Does the plot connect with the readers?
You need to transport them through your story by the use of the theory of LOCK
L - Lead character
O - Objective (driving force, one dominant objective)
C - Confrontation (there needs to be some sort of confrontation to make the story
interesting. It could be a confrontation within one character even
K - Knockout (the fight to win or lose or overcome the problem)
There needs to be some sort of conflict and some sort of resolution
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Great Quotes
"fiction is just truth with lies" (Writing from Research - coursebook)
"childhood's senior citizen" (Writing from Research - coursebook)
(The Child that Books Built)
"Research liberates your fiction"
"childhood's senior citizen" (Writing from Research - coursebook)
(The Child that Books Built)
"Research liberates your fiction"
NOTES ON WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ....
1. That details can play such a great part in creating images, for example, naming a flower, saying the vase of bright red tuplips, rather than the vase of flowers is much more effective as a way of placing an image in the reader's mind.
2. That research is necessary because nobody can be an expert on absolutely everything. It is not necessary to research extensively for a fictional piece, but just throwing in 3 facts can add authenticity to your work.
3. To redraft and keep redrafting your work. It improves over time. Once your piece is written and you have checked for spelling and grammatical errors, put it aside for a few days before re-reading it with a fresh eye. Try to read it as a reader and not as the author in order to understand how it will be received.
4. Keep a journal or notebook in order to jot down observations in your daily life. They can often come in use at a later date. Jot down conversations, sounds, emotions and even random ideas. When you are stuck at a later date you can refer to these.
5. If you've had problems writing a piece, write down those problems, ie, moving on the plot, time, setting, place, etc, so that you know how you overcame them when you meet the same problem another time.
6. Learn to read as a writer, rather than understanding the characters, begin to dismantle the piece in order to find out how an author constructed it. How did he build the character? How did he evoke passion?
7. Show don't tell.......show that the girl was thin rather than tell your reader. You can do this by talking about her oversized clothes hanging off her frame, etc. Let the reader draw their own conclusions and build up a mental picture of the girl and her character. Show that she is angry with dialogue, or by description of her bulging eyes, red face, etc.
8. Write detailed and honest self evaluations so that you can learn from them.
9. Try different writing styles in order to find your own voice. This can be fun. It is often easier to stay within your own comfort zone and on a topic that you feel comfortable with, but experiment.
10. Accurate citation and bibliography is imperative to avoid plagiarism, etc.
11. Read on a wide range of subjects and by a wide range of authors. This will impact on your writing.
2. That research is necessary because nobody can be an expert on absolutely everything. It is not necessary to research extensively for a fictional piece, but just throwing in 3 facts can add authenticity to your work.
3. To redraft and keep redrafting your work. It improves over time. Once your piece is written and you have checked for spelling and grammatical errors, put it aside for a few days before re-reading it with a fresh eye. Try to read it as a reader and not as the author in order to understand how it will be received.
4. Keep a journal or notebook in order to jot down observations in your daily life. They can often come in use at a later date. Jot down conversations, sounds, emotions and even random ideas. When you are stuck at a later date you can refer to these.
5. If you've had problems writing a piece, write down those problems, ie, moving on the plot, time, setting, place, etc, so that you know how you overcame them when you meet the same problem another time.
6. Learn to read as a writer, rather than understanding the characters, begin to dismantle the piece in order to find out how an author constructed it. How did he build the character? How did he evoke passion?
7. Show don't tell.......show that the girl was thin rather than tell your reader. You can do this by talking about her oversized clothes hanging off her frame, etc. Let the reader draw their own conclusions and build up a mental picture of the girl and her character. Show that she is angry with dialogue, or by description of her bulging eyes, red face, etc.
8. Write detailed and honest self evaluations so that you can learn from them.
9. Try different writing styles in order to find your own voice. This can be fun. It is often easier to stay within your own comfort zone and on a topic that you feel comfortable with, but experiment.
10. Accurate citation and bibliography is imperative to avoid plagiarism, etc.
11. Read on a wide range of subjects and by a wide range of authors. This will impact on your writing.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Doubleday
*****
Wow - what a fantastic read. What a brave writer to use a non-human to narrate this wonderful and moving story. Markus Zusak breaks so many conventions in writing this book. Firstly, he gives away facts at the beginning of chapters. These incorporate information about the chapter to follow. I believe it lessons the need to elaborate. Secondly, he tells the reader what is going to happen later in the book. The marrator says he does this because he "doesn't have much interest in building mystery." He says that there's "so much story" anyhow and has a discussion with the reader.
The protagonist is a young German girl who is fostered by a couple and it is the story of her and the neighbours on Himmel Street, in Molching, Munich during the second world war. It is told beautifully and touchingly about an eleven year old who's mother has to give her up. She is a girl who sees so much suffering and death and a girl with a passion for reading. This is a skill that she learns quite late, taught to her by her poorly educated forster father - "Papa" whome she adores.
It portrays her growing friendship with Rudy, her neighbour and compatriot in her "stealing" and her deep connection with Max, a Jew who the family keep hidden in their basement. The narrator is the collector or souls after the bodies have died.
He points o ut about human frailties, human kindness, and cruelty and what makes us human and inhumane.
It's a must read.
Doubleday
*****
Wow - what a fantastic read. What a brave writer to use a non-human to narrate this wonderful and moving story. Markus Zusak breaks so many conventions in writing this book. Firstly, he gives away facts at the beginning of chapters. These incorporate information about the chapter to follow. I believe it lessons the need to elaborate. Secondly, he tells the reader what is going to happen later in the book. The marrator says he does this because he "doesn't have much interest in building mystery." He says that there's "so much story" anyhow and has a discussion with the reader.
The protagonist is a young German girl who is fostered by a couple and it is the story of her and the neighbours on Himmel Street, in Molching, Munich during the second world war. It is told beautifully and touchingly about an eleven year old who's mother has to give her up. She is a girl who sees so much suffering and death and a girl with a passion for reading. This is a skill that she learns quite late, taught to her by her poorly educated forster father - "Papa" whome she adores.
It portrays her growing friendship with Rudy, her neighbour and compatriot in her "stealing" and her deep connection with Max, a Jew who the family keep hidden in their basement. The narrator is the collector or souls after the bodies have died.
He points o ut about human frailties, human kindness, and cruelty and what makes us human and inhumane.
It's a must read.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
plublished by Harper's Perennial
Purple Hibiscus was a great and easy read on my long flight to Vietnam. I did have to question myself as to why I was reading another book set in Nigeria rather than Graham Greene's "the Quiet America" that was inspired by his stay in Hanoi, in the same Hotel that I was staying in for the first night. However, Chimanda Ngozi Adichie wont critical acclaim for her first book by being shortlisted for the Orange prize for fiction.
She portrays clearly, adolescence in a wealthy Nigerian family, living in fear yet respect of a draconian father, who is violent towards her, her mother and brother, yet an extremely observant Charholic, a philanthropist and successful businessman. She lives a very repressed life until she visits her aunt (her father's sister) and stays with her noisy cousins who laugh a lot. She develops a crush on the local father Amadi, a young missionary who shows kindness and concern for her.
The book is enjoyable, yet brutal with a use of metaphor it depicts a clear image of the life of this adolescent Kambili.
She was brought up with rigidity, severity and schedules and unused to interaction with other children so that she was overawed at her aunts when she met the noisy neighbours "a blur of food stained clothes and fast words".
The title is significant as "purple hibiscus is rare, fragrant with the undertones of freedom". Jaja, Kimbili's brother transplants some from his aunts and they are ultimately liberated from their father.
In the light of a social commentary it was interesting to learn that in Nigeria "it's not proper to let an older person do your chores".
It also depicts the politics at the time with a coup, and the new President who was not elected and Kambili's father voiced through his newspaper his political views that he should be known as Head of State. He "paid people to transport heroin abroad". It was a time that soldiers would whip women in the market and she describes the brutality of the soldiers which matched the brutality of her father.
The author was born in Nigeria in 1977 and this was her first novel.
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