Higher Creative Writing - Story Writing

HIGHER CREATIVE WRITING - STORY WRITING

Keep stories SIMPLE and LOW-KEY; focus on HOW THE STORY IS TOLD.

Look at three types of story:

1.  The Match – persona ( ie putting yourself in the place of); first person narrative; a simple event or near-event).

2.  Bill McLaren Was My PE Teacher – incident from childhood re-fashioned; different styles of writing (use of commentary); dialogue.

3.  Geranium – story centred round a metaphor; a snapshot of a relationship.

A.  STORYLINE:

Any event or near-event can serve as the basis for a storyline.

A storyline has three phases:

1.  Beginning – sets scene, character, tone and expectations

2.  Middle - a) build up b) climax or anti-climax

3.  Ending – leaves the reader with expectations fulfilled or dashed

Types of Ending:

a)  Happy – where the main character wins etc, and everything works out.

b)  Sad – where the main character loses etc, and things have not worked out (eg King of the Castle).

c)  Bittersweet – where some things work out but others do not (eg The Match).

d)  Ironic – where things work out in the way that characters had planned to avoid (eg Animal Farm).

e)  Twist in the Tale – an unexpected or surprise ending (eg many Roald Dahl short stories).

f)  Cliffhanger – where the reader is left to supply the ending (eg The Italian Job).

g)  Multiple – where the writer supplies various endings and the reader has to choose (eg Freaky Friday; French Lieutenant’s Woman).

h)  Sequel ending – where all is not resolved (eg the baddie gets away) and room is left for a follow-up.

Your choice of Ending has to take into account both the expectations set up in the Beginning and the way in which you have built the story up in the Middle.

B.  NARRATOR:

The choice of narrator will make an enormous difference to how the story is told (eg compare The Catcher in the Rye with Slight Rebellion off Madison).

Types of Narrator:

a)  Neutral – where the narrator just seems to be the author and at a distance from the story (eg Geranium).

b)  Main character – where the story is told from the point of view of the character most involved (eg The Match; Catcher in the Rye; The Usual Please).

c)  Secondary character – where the story is told by a character who is part of the story but not at its centre (eg Spit Nolan; The Great Gatsby).

d)  Narrator with ‘attitude’ – where the narrator is not part of the story but continually comments on it and on the issues it brings up (eg Eraser’s Dilemma).

e)  Multiple narrators – more than one narrator, each giving their own perspective on the story (eg Bill McLaren; Confessions of a Justified Sinner).

f)  Narrator within a narration - this might be a letter or someone recounting to other characters, etc (eg Mrs Frisby).

C.  AUDIENCE:

The genre of a story will often define the audience of a story. The story will be told in a way that fits in with the audience’s expectations (or deliberately breaks them). However, even within this, there are different types of audiences:

a)  General non-specific audience.

b)  Specific audience - eg children, particular interest group such as football fans, people from a particular locality (eg The Usual Please).

c)  An audience within the story – this is best seen in the technique of Dramatic Monologue where the narrator has a purpose in telling the story to the audience (eg My Last Duchess).

The combination of the narrator and audience will determine the TONE of the writing.

D.  STRUCTURE:

You have a choice of how you put your story together:

a)  In a linear fashion - where the story is told from beginning to end.

b)  In a retrospective fashion - (eg flashback) where you start the story at or near the end, return to the beginning and then work towards the end.

c)  In a fragmented fashion – where the bits of the story are told, but not necessarily in the order that they occur.

However, whichever of these you choose, you still need a FRAMEWORK for your story. You have to move the story forward in BLOCKS of

-  Time

-  Place (eg The Match; The Usual Please)

-  Event (eg Bill McLaren)

Keep the reader informed by SIGNPOSTING the different blocks of the story.

E.  STYLE:

More than anything else, you need to keep in mind that it is not the story that counts, but the way in which the story is told. All the points above come together in the STYLE. Some key aspects of style are:

a)  An arresting opening sentence (eg The Usual Please).

b)  The use of a recurring image or reference (eg Geranium; the hunting hat/baseball glove/ducks in Catcher).

c)  A change of style or narrator for effect (eg Bill McLaren)

d)  The use of dialect (eg The Usual Please; Eraser’s Dilemma)

e)  Comments on particular issues by the narrator or a character (eg The Usual Please; The Match; Catcher).

f)  Effective use of detail – where a particular detail sums up a character or situation or where a list of details gives a sense of being there.

g)  Use of expressive language:

-  word choice

-  techniques (such as alliteration, simile, repetition, etc)

-  unusual sentence structures.

HOWEVER, the only way to develop the skills of storytelling is to WRITE STORIES and to try out different narrators, audiences, structures and stylistic devices both on different storylines and on the same storyline.