Theme for
this Term: Realizing
This is an
important theme because it is ALSO a way of thinking about the overall form of
a piece of writing. A story or a poem
very often ends with a moment of surprise when the reader, or a character. In a popular story, or in a detective
novel, the reader is kept from knowing how things are going to end, who the
guilty person is, until the end. The cunning writing can even lead the reader
down the garden path a bit by giving him the idea that it’s Christina who’s the
vampire, when it fact’s cunning Mark.
In other kinds of writing you find that often the writer him/herself suddenly
realise them thing as they write: that’s why I’m fascinated with
goldfish! Or the writer may make a
character look into the complicated mesh of branches against the sky and lead
us to think, yes, problems can be like that.
If you
remember the narrative structure diagram I gave you (version of it below), the last part of it is the
‘resolution’ and it’s this that presents the ‘realization’, which needs to be a surprise of some sort
because the story otherwise would be boring;
we’d have guessed what was going to happen.
Often, of
course, realization works at a more personal level when we, or the character we
are writing through, realizing something about him or herself. This
is what we mean when we say that writing is a kind of learning. And it’s the best kind of learning because
we have done it ourselves.
The story structure was created by Labov, originally, to describe oral narratives, but has been used for written work as well. We also need to bear in mind that it applies to non-narrative texts too, of you alter 'situation' to something like 'thought' or 'feeling'
STORY STRUCTURE
An ordinary situation
husband and wife having supper at home
The ordinary situation is upset in some way
She tells him she's got a lover. They are about to run away
together.
The upset creates a problem
What will be do? Not only is he heartbroken, but his wife is very
rich.
The main character tries to deal with the problem
Next evening at supper he tells his wife he has murdered the lover
The problem is resolved (not necessarily solved)*
The wife rushes to the lover's house and finds him dead and rings the
police.
The husband has resolved his problem. However:.
The resolution is not what we expected
We realize and she realizes that she has fallen into a trap left by the husband that will
lead
to her being accused of the murder.
*The attempt to deal with the problem can lead to further problems which
have to be dealt with, thus lengthening and complicating the story
A child
realizes. . .
|
|
Write something in
which a child realises something.
Something about nature, Mummy, adults, caterpillars, him/herself
|
Week Two One
|
Realising
they’re human.
Write something in
which
someone who’s
always seemed
|
very cold and distant shows that
they have feelings,
which you
hadn’t suspected.
People are sometimes brought up ‘not
to show their feelings’ or they may be insecure and fear to ‘let their guard
down’, and they may be trying to conceal
their feelings from you for some reason.
Inability to show feelings is often seen as a male characteristic
because ‘boys don’t cry’. But that
doesn’t always hold.
Scrooge – has a change of heart
Week Three
Realizing they’re not so stupid, or weak after
all. . .
Write something about
a person who seems in some way ‘inferior’. But then something happens that shows different
The elephant has no time at all for the stupid scuttling little mouse
until one day something gets caught in the elephant’s trunk and he needs
someone delicate and small to get it out.
The old woman insists on sleeping in the garden
shed. One night the house burns down.
The posh schoolboy jeers at the garden boy every time he goes past but one
day finds the boy was become famous for his roses.
Wife grows tired of her boring stay-at-home husband, and when she’s out
enjoying herself and gets kidnapped, who ends up as the hero of her rescue?
Or David makes us realize that with God's help and some cunning the small can defeat the big
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