The Cambridge introduction to creative writing
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Harry G. Broadman - Africa\'s Silk Road China and India\'s New Economic Frontier (2007, World Bank Publications) - libgen.li
| Writing Game P O INTO F VIEW Write a short story, based on an event in your own life, but write it in the Third-Person Omniscient. Redraft the piece from the point of view of the First Person and show it to somebody who knows you well, who played some role in the event and who appears in the story. Ask them what they think the story is about. Take their character from the piece and redraft it from that point of view, Third-Person Limited. Ask them the same question. A IM : Learn to use point of view consciously. Test its impact on your perception of a reality made fiction, and on another person whose point of view is as an objective witness to your own perception, and to your own fiction. Beginning To the question How do I begin the answer is, What is the story and how do you want to tell it The story is not in the plot but in the telling – Ursula Le Guin. Readers choose to enter the alternative universe of a fictional narrative, and that choice is active they can always say no. Your first page is a threshold you wish the reader to cross, and its mirroring of reality is one of the aspects that entices. How can we make a reader walk straight through that page’s mirror into our world That page is also a door. When you begin writing, think about what you place behind it (a scene, and who opens it (a character, and what can be heard behind it (a dialogue. Do not open the door with a flourish (a dead body such tricks distract and create distrust. Many editors talk of the need fora hook, some striking moment that drags the reader into the story. This is a trick, and it can seem amateurish. If you choose to use a hook, then make sure it is invisible, otherwise you appear insecure. Confidence in writerly voice is the hookiest (yet least obvious) hook. Your story begins where reality’s drama ends. As we said in Chapter Five , we begin in the middle. Create a scene or mood with economy and lucid concrete language with narrative, an image or dialogue – just enough to show the life of your language and the presence of an alternative world. The novelist Philip Pullman always begins a work with a powerful image or disconnected pictures or scenes 172 Creative writing that he develops further – That means I don’t have a plan, because it would prevent more than it allows. There has to be a lot of ignorance in me when I start a story That ignorance is a beguiling but intangible factor for the reader, for it affects them unknowingly, making them as curious as the writer. The choice of a beginning locks down everything else the mood, subject matter, and even the ending. Pullman believes, The opening governs the way you tell everything that follows, not only in terms of the organisation of the events, but also in terms of the tone of voice that does the telling and not least, it enlists the reader’s sympathy in this cause rather than that’ ( 2005 : 4). The entrance and exit of a story frames the journey of the entire drama. Download 2.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
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