(Josie Sayz: This was originally my final
piece for my ‘Teaching Writing’ module at university. It’s loosely based of my
TPOTK story series that I am working on - it is very special to me. I have spent the day editing it (thank you to the coffee shop, I sat in all day, for letting me stay with only buying two hot chocolates, a toasted tea cake and a having a free glass of water) and
adding new pieces and updating my writing style. Although it’s just a bit of
fun, maybe it will help/inspire someone to write their own novel one day.)
How effective are self-teach books/websites at teaching people how
to write a novel?
Steve’s
heart hammered in his chest as he waited outside an empty classroom. Running a
hand across the back of his neck, his eyes twitched from left to right. A sigh
escaped him. He was alone. Shuffling forward, he peered out of the window that
looked down onto the quad. Bodies bustled about below. He hoped that with
everyone down there, getting ready to go home, no one would think to wander the
corridors after school had finished on a Friday.
He was not worried about losing his popularity by being
called a geek for extra studying – he did not care about that. What caused the
trembling in his chest was a member of the basketball team spotting him and
teasing him in practice next week for having skived practise to be taught how
to turn his play into a story. ‘They’d call me a pansy for weeks,’ he grimaced.
‘Weeks?’ he winced, while he waited. ‘I’ll never hear the end of it.’ Tapping
his foot, he ran his hand through his hair. ‘Where are they?’ he panicked,
throwing his head over his shoulder. ‘And why are they keeping me waiting so
long?’ Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Steve started pacing the corridor of
English classrooms. What excuse could he use this time to get himself out of
trouble for loitering in the corridor at the end of the school day? He was not
spying – not this time. He was just waiting… but for what, he was unsure.
The last time Mr. Trinity caught him loitering in the corridors
after the teaching day was through, Steve was threatened with detention. “But I’m
not doing anything,” Steve had protested.
“Nonsense,” Mr. Trinity spat, reaching into his inner
jacket pocket for his pad of daffodil-coloured detention slips. “You students
are always up to no good.”
“Kimi comes out of Art club any minute,” Steve told his
Deputy-Head of Year. “I’m just waiting for her.”
“Argh,” beamed Mr. Trinity, lowering the detention slips. “Waiting
for your girlfriend, how sweet.”
“You know we’re just friends,” Steve sighed, rolling is
eyes. “We have this discussion every time.”
“Arh, but you see boy,” Mr. Trinity grinned, clicking the
top of his pen. “If she is, you are being a chivalrous gentleman, in waiting to
escort your lady home. However, if she is not,” he warned, as he pressed
his pen to paper. “You have no reason to be loitering. So be gone boy.”
“B-but-” Steve stuttered with a frown. “That’s stupid.”
“Stupid, you say,” raged Mr. Trinity, scribbling on his crisp,
new parchment stack. “Well that’s a week’s detention for you,” he grinned,
tearing the detention slip from the pad and handing it to Steve.
“Yes Sir,” Steve muttered, taking the slip and stuffing it
into his pocket.
Hearing a floorboard creak behind him, Steve stomach spun
around in a circumbendibus. His heart hammered in his ribcage. Throwing his
head over his shoulder, Steve gasped. “Lilah!” he blurted as his heart flopped
to his stomach, seeing his friend in front of him. “Don’t sneak up on me like
that.” Sniggering, Lilah decided against arguing. “I thought you were Mr.
Trinity,” he told her, scraping a hand through his hair.
“Come on,” Lilah said, fiddling with a keyring full of
keys, “We’ve only got Miss Caring’s classroom for an hour – until she comes out
of detention duty,” she explained, as she unlocked the door that Steve had been
stood outside. “And don’t worry about Mr. Trinity,” Lilah added with a chuckle.
“He’s on detention duty with Miss Caring.”
“Great,” Steve muttered, dropping his bag to the floor, as
he sat at the nearest desk. “He’ll give me another week’s detention when we
leave.” While Lilah got her laptop out, Steve unzipped his bag and pulled out his
notebook. Sliding his pen out of the spiral comb, he asked, “Where’s Kimi?”
“Still in the library probably,” Lilah shrugged.
“Still?” Steve repeated creasing his brow. Lilah ignored
him as she wandered back to the door to turn on the lights. “You mean she
skipped P.E. again? You know she’s going to get Miss Caring into trouble if she
keeps letting her skip P.E.”
“Well she was doing research to help you with your story,
so I’d be quiet if I were you,” Lilah scolded, as she set her laptop on desk
next to Steve. While it loaded, she threw her bag down on the floor beside her
and shrugged off her blazer. “So we’re turning your play into a piece of
fiction…” Lilah said as she typed in her password.
“Yep,” Steve grinned, leaning on the back two legs of his
chair.
“Hi guys!” sang a familiar voice. She forced her elbow
against the door handle and tapped the door open with her foot. Dropping the
pile of books that she was carrying onto the table, she turned back and closed
the door.
“Woah! What did you do, rob the library?” Steve laughed
examining the pile of books.
“Har, har,” replied Kimi, rolling her eyes.
“No wonder you skipped P.E.,” Steve noted, shaking his head
at the amount of work Kimi was giving him. “They must have taken you forever to
find.” Kimi shrugged.
“Not really,” she muttered. “Seven of them are from eight-hundred-and-eight
point three, one is from eight-hundred-and-eight point zero-two and the other
was eight-hundred-and-eight point zero-four-two of the Dewi Decimal System. The
books are all about how to write a novel or fiction or creative writing in
general.”
Scattering the books across the table Steve glanced at the
covers of each of them in turn. The first was called ‘How not to write a novel’[i].
He smirked, knowing that this book was defiantly Kimi’s choosing. It probably
started off as a joke, before she realised that it was actually useful. Next he
picked up the book ‘Writing a Novel’[ii]
and at first misread the author’s name ‘Braine’ as ‘Brain’. He smirked to
himself, before turning to the next book: ‘Teach Yourself: writing a novel’[iii].
He moved the book on top of the other two before adding ‘How to Write Fiction’[iv]
and ‘The Art of Fiction’[v]
to the pile.
Picking up the next book[vi],
Steve let out an over-exaggerated sigh. “You’re getting me to look at
rewriting, before I’ve even written anything?” he exclaimed as his brow
puckered.
Swiping the book from his hand and adding to the pile,
Kimi told him, “That’s for after you’ve written your story. What?” she added
upon seeing the lines on his forehead furrow even more. “You didn’t expect to
get it right first time, did you?” Steve stuck his tongue out at her and
continued to scowl at her as she grabbed a chair and sat herself down on the
opposite side of the desk him. A smile poked into the corner of her mouth, as
she prodded her elbow into the table and propped her chin on the back of her
hand.
Adverting his gaze from Kimi’s amused expression, Steve added
the last of the books ‘Narrative Fiction’[vii],
‘The Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook’[viii]
and ‘The Creative Writing Coursebook’[ix]
to the pile.
Lilah watched Steve fanned the pages of the ‘The Creative
Writing Coursebook’ with his thumb, the biggest of the books on the pile, and
felt the need to say, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to read the entire books. Kimi and I sorted through
sections that you might find useful, during lunch.”
In
order to make the entire topic of writing a novel easier to teach to Steve, the
girls divided the process up into five sections: Character, Plot, Point-of-View,
Setting and Style. These were the five topics that the girls found were most
referred to in the books and websites that they looked at[x].
As there
was so much information to go through (both online and in books) the girls
decided on a plan to determine which of the information was most useful and
which was not. They decided that the more authors and theorist that wrote about
a certain point/technique, the more likely the point was significant or valid.
If only one author/theorist mentioned a point/technique the girls did not dismiss
it entirely, but considered that it might not be as relevant or important as other
points that were agreed by various authors/theorists.
Taking
a stash of paper out of her bag, Kimi divided them up into three piles. She
handed one to each of her friends and kept the remaining one for herself. Each
pile of papers consisted of five sheets and each sheet was dedicated to one of
the five topics (Character, Plot, Point-of-View, Setting and Style). Kimi and
Lilah had made notes with regard to which information was most useful for each
section, based upon whether many authors/theorists mentioned the same point.
They had also written a bibliography for each section, including the page
numbers and websites where they found their information, so that Steve would
not have to sieve through all of the texts afterwards.
*
To begin their
teaching, Lilah suggested that they should start with Character. “I know you’ve
already come up with your characters, Steve,” Lilah told him, before he could
protest. “But writing about them in a novel is different to writing a list of
character descriptions in a script.” Steve rolled his eyes at her. He was
certain that the girls were just trying to make things difficult for him – they
always were.
Noticing
Steve’s sudden sulkiness, Kimi decided that it was best to start off simple,
before moving on to anything complicate. The last thing that she wanted to do
was to confuse him, especially when they were teaching him how to write a story,
not how to perform brain surgery. She had been writing stories for as long as
she could remember and she had never had a problem with it. “Before we begin
with the advice that most writers tend to give when looking at Character, I just
wanted to point a couple of things that individual writers say that may
actually be useful,” Kimi told her friends. “The first thing is something I
read in ‘The Creative Writing Coursebook’, it says: ‘Without character there is
no story’[xi]. Although no one else
says it, I think that it’s a valid point to make. I mean, without a character,
nothing can happen, can it?” Messing up her fringe, she tried to hide a blush,
as Steve smirked at her. “The other quote that I wanted to mention,” Kimi went
on as she looked down at her Character sheet. “Is from a website that Lilah
found, which said that characters must be memorable[xii].
Again, I thought it was worth mentioning, because all main characters have some
sort of way for the reader to remember them, don’t they? If there isn’t
something significant for the audience to remember about a character, then the
chances are, they aren’t going to remember your character at all and probably
won’t want to carry on reading your story.”
“So
Steve, are your characters memorable?”
asked Lilah with a snigger, glancing over his shoulder at his script that he
had placed beside him. Arching his hand over his masterpiece, Steve prevented
Lilah from spying.
“Well
I’m not likely to forget you guys, am I?” he laughed, nudging Lilah.
“Oow,”
Lilah sang back. “So we’re in your story?”
“Kinda,”
he said with a shrug.
“Making
a character believable is very important,” Kimi projected, trying to gain her
friends attention once more. She waited until they were both looking at her,
before she continued. Looking down at her notes that she had typed up, Kimi had
listed five different books and websites that placed emphasis on believability[xiii].
“‘Teach Yourself’, ‘How To Write Fiction’ and the ‘Rewriting’ books all say
that a believable character must have some sort of human senses or appeal, in
order for them to be connectable with your audience[xiv].”
She looked up to see Steve nodding at her and continued. “However, ‘The Art of
Fiction’ and the ‘How-to-write-a-book-now’ website (that Lilah found) both said
that being consistent with stuff like your character’s actions, appearance and
association is enough to make your character believable[xv].”
“I
think you’ll find that both are equally important,” Lilah added, picking up her
copy of the Character sheet. “Human emotions are the one thing that everyone
can relate to in some way, but if your character’s reactions aren’t consistent,
you’re going to confuse your audience.”
“Makes
sense,” Steve mumbled as he scribbled something down beside Kimi’s notes on his
Character sheet.
“Imagine
if Kimi came to school, having dyed her hair florescent pink, stood on top of
one of the picnic benches in the quad and shouted, “Everybody look at me!”,”
Lilah began, as Steve sniggered. “It’s not very consistent with Kimi’s
personality is it?”
“No,”
Steve laughed, “But I’d pay money to see it.” Blowing a raspberry at her
friends, Kimi folded her arms and sunk in her seat.
Leading
on for Kimi’s point about being believable and her own point about characters
being consistent with their reactions, Lilah pointed out that as a result of
the crises and conflicts in a story, a character’s personality will evolve[xvi].
Therefore a change in consistency of a character’s personality is permissible.
“However,” Lilah warned. “The change in character’s personality will only be
very slight, like he won’t be scared of the dark anymore… or she’s no longer as
naïve… or the main male protagonist is no longer in love with the
girl-next-door type that he’s been chasing for the entire story, but realises he
has feelings for his other friend instead.” After throwing Kimi a daggered glare,
a soft smile fell upon Lilah’s face, as Steve locked eyes with her. “Characters
can change,” she told him. “You just have to make sure that the rest of their traits
are consistent.”
Steve
nodded, “Roger!” saluting her.
Gripping the cuffs of her blazer, Kimi pushed herself to
sit upright, as she continued telling Steve about his story’s characters. “A
lot of sources talk about the importance of knowing your character inside out
too[xvii],”
Kimi told Steve, as she ticked off everything that they had covered so far on
the Character sheet. “You have to be able to be them at any given moment.”
“Is
that why you wear a bow in your hair sometimes?” Steve teased. “Because you’re
trying to be Caitlin from your story.”
“Shut
up,” mumbled Kimi as she sank into her chair, holding her pile of papers up to
her face, so that neither of her friends could see her cheeks reddening.
“There’s
a quote in here that I really like,” Lilah said with excitement, trying to draw
Steve’s attention away from teasing Kimi. She swiped Watts’ ‘Teach Yourself’
book off the mound and wafted it in Steve’s face before flicking through it.
“It says: ‘Real characters will be born only when the author knows them at
least as well as his or her friends’[xviii].”
“Arrh…
that’s why you’re always talking to yourself,” Steve laughed. Lilah tried to
conceal a smirk as she elbowed him. “Your characters are your invisible
friends.”
*
As
Steve’s mood seemed to have improved, Kimi tried to plough onto the next topic.
She also hoped that it would divert his attention back onto the task at hand
and stop him from messing around. “Okay, Plot should be pretty easy,” Kimi said
with a smile, as she ran her key pendant along its necklace chain. “Being as
you’ve already written it; but we thought it was best to include it, since its
one of the five main sections to consider when writing a novel.”
Lilah’s eyes widened, as they moved onto her favourite of
the five topics. “Most of the texts we looked at that covered plot agreed that,
in its most simplest form, plot is where a character has a goal and they go on
a journey to accomplish it[xix],”
Lilah told Steve, as she grabbed Gardner’s ‘The Art of Fiction’ from the book
pile. “Gardner uses a sort of diagram to demonstrate what a plot should
actually look like.” Her sentence trailed as she concentrated on flicking through
the pages to find the diagram. “Here’s the first chart he uses[xx],”
she said, holding out the book towards Steve.
“The upwards sloping
line, ‘b’, represents the plots
continuous upward struggle and the downward line, ‘c’, represents the story’s climax. Then the second chart,” Lilah
turned over the page. “Is what’s known as the ‘Fichtean curve’[xxi],”
she said, showing him the next page.
“Instead of a smooth
upward sloping line, line ‘b’ now has
lots of curves in it. The curves represent the different mini conflicts that
your characters will face along the way that prevent them from completing their
goal straight away. Notice the difference?”
“Yeah…
I think I get it,” Steve said with a slow nod. “Seb and Vincent can’t find the
lost artefacts straight away, otherwise the story would end. That’s why they
get lost, fall out, almost kidnapped and nearly die.”
“Careful,”
Lilah warned with a chuckle. “We don’t want to hear the end before we’ve read
it.”
“Sorry,”
he smiled, running a hand across the back of his neck.
“Even
though Gardner’s the only one who talks about the ‘Fichtean curve’ in the books
we found, Lilah managed to find a few websites that use it[xxii],”
Kimi told him. “I’ve added them to their links to the bottom of the
bibliography on the Plot page.”
With
her Plot sheet now in front of her, Kimi began marking off what they had
covered so far. “What Lilah said about having several sub-conflicts within your
plot kind of links in with what ‘Teach Yourself’ and the ‘Creative Writing
Coursebook’ say about intriguing your reader by raising lots of questions, but
delaying the answers[xxiii],”
Kimi pointed out.
“Yeah,”
Lilah agreed. “Ooh, and while we’re still on Plot, there’s a Latin phrase I
remember finding, I’m sure I wrote it down…” Lilah’s voice trailed off again as
she began searching the list. “Arh, here it is: ‘In Medias Res’. It means ‘in the middle of things’. I only found it
on one of the self-help novel writing websites[xxiv]
that we focused on though. Basically it says that you don’t have to start your
story at the beginning. You could start it part way through and add a little
backstory part way. That way you don’t bore your reader by leading up to the
action, because it starts straight away.” Steve hummed and stared off at the
wall. With his chin in his palm, Steve tapped his fingers against his cheek,
deep in thought. Considering starting his story in the middle of the action, Steve
hummed to himself, before scrunching up his nose. “It’s only a suggestion,” Lilah
blurted out, seeing Steve wrinkle his nose. “I only found the one website that
spoke about it, so it’s not the most reliable. Although I’m sure if you did
more research, you’d find more on it.”
“What
we’ve found out are only guidelines,” Kimi reminded him. “Writers are proving
theorists wrong all the time,” she told him with a soft giggle. “So, do
whatever you think works best for your story.”
*
Now that Steve
appeared to be more focused on what they were teaching, Lilah decided it was time
to move onto something a little more complicated: Point-of-View. “Steve, your
story’s point-of-view is crucial,” Lilah warned him. “Because if your reader
doesn’t like the narrator, then they’re not going to keep reading.”
Flicking
the fringe from his eyes, Steve sat up right and turned in his chair to face
Lilah. “You mean like that farm book they tried to get us to read last year in
English – the one from the point-of-view of that old guy?” he asked, in hope of
clarifying his understanding. “He wasn’t exactly interesting.”
“Yeah,”
Lilah replied. “I guess you could say that.”
“Is
that why someone had to re-sit the
exam?” Kimi teased with a giggle.
“Alright.
We’re not all English boffs, like you,” Steve sighed at her. Kimi stuck her
tongue out at him.
“Alright
you two, enough!” Lilah demanded, folding her arms with a huff. “Now pay
attention Steve,” Lilah scolded, glaring over her laptop screen at Kimi. Steve
had just begun to focus and Lilah did not want him to lose concentration
already. “We found four books earlier and I found a site that all say one of
the first things that you should do before you start writing is decide which
character or characters are going to be the ones who tell the story[xxv].”
“In
‘Rewriting’ it also says that you should consider which character can tell the
story better[xxvi]. So you might want to
look at your script and see which character would give the most interesting or
unique point-of-view to your story,” Kimi added.
Intrigued
by the concept of picking a different character to tell his story, by looking for
the most unique viewpoint, Steve zoned out. Staring ahead at the whiteboard,
Steve’s vision blurred as his mind hopped from character to character. ‘What
difference would it make if I tell it from the supposed villain’s point-of-view?’
he wondered. ‘Or would the all-mighty, all-knowing principle make a better
narrator? But what about the scrawny, unlikely, but likeable hero?’
Upon shuddering
out of his thoughts, Steve realised that Kimi and Lilah had gone on to talk
about the pros and cons of writing a story in first and third person. “We’ve
tried to identify the advantages and disadvantages for both types of viewpoints
for you,” he heard Kimi say.
Kimi
told him the advantages that she had discovered of using a first-person
viewpoint, even though she admitted not being that keen on it herself. “It’s
too restricting for me,” she told her friends. “I like to know what Caitlyn, Peter
and Amalia are feeling whilst interacting with each other – not just how one
character feels. I’d have to write my story three times over otherwise,” Kimi
complained. After her rant, Kimi explained that she had found a number of texts
that agreed that first person perspectives work best, because it forms a close
and trusting bond between the main protagonist and the reader[xxvii].
“Braine and Watts, in particular,” she told Steve, “both discussed how using a
first-person narrative creates a confidence for the reader. They say that the
reader cannot feel cheated, because they know exactly what the main protagonist
knows, and the main protagonist isn’t likely to withhold information from the
reader[xxviii]
or themselves.”
“Good
point,” Steve muttered, as he scribbled notes.
“They
also stated that first-person can be easier to work with, especially for first-time
novel writes, as it prevents multiple viewpoint confusion[xxix],”
Kimi explained. “I guess it depends how confident you feel at writing and
whether you need multiple viewpoints. First-person could be perfect if you find
the right character.”
Having given
Kimi the topic Lilah knew her friend (and herself) disliked, Lilah could not
help but beam, as she led Steve through the disadvantages of writing in
first-person. Placing a hand on Steve’s arm, Lilah stole Steve’s attention from
Kimi, as she began with the information which most writers (and Kimi) agreed
on: first person viewpoint has too many limitations[xxx],
unless the main protagonist is told by another character of events that
occurred during their absence[xxxi].
“For some reason…” Lilah went as she looked up from her notes, “Braine seems to
think that a… hold on, let me quote it… a ‘First-person hero can’t be a memorable
character’[xxxii]. Why’d you write that
down Kimi?” Kimi shrugged and lowered her head, feeling her cheeks heat up.
“I
don’t know,” she mumbled. “I was just proving that not all advice can be
trustworthy. I was trying to throw in a few red herrings for Steve to try and
figure out for himself.”
Lilah
managed to mumble an, “Oh,” before sinking into her seat, pretending to
concentrate on her laptop.
“It’s
okay,” Kimi giggled. “You’ve made me remember something else that Braine said.
Even though I can’t find anyone else to back him up, I think it’s an
interesting point to consider.” Grabbing hold of Braine’s book, Kimi turned to
the page that she had written down in her notes. “He says that if you’re writing
in first-person and your main protagonist is not a novelist, how can he write a book?[xxxiii]
Well he’s right, isn’t he?”
“Well,
yeah, I guess,” Lilah replied with a frown. “I never really thought of it.”
“I get
it,” Steve said, smiling at Kimi, as his foot brushed against hers under the
table. “If you’re main character’s some illiterate fool, he’s not exactly going
to use words like… pulchritudinous.” Pinching his lips
in, Steve’s ears began to burn.
“Steve,”
Lilah sighed. “No one uses words like pulchritudinous.”
“What?”
Steve shrugged. “I guess that’s just me then.” The girls giggled at him.
“What
does it even mean?” asked Kimi. Averting his eyes to the notes on the table,
Steve cleared his throat in a cantankerous manner, hoping that Lilah had not
heard Kimi’s question.
“Hey,”
he said trying to regain their concentration on teaching him how to write a
novel. “What about the advantages and disadvantages of third-person?”
“Okay,”
Lilah muttered, rummaging for a pen in her bag. “Kimi, why don’t you start
again?” she suggested, whilst doodling a flower on Steve’s notes. He smirked
and began scribbling a robot beside it.
A sigh
escaped Kimi as her question went unanswered. Rolling her eyes at her two
friends, she glanced down at her Point-of-View list. Hugging her arms around
herself, she gripped her elbows tight, afraid her friends were mocking her.
With a sniff, Kimi forced a swallow. “Just
like with the advantages to first person,” Kimi told her friends, “There are many
authors that agree that there’s an advantage to using a third-person narrative.
They say it allows the writer to alternate between characters and scenes
(making it more flexible) – which is what I like,” she added, poking up the
right corner of her mouth. “They say that this allows the reader to be
all-knowing[xxxiv], which I think is
important.” Kimi told them that she had found various other reasons for writers
favouring third person viewpoints, but all of them were different, depending on
the writer, which the girls had decided made them more a matter of personal
opinion than reliable.
“So,
what about the disadvantages, Lilah?” Steve asked, as his and Lilah’s original
doodle of a flower and a robot head and turned into a little scene of a male
robot holding out a bouquet of flowers to a female robot.
Lilah
added blushing, rosy cheeks to her female robot, before admitting, “I don’t
think there are any,” with a shrug. “Not any major points anyway, just a few
minor points that most authors agree on,” she added, before Kimi could correct
her. “The only real agreement that I have found on a disadvantage to using a
third-person point-of-view is that it can make the reader feel disengaged,
because they are unable to identify with a specific character[xxxv].
It can also make readers feel confused and disorientated if you change from
different character’s viewpoints too regularly[xxxvi],”
she told Steve, as he gave his robot a six o’clock shadow. “The ‘Teach
Yourself’ book says that if you’re going to keep switching character viewpoints,
then it’s advised that you only switch viewpoints in separate chapters[xxxvii],
so that you don’t confuse your reader.”
“What
do you mean?” asked Steve.
“You
write one chapter about one character and then in the next chapter write about
another,” Kimi told him. “‘Incarceron’ by Catherine Fisher [xxxviii]
is a good book that does that, if you want to read one.”
*
“I remember seeing a
quote in Kaplan’s ‘Rewriting’ book that I think will get us started on
Setting,” Lilah announced. Stretching over Steve, Lilah reached out for the
book pile. Knocking a few books onto Kimi’s lap, Lilah muttered an apology,
while she flicked through the book she was after. “I can’t find anyone else’s
point-of-view on it,” Lilah went on, “but I think it’s pretty true. It says,
‘without a sense of setting, characters can seem ungrounded, floating in limbo’[xxxix].”
“Well
yeah,” Steve agreed. “If I’m putting on a play, the characters have to be
somewhere – like at school or in the park.”
“Exactly,”
smiled Kimi with a nod. “Although, unlike a script, you have to drop hints
throughout the scene to remind the reader of where your characters are to help visualise
what was going on, otherwise they felt lost. You want the reader to visualise
exactly what you picture in your head. They can’t do that unless you show them
what you can see.”
“There’s
another quote that I liked in the ‘Teach Yourself’ book,” Lilah went on,
grabbing another book. Fanning herself with the book’s pages, she searched for
the right place. “I think this sums up what a lot of sources say about setting.
It’s from Robert Louis Stevenson and says: ‘The author must know his
countryside, whether real or imagined, like his hand’[xl],
which basically means when you are writing your story, you have to be aware of
anything and everything… and remember it too, because your reader is likely to
and they’ll question your authority if you make errors[xli].”
“Don’t
worry, Steve,” laughed Kimi, seeing troubled frown upon Steve’s face, following
what Lilah had just said. “I think you’ve got a head start. There are a few
sources that say picturing your story as though it is taking place on a theatre
is useful[xlii], as it helps you, as a
writer, to visualise the scene better. But being as you’ve already written the
script, I’m guessing that you already have an idea as to what the setting will
look like. You just have to put it into words.”
The
creases on Steve’s brow deepened. Biting the inside of his cheek, Steve tapped
his foot against his chair leg. The information that Lilah and Kimi were
filling his brain with was not exactly what he had in mind. He already knew
that he needed to put the image in his mind into words. He was kind of hoping
for a ‘how to’ guide that told him exactly how
to do it.
Further
information that the girls sieved from the texts they had read, was the
importance of selecting specific details in order to paint a better picture for
the audience[xliii], as well as using a
character’s senses[xliv].
Kimi made it clear to him that it was important not to describe to his audience
what was happening, but through his character’s hearing, sight, smell, taste
and touch try to recreate what his character was experiencing[xlv].
“Just think of the musical ‘My Fair Lady’ when Eliza sings, “Don’t tell me,
show me”,” Kimi told him with a giggle.
“Oh
no,” Steve groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re going to start singing that song
again.” Kimi gasped, throwing him a glare at him. “But you sing it all the
time,” Steve whined.
“Then
you shouldn’t have any problems remembering it,” she said with a snide smile.
*
“Last one,” Lilah
sang, as she turned over her pile of notes to the Style sheet. Arching her head
over her shoulder, she turned towards the window. A marmalade glow beamed over
the tops of houses, streaking through the ominous layered, clouded sky. Turning
back to her laptop, Lilah looked at the time. “Not too long left.”
“Finally,”
groaned Steve, as he massaged his temples. “My head hurts.”
“How do
you think we felt finding all this stuff out?” exclaimed Kimi. “I didn’t have
to spend my lunch break and P.E. looking all this up for you,” Kimi warned him.
“I should have been revising.”
“Alright,”
Steve mumbled shrugging. “Look,” he signed. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it,”
he told Kimi, placing his hand near hers. “It’s just a lot to take in.” Glancing
up at him, Kimi prodded the corner of her mouth up.
“Yeah,
now pay attention, because this one was difficult to define,” Lilah warned him.
“None of the theorists seemed to agree and on the web it was even harder. None
of the ‘how to’ sites that I used for writing a novel overall seem to talk
about style and you can’t just do a ‘Google’ search for ‘How to write a novel:
style techniques’ and find something. So, we’re relying on Kimi and her books
on this one,” Lilah told him.
“No
pressure then,” muttered Kimi, rolling her eyes.
Shuffling
her paper about, Kimi stared at the Style page for some time. Her palms grew
sweaty, as she sensed her friends’ eyes staring at her. “As Lilah said,” Kimi
began, twirling a piece of her hair around her finger. “Style is difficult to
define, because everyone writes in different ways. However, there are some
writers who agree on certain tips that might help you out.” Stretched across to
the pile of books that Lilah had created beside her, Kimi kept eye contact with
the table, knowing that her argument sounded weak. Her insides spiralled. She
did not want to let Steve down, knowing that he was counting on her research,
alone, for advice on style. Dropping a collection of books in front of her, she
wiped her damp hands on her skirt, before fanning them out to see each cover.
Her heard raced I her ribcage. “The ‘Teach Yourself’ book, ‘Rewriting’ and Braine’s
‘Writing a Novel’,” she said holding each of them up in turn, “all say to avoid
clichés[xlvi],
because it makes your writing sound amateurish.”
“But I
am an amateur,” argued Steve.
“Yes,”
Lilah hissed. “But you don’t want anyone else to know that, do you?”
“Good
point,” he added with a click of his fingers, before scribbling something down in
his notebook.
“The ‘How
to write fiction’ and ‘Teach Yourself’ books both talk about keeping your
language simple[xlvii], so don’t try to sound
more intellectual than you really are and look up every single word in a thesaurus,”
Kimi giggled. “Just use words that come naturally to you… and none of your
fancy, old-fashioned words that nobody’s ever heard of.” Hearing Steve grumble,
she smirked, messing up her fringe, before moving on to her next point.
“I’m
kind of grouping theories together for this next point that aren’t exactly the
same, but they imply the same thing,” explained Kimi, tracing points on her
Style notes sheet with her purple pen. “Revision: Braine and Watts both suggest
reading your work out loud, so that you can hear how it sounds. If it doesn’t
sound right, then something isn’t working, and you’ll know to revise it[xlviii].
Also, in the ‘Rewriting’ book, Kaplan says that you should reread your work as
you go along and cut out as many unnecessary adjectives as you can. He uses the
sentence ‘the morning sun’s silent rays…’ as an example. You don’t need to know
that the sun’s rays are silent, because it is obvious[xlix],”
Kimi said with sigh of relief, having felt her heart pang throughout most of
her speech. “Might I also suggest cutting out as many adverbs as possible,” she
added.
“What?”
Lilah gasped. “But why?”
“Because
they’re awful,” Kimi laughed, ‘Teach Yourself’ also tells you to not just cut
out unnecessary adjectives, but adverbs too[l].
They’re babyish,” Kimi told her friends. “Rather than say, ‘Peter walked
quietly,’ why not say, ‘Peter crept along the passage.’ Doesn’t it sound better?”
“Yeah,”
Steve grinned. “That’s amazing.”
“Is
not!” Lilah sulked. “Mrs. Kilgetty told us to use as many el-why words as possible
in our writing. She used to stick those little smiley face stickers in my book
every time I used one.”
“Yeah –
that was in primary school,” Kimi scoffed. “You don’t need them. Remember: don’t
tell me show me.”
“I get
it,” Steve nodded as a smile crept onto his face. Looking at Kimi, he said, “Rather
than say Lela smiled at Seb sweetly, you could say every time Lela smiled at
Seb, his stomach fluttered with a million butterflies.” Steve’s ears turned a
deep scarlet, as he continued to gaze at Kimi. “His palms grew sweaty. His
heart raced in his chest. Being next to her felt like a thousand volts of
electricity sparked through his veins.” As Kimi let out a nervous breath, her
cheeks tingled.
“That
was beautiful,” she flushed, scuffing up her fringe. Steve shuddered. Grabbing
his pen, he scribbled in his notebook.
“Thanks,”
he mumbled with a shrug. “Show not tell – that’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…”
Kimi muttered, lowering her head as she pressed the back of her hands to her
cheeks. Confusion flustered her, as she frowned at the Style sheet in front of
her. “Erm… er, finally,” Kimi spluttered. “Kaplan also says that when revising,
remove or replace all repetitious words[li],
to show that you have a varied vocabulary.” Curling her hair behind her ear, Kimi
felt her cheeks burn, as her eyes remained fixed on her text. “But I think you’ve
already got that covered, Steve.”
With
the last point covered, Kimi snapped Kaplan’s book closed, dropping it on the
desk, beside her. “I think that the ‘Teach Yourself’ book definitely covers Style
in more depth,” Kimi stated, glancing at the books that she had sprawled around
her.
“But
don’t go relying entirely one man’s word,” warned Lilah. “I don’t think
there’s anything wrong with adverbs.”
“Just
because I couldn’t find others who agree, doesn’t mean there aren’t any,” Kimi
added snootily, sticking her nose in the air and folding her arms. “If I had
more time and looked through more books and the internet, I bet I could find
you a tonne of people who agree.”
“Okay,
okay,” Lilah sighed, not wanting to get into an argument.
*
While Kimi tidied away
her notes and Lilah shut down her laptop, Steve sat staring at the pile of books
and papers in front of him. Scratching the back of his neck, he swallowed hard.
Stuffing her laptop into her bag, Lilah turned to Steve. “So, do you know what
you’re doing now Steve?”
“Huh?”
he muttered shaking his head. “What d’you say?”
“I
said, do you know what you’re going to write now… have we cleared things up a
little?” she asked him. Steve grunted.
“What
am I supposed to do with all these books?” he asked, still staring at the
collection sprawled across the table. “And all the websites. How do I know
which is most useful overall? Or which ones I only need to take a glance at? I
mean, you girls did a great job at summing stuff up – and I really appreciate
it,” he quickly added, before the girls had a chance to scowl at him. “It’s just,
I can’t keep referring to all of these texts every time I need a little advice.
Aren’t there just a couple of texts that I could be looking at for the time
being, and then, maybe, I could look at the others in more depth as I go
along?”
“Okay,
you want some reading to start you off?” asked Kimi rhetorically. Steve nodded.
“Let’s see…” Kimi began humming to herself as she sieved through the books. “If
you want a book that’ll help you out in all five categories, I think the ‘Teach
Yourself’ book is the one you really want.” Grabbing the book from the table,
she handed it to Steve. “Most of what it says other writers agree on and it’s pretty
thorough. The language which it uses is
simple and easy to understand too. It’s got an easy to use contents page and it
has an index, so I’d say that book’s a definite keeper.” Taking the book from
Kimi’s hands Steve nodded and smiled.
“The ‘Creative
Writing Coursebook’ is fairly good at what it does too,” Lilah told him, as she
reached out for the chunkiest of the books. “I wouldn’t bother reading it from
cover to cover though,” she warned. “But what it says about Character, Plot,
Point-of-View and Setting isn’t all bad,” she added with a shrug. Flicking
through the book she said to Steve, “I think you’ll find the introductions to
the sections most useful if you just want a quick brief on what to do, but its
contents page is quite good, so you shouldn’t have a problem there. It doesn’t
have an index though, which I think is a bit of a shame.”
“This
one,” Kimi said as she leant across the table to pick up Graham’s ‘How To Write
Fiction’ book. “Wasn’t too bad overall either. True, not all of the things that
were said were similar to other writers, so it’s no necessarily as effective at
telling you how to write a novel as the ‘Teach Yourself’ book, but it does
cover all five categories and it’s an alright book to follow.” She handed Steve
the book, before grabbing another. “Now Braine’s ‘Writing a Novel’ is fine if
you’re looking at Point-of-View, but I wouldn’t use him, really, for anything
else,” Kimi admitted. “His ideas when it comes to the other categories aren’t
exactly stuff that we’ve come across by other theorists. And it’s a bit of a
dry read, with a not very clear contents and no index.” She stuffed the book
away in her backpack and reached out for the next. “‘Narrative Fiction’ was a
bit of a dry read too, but the Character and Setting chapters aren’t too bad if
you want to skim over them at some point, but again, I wouldn’t rely entirely
on what it has to say. That one wasn’t particularly great either,” she said
pointing at ‘The Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook’. “I mean, it mentions
Character and Plot and it explains stuff well, but it’s more about getting to
grips with different types of fiction and storyworlds than learning to write a
novel.”
Picking
up the last of the books, Kimi fanned the pages. “This book really good with
the advice and examples that it gives,” explained Kimi, as she kept eye contact
with ‘The Art of Fiction’s front cover. “A lot of what it says other writers
agree with. In fact, a lot of what it says other writers use and quote from;
however,” she added, looking up at Steve. “It takes a lot more concentration to
get your head around what it’s saying sometimes. I would recommend reading it –
definitely… but maybe not just yet.” She smiled as she brought the book to her
chest, before deciding on placing it in her bag.
With
Kimi finished with defining which books were more effective, Lilah brushed her
hair out of her face, before giving Steve her overall opinion of the websites
which she had found. “The website that I think was most effective, in its
overall guide, for how to write a novel was ‘Novel-Writing-Help dot com’ –
except its weaknesses is Style and some of what it says here and there is just
a matter of personal opinion. ‘The Writer’s Workshop’ isn’t bad either, except
it lacks credibility in Character and Style,” Lilah explained. Steve turned to
her and nodded, scribbling a star besides the websites that she mentioned.
“The
other websites,” Lilah went on. “Are really just good in one particular area.
‘Fiction Writers’ Mentor’ was really good with what it had to say about
Point-of-View, but that’s it. The ‘How to Create Characters that are Believable
and Memorable’ was good for Character and the ‘Writing a Mystery that Matters’
blog was good for Plot, but again, everything else was just opinion really…
that seems to be the problem with websites, they’re highly opinionated.”
“Probably
because their amateur writers too, just trying to make a bit of money,” Kimi
scoffed.
“True,”
laughed Lilah. “But some of the stuff’s useful. Just stick to the stuff that
we’ve highlighted, Steve, and you’ll be fine. Even in books a lot of what
people say is all opinion,” Lilah added, after noticing Steve’s apprehensive
glance.
“I
think a lot of the time that’s the problem with creative writing self-help
books and websites,” Kimi said as she sat on the desk beside Steve. “A lot of
what people say is just a matter of their personal opinion depending on the
types of fiction that they like to read and write. You can always give people
plenty of advice on what to do and what not to do, but there will always be
someone who takes the rules and turns them completely on their head and ends
out writing a great novel.” Kimi placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled.
Taking her words in, Steve looked up at her and smiled back.
“So
basically Steve,” Lilah added, as she perched on the back of her chair. “I
think that the best piece of advice anyone can give you is practise… and read
lots. By reading, you understand how other authors use the techniques that
we’ve spoken about, and with practise you’ll learn how to use the different
techniques in a way that suits your writing style.”
“No one
can teach you the correct way of writing a novel, Steve,” Kimi told him.
“Because in truth, there is no correct way.”
“Great,”
Steve grumbled, as he clambered out of his chair. “So, I’ve just wasted like an
hour of my life listening to you two babble on for nothing.”
“No,”
Kimi sighed with a giggle, swinging her bag onto her back. “All these theorists
at the end of the day are just people giving pointers as to what they think
works best. But what works for one person might not work for everyone. I mean
take Dave Eggers’ ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’[lii]
for a start, he completely turned the novel on its head! Look,” Kimi sighed,
leaning towards Steve’s line of vision, to make sure that he was paying her
attention. “What I’m trying to say is, don’t let all of this theory stuff get
you down. So longs as you read it and take it on board, you’ll probably find
that it’ll come to you when you need it. All you need to do is write.”
- Josie -
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Setting. In: R. Graham, ed. 2007. How To
Write Fiction (And Think About It). Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, p93;
Watts, p89/93/94.
[xliii] Kaplan, p118/183; Watts, p91/92.
[xliv] Rimmon-Kenen, p67-70; Storymask, 2006. Writing Step3: Creating Your Setting.
[online] Available at: <http://storymask.wordpress.com/2006/08/24/7/>.
[Accessed date: 10 November 2012]; Watts, p91; Wayseeker, 2012. How to Write the Setting for a Story.
[online] Available at: <http://wayseeker.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Write-the-Setting-for-a-Story>.
[Accessed date: 10 November 2012].
[xlv] Kaplan, p177; Magrs, P., 2001. Setting: Introduction.
In: J. Bell & P. Magrs, eds. 2001. The
Creative Writing Coursebook. London: Macmillan, p169; Watts, p90/92.
[xlvi]
Braine, p104; Kaplan, p119; Watts, p102.
[xlvii]
Hurley, U., 2007. Description. In: R. Graham,
ed. 2007. How To Write Fiction (And Think
About It). Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, p175; Watts, p98-9.
[xlviii] Braine, p103; Watts,
p104.
[xlix] Kaplan, p182.
[l] Watts, p100/104.
[li] Kaplan, p189-190.
[lii] Eggers, D., 2007. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
London: Picador.
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