Year 12 Thriller Narrative Tips Don’t use in a x voice, in a x tone, with an x expression. Find a more specific word or be more creative with your wording. Eg this
Year 12 Thriller Narrative Tips Don’t use in a x voice, in a x tone, with an x expression. Find a more specific word or be more creative with your wording. Eg this: Then as the man took a deep breath in, out came the words, “You are mine.” in a broken and deep tone. could be this: The man breathed in, then his guttural words fell out in broken pieces, “You are mine.” Or this: Walking down the stairs in a quiet manner could be this: Softly padding downstairs
Don’t be too obvious or deliberate in your expression. Implication and subtlety is better. Eg this: Kol tasted iron as he looked down in astonishment at the gaping hole in his side. His eyebrows frowned as he realised the soaking man was not real, and that he had stabbed himself. could be this: Kol tasted iron, and looked down in astonishment at the gaping hole in his side. He had stabbed himself.
Be wary of having repetitive sentence starters. Usually it’s a person / did routine. Eg for person: Joe / He / His. Eg for did: was, ran.In this paragraph: Her mother’s warnings echoes, Brigitte’s soft stomach pressed, His pen covered, Brigette sucked, Brigette could only assume, She hated. Any on their own are ok, but so many sentences starting with the same structure is repetitive. Make sure there are no logic errors in your story. Eg: The pen hovered in the air as Brigitte glanced out the window at the encompassing drizzle. The endless ticking of her watch encouraged the sinking of the sun. If it’s drizzling then the sky is full of clouds so the sun would not be visible.Bored and alone in the empty house, she struggled to find rhythm in her homework and instead found herself gazing out the foggy window. If the window is fogged up how’s she looking at things outside? When I looked up at the mirror I saw a cut down my left eyebrow. Eyebrows are horizontal, so across would make more sense. Or,Spurts of crimson crawled up the walls and leaked into the hallway. Crawled and leaked are slow words. This is jugular vein blood so it would be fast. In super intense parts of stories, where the past is fast, adjectives and adverbs are dead weight. Action processes should also be intense. Eg this: Cringing, she pulled her probing hand from the drawer and saw droplets of blood on the ends of her lean fingers. could be this: Cringing, she whipped her hand from the drawer and spotted droplets of blood on the ends of her fingers.
Avoid writing too simply. Read this aloud. He was big and wearing a stained white singlet covering as much of his stomach as it could. Now try this: He loomed over me, his stained white singlet attempting to hide his enormous stomach. More concise, negative word loomed, added imagery (personification), and less two letter or less words (3 versus 6) Keep playing with the power of your expression. Eg this: She saw a flash of surprise in his eyes and her own look of fright was reflected on his face for a second, as though in a mirror. could be this:Surprise flashed in his eyes, mirroring her fright, but only for second. The surprise becomes the subject rather than the eyes, a more interesting first word is used, it’s more concise, the sense of how quickly he regains control is started earlier, the subtle metaphor is stronger, the sentence structure is more complex. Use visual imagery. Here’s something from a Year 8 Task:
Pay close attention to crafting your expression. Eg this: I could see the excitement and nervousness in their eyes, which were the exact emotions I was going through. could be this: I could see my excitement and nervousness reflected in their eyes. See the fantastic difference this metaphor makes?
