyperbole - a figure of speech involving exaggeration.
Metaphor - A comparison in which one thing is said to be another.
i.e. The cat's eyes were jewels, gleaming in the darkness.
Onomatopoeia - the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe.
i.e. The burning wood crackled and hissed.
Oxymoron - putting two contradictory words together.
i.e. bittersweet, jumbo shrimp, and act naturally
Personification - is giving human qualities to animals or objects.
i.e. The daffodils nodded their yellow heads.
Pun - A word is used which has two meanings at the same time, which results in humor.
Simile - figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as
though.
Metaphor the comparison of two UNLIKE things. Simile, personification,
anthropomorphism, hyperbole, parable, fable, animism, and analogy are metaphors.
Metaphors are used to help us understand the unknown, because we use what we
know in comparison with something we don't know to get a better understanding of
the unknown.
When Robert Burns wrote "My love is like a red, red rose" he used a simile. When
Robert Herrick wrote "You are a tulip" he used a metaphor.
She felt rudderless and directionless, like the dead sheep the November rains had
carried down the river. Day after day it had drifted up and down, up and down,
moving swiftly away with the pull of the sea's ebbing tide, pushing back again as it
rose. Bloated, a perch for the gulls. Until it snagged on some drowned tree and left
off its journeying.
from “A WINTER MARRIAGE” By Kerry Hardie
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
•
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
What’s the difference between
and
?
Writing exercise One: Write dialogue
for the scene you just witnessed. Ten
minutes.
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
•
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
Hills Like White Elephants
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no
shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against
the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of
strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The
American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very
hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this
junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.
Chapter Twenty-six
It had been the kind of summer that the farmers of Cilicia expected every year, but
which seldom happened: the days were not too hot or too cool, the rains came as the
budding heads of grain began to thirst, and the ewes all dropped a pair of healthy
lambs. Now, the season had turned and the aspens in the foothills yellowed, the
granaries swelled with the fruits of the fields, and the ewes no longer gave suck to the
lambs that had learned to graze on green grass. The cool nights of autumn had come to
Tarsos after a bountiful harvest.
Chapter Fifty-six
It had been an unusually warm spring across the regions of the Great Sea in the
thirteenth year of the reign of Emperor Claudius, 54 C.E., and searing summer winds
would blow like a bellows stoking a forge. Three sets of travelers departed on separate
journeys one spring day; later, in scalding summer heat, their paths would cross. A
separate entourage, the fourth, set out soon after.
Writing exercise Two: Describe the
living room that a widow returns to
after attending the funeral of her
husband of fifty years. Ten minutes.
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
•
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
• Write, write, write
: I, me, we, us
: you
: he, she, they, them, it
: Varying degrees of omniscience
Narrative summary mixed into scene
A spindle-legged stork stalked the shallows, hunting frogs or minnows. Some called
the boy “Stork,” teasing him about his too long legs and pointed beak-nose. He wished
they would call him by his name, Paulos, or “Saul” as old Eli the sage called him, using
the Hebrew form of his Greek name.
Writing exercise Three (part I): Write
about making your breakfast this
morning in first person, as if you were
writing a letter, journal, or memoir.
Writing exercise Three (part II): Now,
write about making your breakfast this
morning from the point of view of
another person in the room (fly on the
wall, your cat, or your significant
other), but still in first person voice.
Writing exercise Three (part III): Now,
write about making your breakfast this
morning from the point of view of an
omniscient narrator in third person
voice.
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
•
• Write, write, write
General comments regarding writing fiction
• Show, don’t tell (scene, dialogue, narrative summary)
• Strong verbs and precise nouns
• Head and heart
• Plot
• Characterization (complex, conflicted, colorful)
• Commercial vs literary fiction
• Dialogue
• Scene and setting
• Point of view
• Literary devices
• Read, read, read
•
Bibliography
Bickham, Jack. Elements of Fiction Writing Series: Scene and Structure (1993)
Dibell, Ansen. Elements of Fiction Writing Series: Plot (1988)
Forster, E.M. Aspects of the Novel (1927)
Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction (1991)
McClanahan, Rebecca. Word Painting (1999)
Noble, William. Elements of Fiction Writing Series: Conflict, Action & Suspense (1994)
Novakovich, Josip. Fiction Writer's Workshop (2008 edition)
Prose, Francine. Reading like a Writer (2006)
Stein, Sol. How to Grow a Novel (1999)
Stein, Sol. Stein on Writing (1995)
Wood, Monica. Elements of Fiction Writing Series: Description (1995)
Zinsser, William. On Writing Well (1976)
Desktop References
Roget's Thesaurus
Strunk & White. Elements of Style
Grambs, David The Describer's Dictionary