The Cambridge introduction to creative writing

166
Creative writing
A
I M We freely adapt stories from our lives, and our world, but many stories can be adapted onto ancient templates, such as fairy tales, legends, Greek myths and biblical parables. They borrow structure, character, scene, point of view and power from these origins. James Joyce’s novel Ulysses (1922), for example, takes
Homer’s Odyssey as a template.
Character is story
To paraphrase and extend something John Gardner once wrote, character is the heart and mind of your story – it is what makes it live. Setting offers character a stage it can even help character to be defined but setting, at best,
is really another character in your story, as Venice is to Henry James’s The
Wings of the Dove (1902) and Egdon Heath to Thomas Hardy’s The Return of
the Native (
1878
). Dialogue expresses character in speech, in idiom and their manner of speaking. What people say is as revealing as their actions, especially when they do not do what they say they are going to do. Plot allows your character to act on that stage, but is still only a means for character expression. As for the philosophy of your fiction, or your theme, these are merely summations of how characters behave in the face of conflict. Theme emerges as the story proceeds. As we saw in Chapter
Two
, few good writers begin with a theme or big social idea, and then write to its order. As
Gardner says, what counts is . . . the fortunes of the characters, how their principles of generosity or stubborn honesty or stinginess or cowardice help them or hurt them in specific situations. What counts is the characters story 43).

Download 2.89 Mb.

Share with your friends: