Writing Narratively How to tell a good story, no matter what you're stuck with as source material.

Articles Read the two articles in class. Write the following things down: What happened in the articles? What did the people think, feel, hear, see, smell? What pieces of information could make a good story? Read the two articles in class. Articles

Here's the thing: Writing narratively is SUPER different from writing informatively or argumentatively. There is no set pattern to follow (other than the generic beginning-middle-end).  Because of this, however, you are FREE to do what you want with the story (within reason). This can also be a problem for some students—they do not know where to start or how to keep going.   So, while we cannot walk you through sentence by sentence like we could with the informative and argumentative prompts, we can help show you what should be where in your writing, and that's our goal for this unit. Writing Narratively

The Basics Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. We did talk about working out of chronological order at the beginning of the year— and you can do that too, as long as your story makes sense when it is all said and done.  Every story has characters that move the plot forward. Without them, where would you be? Stories MUST have some conflict in them. Stories generally use strong sensory details and figurative language to further engage readers. Stories almost always have a theme, or message, that the author wants readers to take away when they finish reading. (This is JUST LIKE a central idea!!)

Plot Diagram Climax Rising Action Falling Action Middle Exposition Resolution Beginning End

Beginning While there is not a set way to begin a narrative, there are still some expectations that readers have. Readers expect the setting (time, year, location, description(s), etc) to be unveiled pretty early.  How do you start understanding the characters if you don’t know where the plot takes place? Readers expect main characters to be introduced, including all important features and personality traits. These are important for readers to connect with your character—otherwise your reader will be bored. Finally, readers should expect to see some of the beginnings of the main conflict of the story taking root at the opening of the narrative. This gives the reader that drive to continue reading—they want to know what's going to happen!

Middle In the middle of a story, the reader expects things to build up to a climax point.  The climax is the most tension filled part of a narrative. Novels tend to have more than one, but in a short story, there is generally only one climax point in the narrative.  The middle is mostly composed of dialogue and description aimed at moving the plot and characters forward into the story. This is a great time to really develop those characterization skills through dialogue and imagery skills through description. 

End Writers use falling action to resolve the story and bring it to a satisfying close. At the end of a narrative, readers expect to feel like the conflict, and the general plot, is resolved.  The theme should also be prevalent—if it wasn't before this point. You should not end on a cliffhanger, as it leaves your audience feeling unfulfilled in your story. (That's a bad thing!)

Sensory Details—Imagery, setting, etc. Using the articles read in class, find 3-5 details for EACH SENSE about Lanzarote, Laura Dekker, or her adventures. The five senses are: touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound. These should be things that Laura saw, would see, or wanted to see in her environment.

STEAL Characterization Chart Use the STEAL chart to build your character for Laura Dekker and for at least one other person she interacts with. STEAL stands for: Things that the character SAYS Things that the character THINKS The character's EFFECT on those around them The character's ACTIONS The character's LOOKS STEAL Characterization Chart

Dialogue: Conversations for Plot Now that you have two characters, start to think about how they will interact with each other.  Conversations are a NEW line EVERY time a new person speaks. You also need to have an attribution with your conversations. Try to vary your attributions so that they are not all the same. Example: "What is there to do on this island?" Laura asked the villager. The villager looked confused, then said, "I guess there's this sort of barbecue thing on the lava fields." Dialogue: Conversations for Plot

Conflict—The Meat of the Story At some point, there must be a conflict to make your story interesting. There are several types of conflict: Man vs. Self (Internal conflicts) Man vs. Nature Man vs. Man Man vs. Supernatural Conflict—The Meat of the Story

Work on your Narrative If you have questions or need help, let me know.