In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield

A BIRTHDAY TEXT

A BLAZE TEXT

AT LEHMANN’S TEXT

FRAU BRECHENMACHER ATTENDS A WEDDING TEXT

FRAU FISCHER TEXT

GERMANS AT MEAT TEXT

THE ADVANCED LADY TEXT

THE BARON TEXT

THE CHILD WHO WAS TIRED TEXT

THE LUFT BAD TEXT

THE MODERN SOUL TEXT

THE SISTER OF THE BARONESS TEXT

THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM TEXT

Action, Narrative and Dialogue: Understanding the Difference

Any scene from a work of fiction can be divided into:

1. ACTION – stuff happens

2. NARRATIVE – the narrator says stuff happens. “Tells”

3. DIALOGUE – stuff inside the speech marks. “Shows”

The author must decide how much of each kind to include to make a good story. Too much action loses the reader. Too much narrative slows down the pace and gets boring. Too much dialogue makes the thing sound more like a script than a story and fails to engage.

Different genres demand different balances. Modern Young Adult novels, for example, have a much higher proportion of dialogue than those published 100 years ago. Literary or experimental fiction can get away with little or no dialogue, and this may be appropriate for that particular story.

For an informative podcast on weaving narrative and dialogue, listen to Paula B at The Writing Show.

If a writer finds there are problems with pace in their work, it is worth taking a close look at the balance of action, narrative and dialogue.

Here is an exercise for students, taking excerpts from the work of Roald Dahl: a master at weaving action, narrative and dialogue to create stories which are engaging and fast-paced. Students need three different coloured highlighters (or pens). Using one colour for each type of story-telling, they highlight the entire excerpt and compare with other students afterwards.

NARRATIVE, ACTION AND DIALOGUE ACTIVITY (pdf)

NARRATIVE, ACTION AND DIALOGUE ACTIVITY (Word, feel free to modify)

Key Questions:

• Of the three, which is the easiest type to pick out? (Probably dialogue.)
• How would you describe the difference between ‘narrative’ and ‘action’?
• What category does ‘back story’ fall into? ‘Narrative’ or ‘action’? Can back story be both?
• Do you prefer reading stories with lots of dialogue or with little dialogue?
• Which kind of story are you more inclined to write?

The Booster Shot, a short story by Peter Goldsworthy (1993)

Peter Goldsworthy is a poet as well as a short story writer and his economical use of language in this story is poetic in its sparseness. The Booster Shot is a very short piece, yet carries the weight of ten thousand words.

*

How does he do it?

Written in third person limited from Alison’s point of view, the first sentence begins:

‘Years had passed – more years than Alison cared to count – but she recognised him immediately.’

From this we know that this is a ‘reunion story’, that the characters are middle-aged or older. The fact that the main characters are a man and a woman foreshadows the sexual relationship between them. Note that both characters are introduced in that first sentence.

‘…his hair singled him out across the crowded airport lobby…’

In the second sentence we have the setting – as much setting as we’ll need, since this is a story about two people. Since the average reader is very familiar with an airport there seems little need to go into detail about the airport, but what Goldsworthy does offer is original in its phrasing:

‘(he) raised his face as if in haute-relief from a background frieze of faces’.

This says a lot about Alison. I’m reminded of when you see your own name in a newspaper – it jumps out at you because it is so familiar yet unexpected.

‘Blue!’ Alison called across the lobby.

We don’t learn his name until the fourth paragraph. Being an Australian story, it is only natural that a man with red hair is called ‘Blue’. The predictability is amusing, and lends a local flavour.

When Blue’s wife corrects Alison (he’s now known as ‘Philip’) we learn – at the same point Alison does – that the wife is not about to be friendly.

‘The wife offered her hand, limply. It was thin: a smooth, fashionable claw, encrusted with various configurations of cold metal and precious stone.’

The ‘cold’ metal reflects Alison’s attitude towards this woman. The ‘precious stone’ indicates wealth, and is a symbol of her relationship with Philip. For some reason, adverbs tacked onto the end of a sentence (‘limply’) work better for me than if it were worded, ‘The wife limply offered her hand.’ The placement of words emphasises ‘limply’.

‘Blue was not quite so thin’

We haven’t been told the woman is thin, but now we know, in the most economical way that she is, indeed, the thin, fashionable type and that Blue has aged since last time.

‘…still red-haired – source of the nick name that had fallen out of favour…’

It is interesting that Goldsworthy feels it’s necessary to explain the source of the nick name. This goes against other brevity, and I wonder if it’s a concession to non-local readers.

‘Part of her was obviously not yet ready to grant him permission to father children with anyone else.’

This is the when it is confirmed for the reader that Alison and Philip were once together as a couple.

‘ “What are you doing here?” Blue asked. (Because it’s from Alisons’ point of view, the reader, too, knows him as ‘Blue’ rather than ‘Philip’.

‘“Seeing Brian off. To Sydney, for a conference.”

“Brian?”

We know several other things by now. That Alison is not comfortable with children, and therefore doesn’t have her own. That she has another man in her life, and that he will be a background figure in this particular story. The characters are unfolding at a natural pace; if the reader were standing beside this little group of people in an airport lobby, we’d see for ourselves exactly what was going on. The writing places us there.

Next, we have a little back story, just enough:

‘He also remembered her as he had last seen her, frozen in that time, that place. There were still things in the air between them, she realised; a faint perfume of accusation, and guilt. There had been no clean break, after all; more a slow rending, a long, jagged tear.’

‘“Brian is my hubby,” she said, using the ridiculous word for some reason she couldn’t identify.’

This is an economical way of summing up Alison’s relationship with Brian – or at least, the way she feels about him right now. ‘Hubby’ is a cutesy, comfortable word and she feels more distant from her husband than the term of endearment implies.

The story is divided into mini-chapters, which goes under the radar for a reader, and is a very effective way of jumping to another time and place. Chapter 2 takes us out of the airport and drops us in Alison’s dining room. This ‘chaptering’ technique is useful even in a very short piece and allows the writer to teleport readers from place to place with no further explanation of how they got there (which is always boring).

‘Suzi had brought flowers: a clutch of flowers that spilled upwards and outwards from a vase on the far end of the table.’

Although the wife has brought flowers, she has only brought them because it is a social nicety, not because she has arranged them with any care. A ‘clutch of flowers’ is an original collective noun which suggests she held the bunch in her fist – an extended metaphor on Suzi’s cold hands. The daffodils ‘spill’ upwards and outwards; the verb is apt and reinforces the lackadaisical attitude towards the gesture. Alison obviously understands the gesture for what it is; she has placed them at ‘the far end’ of her table.

Alison wears frumpy gardening clothes so that she won’t pose a threat to the wife. This endears her to me as the reader; she is past competing, or at least, making an effort for Suzi’s benefit. In this one detail, Goldsworthy says a lot about competition between women.

But then: ‘She suddenly wished he had dressed up a bit.’ Alison’s intentions to remain aloof from her former lover were noble, but in this one wish the reader understands that she still has feelings for him.

After a few wines, the atmosphere changes.

‘“What went wrong, Blue?” She held his pale gaze a moment too long.’

‘He increased the pressure of his leg: “Nothing that I remember. I guess that we should still be together.”’

I feel a little empathy for Suzi now:

‘Suzi chortled, secure in her girl-charms: “Don’t let me stand in your way.”’

The reader knows from the narrator’s explanation of Alison’s feelings towards Blue, that Suzi should not be secure in her girl-charms.

Sure enough, he follows his former girlfriend into the kitchen and makes a clear move. That night, she calls her husband and uses him ‘for the first time ever as a sexual surrogate’.

The re-emergence of a former lover has already changed the relationship between Suzi and her partner.

Chapter 3 indicates another time in the same place: Alison’s table. The mood is completely different, which is actually emphasised by the fact that they’re sitting at the same places as the night before. We presume Blue has come round for sex but it feels wrong in the cold, harsh light of day.

This is when we hear more of the back story. If all that about the soap and the poetry book had been introduced at the beginning of the story we wouldn’t have known the characters well enough to care about it. But now we are wondering what happened for these characters to split up acrimoniously and it is explained through a careful balance of dialogue and narrative.

It is telling that Alison has bought another book of poetry for her former lover: presumably the same one, with the same inscription. We don’t know what the inscription says – it is better if it is left to our imagination – I would feel like too much of a nosey parker if I were told. What is left off the page is as important as what is included.

‘His eyes slid away from hers, sheepishly, before he added: “You can’t be too careful.”’

Blue has parked around the corner so Suzi won’t suspect he has visited Alison.

And the epiphanic moment of this short story:

‘She suddenly wished she’d been more friendly to Suzi, less jealous, more sympathetic.’

‘But then surely Suzi already knew’ (about her husband’s infidelities).

This suggests that Alison, too, knew of Blue’s philandering even while they were together. This has been foreshadowed several paragraphs earlier with:

‘Apologising had never been a problem for him. If he was wrong, he accepted it easily. She had loved this at first: she had never seen it in other men. But later… Well, he was so often wrong.’

And that sentence sums up the character building in this short story: none of the three characters are flat. Sympathy for each of them waxes and wanes over the course of events. Blue is both loving and cruel. Suzi is both distant and warm; a figure of envy, a figure to pity. Alison’s conflicted emotions are explored in great detail, as she makes her way through the chance reunion. Finally:

‘Goodbye, Philip,” she said, offering only her cheek.

She now calls him Philip, turning her back on their past history and his past nick name. She has moved on in her head, and the story has finished.

When it comes to short stories, get in and get out. This one is a perfect example. Superb.

A Character Sketch

This piece of writing will be a description in depth of a person you feel very strongly about and know a lot about. Choose some individual that you have an intense personal reaction to: love, respect, hate, frustration, envy, anger or distrust. (Or a combination of all of these.) Your task is to draw a portrait of him or her in words so that the person and your thoughts and feelings emerge.
To get started, close your eyes and visualise a person you know well. Imagine you are describing this person to a stranger who doesn’t know him or her. Now think a bit about the kinds of behaviour that have given rise to this generalisation: what has this person done or said that has made you decide he/she has this characteristic? List these behaviours. This is an exercise in showing, not telling:

Showing: ‘Lockie lay on his bed getting up a sweat, or went out walking around the swampy drains behind the house. He played his Van Halen tapes and stood in front of the mirror with his tennis raquet, giving it vibrato and thrash chords and feedback to forget his troubles.

- from Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo by Tim Winton

Telling: ‘Lockie liked to walk. He also liked music and tennis and tended to get bored.

Showing: ‘Nan’s view of the physical world was a deeply personal one. And when she wasn’t outside chopping wood or raking leaves, she was observing the weather. Her concern with atmospheric conditions was based on a rather pessimistic view of the frequency of natural
disasters. Even though she avidly listened to weather reports on the radio, she never put her complete faith in any meteorologist’s opinion. Nana knew their predictions weren’t as predictable as her own. Daily, she checked the sky, the clouds, the wind, and on particularly still days, the reactions of our animals. Sometimes, she would sit up half the night, checking on a movement of a particular star, or pondering the meaning of a new colour she’d seen in the sky at sunset.

- from My Place by Sally Morgan

Telling: Nan was very connected to nature and took a deep interest in weather reports, animals and stars.

Common Ways of Revealing Character:

1. Describe the character’s appearance: facial features, body shape, hair style etc. Try to describe the things that are not immediately
apparent. (Perhaps steer clear of eye-colour, unless it’s important. Perhaps the teeth reveal more about a character’s level of income and
age than whether they have blue or brown eyes. Definitely avoid the cliché of green eyes to make the character seem special.)

2. Have the character behave in a typical or revealing situation so that the actions tell us something about the person.

3. Give us access to the character’s thoughts. Perhaps have the character think out loud so that the reader knows the character’s attitudes, wishes, desires etc. This is the advantage of the written word over the screen and it pays to make the most of it.

4. Have other characters respond to or speak about him/her. What would they say? Even if there are no other characters in your story, the
narrator (you, the story teller) functions as a character, with a personality of your own. You will know different things about this character depending on your relationship with him/her.

5. Make the character talk to another character, or think out-loud. What does the word-choice and syntax show us about him/her?

6. Are there any items that would be associated with your character. E.g. a pipe, broken spectacles, Dolce & Gabana sunglasses…

7. Where would you be most likely to find this character? In his shed? In her kitchen? At work? A person’s environment says a lot. What does she have hanging on the walls? Is his bedroom messy or tidy? What would she put in her handbag? What would he have in his pockets?

Download

A CHARACTER SKETCH (word version, feel free to modify)

A CHARACTER SKETCH (pdf)

Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden

***

TOMORROW WHEN THE WAR BEGAN PRE-READING QUESTIONS (for NZ students, anyway)

How many wars has New Zealand been involved in during the last 50 years?

1. The Cold War (1950 to 1953)
2. Korean War (1949)
3. Malayan Emergency (1960)
4. Vietnam War (1965 and 1971)
5. September 11 Attacks (2001)

Was there any warning before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre Towers in New York? (September 2001)

Are there any civil defence guidelines for what to do if New Zealand was attacked by another country?

Where is East Timor, who invaded it in 1975, and what was New Zealand’s response to this invasion?

***

TIME LINE FOR TOMORROW WHEN THE WAR BEGAN

The narrator says that Robyn told her to write everything down.	Ellie decides to go camping up in Hell.
The narrator introduces us to the members of the group.	The group drives to Tailor’s Stitch in the Landrover.
The group set up camp in Hell.	They find a snake in a sleeping-bag.
Ellie sees waves of jets flying overhead.	The group heads back to Ellie’s house in Wirrawee
The group goes to Homer’s and Corrie’s houses	They decide to go into town later that night to see what is happening
Ellie, Corrie and Kevin see people being held in tents at the showgrounds.	They get trapped in Mrs Alexander’s back yard.
Ellie blows up three soldiers with a ride-on lawn mower.	Robyn and Lee don’t return from town.
The group makes plans to load up the vehicles and head to the shearer’s quarters.	A helicopter circles the house, sees Flip and signals a jet to blow up Corrie’s house.
They find Robyn in her own house, although she was meant to wait on the hill.	They return to rescue Lee from the restaurant and destroy several vehicles on the way out.
They find Chris (in his pyjamas) after rolling the car into the dam.	They carry Lee back to Hell.
Ellie finds the Hermit’s hut.	The group reads some documents they found in the Hermit’s hut.
The group decides to do something to slow the enemy down.	Fi and Ellie steal a petrol tanker and Ellie drives it to a secure location.
Homer drives the cattle over the bridge using a camera flash to scare the cattle.	The tanker blows up the bridge.
We learn that Corrie has been shot.	Kevin and Corrie leave the group for good.
Author’s note: John Marsden tells us that the story is based, in part, on real events

CUT THE PIECES UP THEN STICK THEM ONTO A PIECE OF PAPER IN THE CORRECT ORDER.

***

Describe an important idea dealt with in the text.

Explain why this idea is important.

INTRODUCTION

An important idea described in the novel by John Marsden, Tomorrow When the War Began, is the idea of growing up through adversity.  All the main characters in the novel change over the course of events in the story, and in particular, the character Ellie, who starts off as an ordinary rural Australian teenager, and ends up a more mature, introspective adult.  Ellie’s growth as a character is important because Marsden hopes she will be an important role model for the novel’s teenage audience.

PARAGRAPH ONE

-         Explain how she is at the start of the novel

-         Find a quote to show she is an ordinary teenager

-         Make reference also to the teenagers’ comments about the Hermit, and how they think he must be terrible because he killed his own family.

-         Finally in this paragraph, explain how this is related to the fact that at this stage of the novel they see things in black in white.  They don’t see shades of grey, and how it might be right to kill others in some circumstances.  Explain that this part of the book is important because the teenagers seem familiar to the audience, and we can identify with them.  Hopefully, we will grow with them as the book progresses.

PARAGRAPH TWO

-         Compare this to an incident part way through the novel when they are way out of their comfort zones, doing things they never thought they could do. (You choose the incident, perhaps the lawnmower one.)

-         Explain that the setting is important here because if it weren’t an isolated, rural area, help would be readily available and they wouldn’t have the opportunity to show what they are capable of.

-         Explain that one of the reasons Marsden wrote the series was to show that under difficult circumstances, teenagers can shine.  And that this incident demonstrated the teenagers doing exactly that.  This idea is important because it helps the teenage audience feel strong and capable.  Teenagers in this book are capable and valued.

PARAGRAPH THREE

-         Now pick an incident near the end of the book (eg. the bridge incident)

-         Include a quote to show that Ellie is now a much more introspective character.

-         Explain that through the narrator of Ellie comes Marsden’s voice, and he is inviting us to think about things that we may not have thought of before (eg equality between Australia and the invaders), whether it is right to kill in some circumstances and not in others.  By having Ellie as a reflective character, and seeing her change, Marsden is triggering change in the readers, too.

CONCLUSION

The idea of personal development through adversity is linked to other, thought-provoking ideas in Tomorrow When the War Began.  Marsden’s point is that it is not until teenagers go through tough times that we fully understand the shades of gray surrounding some issues.  He hopes that his narrator Ellie will be a model for teenagers reading the book, who reflect on issues carefully, and perhaps become more open-minded for doing so.

***

ANALYSIS OF AN ‘EXCELLENCE’ ESSAY (NCEA level one)

Describe an important character in the text.  Explain why he/she is important.

Tomorrow When the War Began – John Marsden

An important character in this novel is Ellie and she is important because she shows how human beings can adapt to their circumstances. She was forced into a war situation and faced adversity which forced her to adapt and mature.

Ellie began life as a rural teenager. She lived on a farm and her life consisted of school, friends and family. She was sheltered: “Our lives had always been so unaffected by the outside world.”  She loved “being a rural” and had little pressure other than to milk cows. Despite this gentle lifestyle I gained an impression early on in the novel that Ellie is an intelligent leader being confident in herself and showing strengths of character. This is further shown when Ellie and her friends were thrust into a volatile war. Ellie was forced to kill three soldiers in order to save herself and her two friends: “This is war now and normal rules don’t apply.”

We see Ellie being reflective and realising that she had special qualities. “It was hard for me to believe that I, plain old Ellie; nothing about me, middle of the road in every way; had probably just killed three people.”  She questions her motives and eventually accepts her situation. We see her able to make adult decisions.  “I stopped being a normal teenager and began to become someone else.”  Ellie’s important because she shows that within us all are qualities that emerge only when circumstances change. Human beings can adapt to almost all situations showing a courage and an ability to cope with adverse circumstances. Ellie is important because she shows the complexity of human nature and our ability to reflect on our lives.

1. What exact words did the student use to answer the question in the first paragraph?
2. What is the reason given for the character’s importance?
3. What is said about Ellie’s character early in the novel?
4. What example from the novel backs it up?
5. What change has the student noticed in Ellie over the course of the novel?
6. What evidence is given for this change?
7. How is the essay concluded?

***

TOMORROW WHEN THE WAR BEGAN QUIZ COMPETITION

Answer all the following questions before any other group…

1.        What is the narrator’s name?

2.        Who lived in Hell before the group did?

3.        What game did Homer invent in Year 8?

4.        How did the group get to hell?

5.        Who had to stay at home and work on the farm?

6.        What is the name of the town they live in?

7.        What public holiday was the country celebrating?

8.        Who has Thai and Vietnamese parents?

9.        Who does Homer develop a liking for?

10.     What was in the sleeping bag?

11.     What happened when Ellie went to the toilet at night?

12.     What was the first indication that something was wrong at the farm?

13.     What is Homer’s surname?

14.     Whose parents write a note to the kids?

15.     Where was everyone being held?

16.     What is Ellie’s ex-boyfriend’s name?

17.     What had been happening at the show grounds before the kids left?

18.     How does Corrie hurt her leg when they are chased from the showgrounds?

19.     Where did they get trapped?

20.     How did they get away?

21.     Who gets separated from Ellie and the others?

22.     Where do they meet after going into the showgrounds?

23.     What is Homer’s ethnicity?

24.     After coming back from town the first time, where do they initially plan to hide?

25.     Where do they keep a lookout?

26.     Where did Homer and Fi hide?

27.     What do Ellie Corrie and Homer see while on look-out?

28.     What happens to the family photos?

29.     What makes the soldiers in the helicopter suspicious?

30.     What happened to Corrie’s house?

31.     Where do they find Lee and Robyn?

32.     Who did Robyn and Lee meet in the town?

33.     What had happened to Lee?

34.     Where was Lee hidden?

35.     How do they get Lee out?

36.     Where do they get it from?

37.     What kind of car does Homer pick them up in?

38.     What do they eventually do to it?

39.     What happens immediately after this?

40.     How did Lee get back to Hell?

41.     What ritual did Corrie have in Hell?

42.     When listening to the radio, which country do the children hear refusing to help?

43.     Who can butcher the feral animals they catch?

44.     Where do the pairs plan to have their base when they go back into Wirrawee?

45.     What was the title of the half a book they found in the Hermit’s hut?

46.     What was the Hermit’s name?

47.     How did his wife and child die?

48.     What had Chris “souvenired” from town?

49.     How did Homer scare the cattle?

50.     Who drove the petrol tanker?

***

JOHN MARSDEN: WRITING THE WAR

(Sorry, I don’t know where to get this but a copy might be lurking around various English department resource rooms, on VHS)

Watch the video and answer the following questions.

THEME

What gets Marsden angry about teenagers?

INFLUENCES

What did Marsden want to show in “Tomorrow”?

SETTING

Why was it important for the book to be set in a rural area?

TARGET AUDIENCE

Who is the target audience?

PLANNING

How does Marsden write?

What had Marsden decided about the plot before he started writing?

What person does Marsden like to write in?

VOICE

When does Marsden know that he has ‘grasped’ the essence of a character?

What does every character have to have?

What does Ellie reflect on?

OTHER CHARACTERS

How does Marsden bring other characters to life?

What example does he give?

STATUS

What do characters in any novel have to do?

What is a typical way in which they do this?

What examples are given?

-         Kevin

-         Homer

HARD TIMES

What has to happen for change?

What does the writer need to do to make characters suffer?

HELL

Why did Marsden use the setting of Hell to launch the story?

Why did he call it Hell?

THE HERMIT SUBPLOT

What is the main similarity between the main plot and the hermit subplot?

How does Marsden show the similarity symbolically?

What do the rotting wood and rose symbolise?

BACKGROUND DETAIL

What three things does a writer need to be conscious of all the time they are writing?

FOREGROUND

What is the foreground for?

How does a writer create a good main story?

RELATIONSHIPS

What does a book need apart from action?

HUMOUR

Why is humour important?

REFLECTION

What does reflection mean?

WHO ARE THE INVADERS?

Why is Marsden careful not to identify the invaders?

1.

2.

MARKETING

Why does Marsden like to take more responsibility for the marketing than many authors?

FINALLY

What is Ellie’s comment about story telling?

***

Character Activity in groups OHP

Ellie quotes and cloze exercise

Write Your Own Urban Legend – lesson plan

Teenage girls really enjoy this one. Make sure you pick the right group of kids to do this with. (And the right school.)

AIM: Students will create an original story as an homage to a classic urban legend. (Note: It is tempting for students to rewrite the same old legend. You may find it works better for students to write a short excerpt only, as practice using language rather than practice structuring plot. Or you may specify that the ending must be different.) Even better, the more creative students will come up with their own, original legends. That’s ideal. The others, at least, have somewhere to start and can’t moan about not having any ideas.

2 HOURS + HOMEWORK TIME or 3 HOURS IN CLASS

MATERIALS: A class set of urban legends.  (About 10 different legends for a class of 30.)

A short urban legend of the horror genre. These are readily available on the web. See Snopes.com for some great examples. These are American, and may need to be picked more judiciously outside America, as some are more popular internationally than others. I like:

• The Vanishing Hitchhiker
• The Babysitting Urban Myth
• Man in the Back of the Car
• Buried Alive

OHP (or the modern equivalent!) of a short excerpt from the horror story

Creepy background music

LESSON ONE:

Teacher reads a short horror story.

Class brainstorms what sort of things scare them.

Individuals may share any experiences they have had where they felt scared.  (Teacher start by talking about own experiences).  Talk in pairs.  Share the best ones as a class.

Show OHP of excerpt from Horror Story.  Teacher leads a discussion of the language (short sentences at point of climax, emotive language, structure of an urban legend).

Near the end of the first period, teacher distributes Urban Legends to individuals.  Individuals read in silence without talking to next door neighbour.  They are given guidelines about how to write a short story based on the legend:

1. You can rely on as little or as much material in the urban legend given to you as you like.
2. You can change any detail and add any detail to make it a better story.
3. You can choose to make the ending positive or funny but it must aim to make the readers scared.
4. One part of the story must contain a very descriptive atmosphere that makes the readers’ hair stand on end.  You must make use of all five senses:
   1. Sight
   2. Touch
   3. Hearing
   4. Smell
   5. Taste
5. You may like to include experiences you have had yourself.
6. You may like to make the setting your own part of the world – not America or elsewhere.
7. Include at least one scary character.
8. Decide before you begin whether you are going to write in first, second or third person.

LESSON TWO:

Whilst listening to atmospheric music (or not) students write their own story.

Showing Not Telling – a writing exercise

Examples of Showing Not Telling (click to download the Word file)

SHOWING NOT TELLING

Telling: The girls were excited.

Showing: Giggles and screams filled the arena. The soft curls were now damp with perspiration and the anticipation of the event. They held tight to each other in a mock effort to contain themselves. Arms flailed upward, and voices echoed in varying tones. The moment was here.

Telling: The room was vacant.

Showing: The door opened with a resounding echo that seemed to fill the house. Cob webs once attached flowed freely in the air as the open door brought light to a well worn floor. The light gave notice to the peeling paint on the walls and to the silhouettes once covered by pictures. The new air gave life to a stuffiness that entrapped the room. Faded and torn white sheets covered once new furniture now drowning in dust.

Converting telling writing to showing writing: from sentences to paragraphs and beyond. Choose one telling sentence from below and expand to a showing paragraph or other short genre of writing.

• I am nervous.
• It was a day unlike any other day.
• The sunset was surreal.
• The story hit a nerve.

The pizza was delicious.

Steam rising up off the melted cheese made my mouth water. The first bite, my teeth sinking into the cheese through the tomato sauce and into the moist crust, made me chew and swallow rapidly. Even the cheese and tomato sauce, sticking to my fingertips, begged to be licked.

He is angry.

Sitting at his desk, his jaw tightened. His eyes flashed heat waves at me. The words erupted from his mouth, “I want to talk to you after class.” The final hiss in his voice warned me about his feelings.

The morning was beautiful.

Behind the mountains, the sun peaked brightly, ready to start a new day. The blue sky remained silent yet showed signs of sadness. The wind whispered through the trees as the cheerful sun rose. The birds sang gently by my window as if they wanted to wake me up.

The coffee was enjoyable.

She cradled the mug in both hands and leaned her head over it in the rising steam. Pursing her lips, she blew softly over the clouded surface and let her eyelids drop. Her shoulders rose slightly as she breathed in, and she hummed with her head low. I lifted the tiny porcelain pitcher and poured a brief rotating arch of white into the black depths of my own cup. She opened her eyes, and we looked at each other across the table without speaking.

Of course, there are times when telling is better than showing. Too much showing will slow down the pace. Sometimes you want that; sometimes you don’t.

Describe a Place – objective/subjective activity

Objective = Undistorted by emotion or personal bias; based on observable phenomena

Subjective = Taking place within the mind and modified by individual bias

Think of a place that you know well.  For example:

-         your grandmother’s kitchen

-         your bedroom

-         your treehut

-         your family’s camping spot

-         a bach you go to in the summer

Now jot down anything you can think of, under the appropriate heading.  Don’t worry too much about whether it is objective or subjective – if in doubt, put it under the subjective column.

THE HOLIDAY HOUSE
OBJECTIVE	SUBJECTIVE
There is a large deck which looks out onto the sea.	The sea is a beautiful green colour.
In the summer time you can open up the ranch sliders and let the cool air flow through.	The mozzies are really annoying.

Three Points of View – a creative writing exercise

1. Picture a river. It can be a river you’ve been to, or one you’ve seen in a picture, or one you just made up.

2. Write a description of the river from the point of view of an old man who has just lost something very important to him. Do not mention either the old man (or any other character) or the thing he has lost.

3. Write a description of the river from the point of view of a young man about to be married. Again, do not mention characters or the upcoming wedding.

4. Write a description of the river from the point of view of the young man’s mother, again without mentioning characters or events.

Notes: The aim of this exercise is to show how you can communicate mood, feelings like sorrow or excitement, and individual characters’ voices purely through the description of a place. Even though you can’t mention the characters or what is happening to them, you can use the details they notice and the language they choose to show their inner state.

AFTER YOU HAVE FINISHED, READ ONE OF YOUR DESCRIPTIONS TO YOUR NEIGHBOUR.

Your neighbour should be able to guess which of the three viewpoints you are writing from.

My Mate the Weirdo Magnet

I have a friend who seems to attract all manner of weirdos. Luckily for me, I get great joy hearing about his strange human interactions. While we were at teachers’ college we had to visit various parts of the country to practise teaching in a variety of government schools. Sometimes we were sent to tiny little insulated towns, and none of us had any choice in the matter. In these towns, accommodation was scant and we had to stay where they put us.

Anyway, my friend ended up lodging for six weeks with a stingy elderly couple who seemed to attend a helluva lot of funerals. He concluded they must be professional mourners, as they didn’t seem particularly bereaved after any of them.

“How was the funeral?” she asked after tea.

“Not bad,” he replied.  “It coulda been me.

Dressed up to the nines, flat out in his box,

lookin’ like punch, the sly old fox.”

“How was the spread?” she enquired once more.

“The cakes weren’t bad.  I had about four.

I’d have brought you some home, dear,

but there weren’t any more.”

“Good turn-out then, was it?” she asked, slightly miffed.

“Not bad.  There was plenty, but it all seemed to shift.”

She turned to the telly and said, “Fetch the paper.

If there’s anything on I’ll join you tomorrow.”

He slipped on his glasses and flicked to the back,

“There’s one on at nine.  I might hit the sack.”

“Oh good,” she responded.  “I wonder who for.”

“Dunno”, he replied.  “But he won’t mind two more.”

As for me, I attract fundamentalist Christians whenever I park myself in a public place. Welcome to my blog, fundamentalist Christians. Yeah, I know. I’m going to hell.