Writing Fiction [In High School] Sample

Writing with Sharon Watson 1 Writing Fiction [in High School] Sample Writing Fiction [in High School]: Bringing Your Stories to Life! by Sharon Watson WritingWith www. SharonWatson.com Copyright © 2010-2011 by Sharon Watson. No portion of this sample from Writing Fiction [in High School] may be copied or transmitted online or off. www.WritingWithSharonWatson.com Writing with Sharon Watson 2 Writing Fiction [in High School] Sample Copyright © 2010-2011 by Sharon Watson. All rights reserved. You know the drill. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, or in any way transmitted, transmuted, or transmogrified without the prior, written consent of the author, except in conditions of “fair use.” Writing Fiction [in High School]: Bringing Your Stories to Life! ISBN-10: 1463582080 ISBN-13: 978-1463582081 Writing Fiction [in High School]: Teacher’s Guide also available ISBN-10: 1463582285 ISBN-13: 978-1463582289 Printed in the United States of America First printing July 2011 Examples in this course are meant solely for teaching purposes and in no way construe a recommendation of the complete book or story from which they are excerpted. Cover photo copyright © 2011 by Esther Moulder, www.clickphotography.biz www.WritingWithSharonWatson.com Copyright © 2010-2011 by Sharon Watson. No portion of this sample from Writing Fiction [in High School] may be copied or transmitted online or off. www.WritingWithSharonWatson.com Writing with Sharon Watson 3 Writing Fiction [in High School] Sample Table of Contents 1 FACTS ABOUT FICTION • 1 The Power of Fiction • 1 A Teeny-Tiny Grammar Lesson • 2 About this Course • 4 Good Writers Are Good Readers • 5 Character Versus Person • 6 Where Do Ideas Come From? • 6 I Have an Idea. Now What? •7 Make-Believe and Truths • 8 Hook Your Reader • 9 2 POINT OF VIEW • 15 The Nitty-Gritty of Point of View, Part 1 (1st and 2nd Person) • 17 The Nitty-Gritty of Point of View, Part 2 (3rd Person) • 22 Decisions, Decisions • 30 A Common Point-of-View Mistake • 31 A Word about Filters • 32 Critiquing • 34 For the Reader • 34 For the Writer • 35 Proofreading Marks • 36 Optional Writing for POV • 39 3 FAIRY TALES • 41 Another Tale, Another Prince Charming (Motifs) • 43 The Power of Three • 44 4 CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERIZATION • 49 Leads, Genders, and Ages • 52 What the Character Says—Dialogue and Voice • 53 What He Thinks • 58 What He Does, Part 1 • 60 What He Does, Part 2: How to Show Character Emotion • 63 What the Character Looks Like, Part 1 • 66 What the Character Looks Like, Part 2: The Girl Wore a Coat • 68 This Is what I Look Like, Part 3 • 70 What Others Say/How Others React • 73 What the Author or Narrator Says about Him • 75 Copyright © 2010-2011 by Sharon Watson. No portion of this sample from Writing Fiction [in High School] may be copied or transmitted online or off. www.WritingWithSharonWatson.com Writing with Sharon Watson 4 Writing Fiction [in High School] Sample What’s in a Name? • 75 The Telling Detail • 76 An Empathetic Lead • 78 How to Create an Empathetic Lead • 79 Character Motivation • 82 A Character Dies • 85 Be Specific • 86 The Antagonist • 87 5 CONFLICT • 91 The Conflict Menu • 92 Do Try this at Home, Part 1 • 94 Do Try this at Home, Part 2 • 96 Thirst • 97 Will Nemo ever Return Home? • 99 Death • 101 Tension •101 Character Arc • 106 Optional Writing for Conflict • 107 6 DIALOGUE • 109 What She Says, What She Does • 110 Conflict—Can’t Get enough of It! • 115 Subtext • 117 Beware • 118 Exposition • 119 Other Formats for Dialogue • 121 Speakers, Paragraphs, and Tags • 123 Indirect Dialogue • 124 Optional Writing for Dialogue • 126 7 DESCRIPTION • 129 Description Has a Job to Do • 132 Description Tools • 134 Sensory Details • 134 Figurative Language • 138 Organic Imagery • 140 Precise and Vivid Verbs • 141 Direction • 143 Weather • 144 Time • 145 Animals/Nature • 146 Show, Don’t Tell • 147 Specificity • 149 Character Reaction • 150 Copyright © 2010-2011 by Sharon Watson. No portion of this sample from Writing Fiction [in High School] may be copied or transmitted online or off. www.WritingWithSharonWatson.com Writing with Sharon Watson 5 Writing Fiction [in High School] Sample Synesthesia • 151 What to Avoid • 152 Settings • 153 Moving from One Location to the Next • 156 Description Checklist for All Writers • 160 Optional Description Writing • 161 8 WORDS, WORDS, WORDS • 163 Audience and Word Choice • 163 Connotation • 165 Contractions • 166 Verb Tense • 167 Sentence Impact • 169 Active/Passive • 171 Parallelism • 172 The Poetry of Prose • 174 Exclamation Points and Capitals • 176 Style • 176 A Word of Caution • 178 9 THEME • 179 Three Problems with Theme—And How to Fix Them • 182 Problem 1 • 182 Problem 2 • 185 Problem 3 • 189 Optional Writing for Theme • 192 10 PLOT • 195 The Hero’s Journey • 199 La Ronde • 206 11 SCENES • 209 This Is not a Scene • 209 This Is a Scene • 210 Pat the Dog • 213 Yes? No? Maybe? • 214 The Scene’s Guts • 219 Narrative Summary • 223 Narrative Summary and the End of a Scene • 224 Some Common Scene Mistakes • 227 Flashbacks • 232 Mirror Scenes • 237 Optional Writing in Scenes • 240 Copyright © 2010-2011 by Sharon Watson. No portion of this sample from Writing Fiction [in High School] may be copied or transmitted online or off. www.WritingWithSharonWatson.com Writing with Sharon Watson 6 Writing Fiction [in High School] Sample 12 BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS • 243 A Recipe for a Great Beginning • 244 Hook Your Reader • 244 Genre, Rules of the Story, Setting, and Tone • 246 Protagonist and Protagonist’s Voice • 250 An Interesting Situation • 251 The Promise of Future Conflict • 253 Backstory • 254 Endings • 256 What Readers Expect from Endings • 258 13 GETTING PUBLISHED • 261 Revising • 261 Avenues to Getting Published • 263 What the Manuscript Looks Like • 272 Should You Read while You Write? • 274 Pen Names • 275 Rejection Letters • 275 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 279 Copyright © 2010-2011 by Sharon Watson. No portion of this sample from Writing Fiction [in High School] may be copied or transmitted online or off. www.WritingWithSharonWatson.com Writing with Sharon Watson 7 Writing Fiction [in High School] Sample 1: FACTS ABOUT FICTION Jane Austen, author of Pride and Prejudice, wrote her first novel at age fourteen. Christopher Paolini began his rough draft of Eragon when he was fifteen. Mary Shelley wrote of horrors in Frankenstein when she was nineteen. Now it is your turn. THE POWER OF FICTION Alan Alda, an actor and writer, reveals in his memoir Never Have Your Dog Stuffed how he discovered the power of his written words: On the night of the first preview [of an Off Broadway revue], I stood in the wings and watched the opening sketch I had written. I heard actual laughs coming from the audience. This was the first time I had heard an audience laugh at something I had written, and a cocktail of sweet, tingling hormones shot through my brain. I was suddenly aware of what an astonishing power Copyright © 2010-2011 by Sharon Watson. No portion of this sample from Writing Fiction [in High School] may be copied or transmitted online or off. www.WritingWithSharonWatson.com Writing with Sharon Watson 8 Writing Fiction [in High School] Sample there was in words. Once you set a thought in motion, it went on its own. You could write something on Tuesday, and they would laugh at it a week from Friday. Plato, too, knew the impact poets, playwrights, and storytellers had on audiences. In fact, he seemed to advocate either running them out of town or censoring them, especially when their stories ran counter to the mores of the day. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle had an impact, but an unexpected one. He wrote it to expose and improve the incredibly poor conditions of workers in the U. S. meat- packing industry in the early 1900s. Instead of a public outcry on behalf of the workers, however, readers focused on meat-inspection procedures and tainted meat, and pushed legislation which became the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. That was over a century ago; fiction still has not lost its power. Readers become attached to characters. When Arthur Conan Doyle killed off his famous Sherlock Talent is helpful in writing, Holmes, readers became so agitated that he brought the but guts are absolutely sleuth back to life. When the Harry Potter series came to necessary. Without the guts to try, the talent may never an abrupt end in 2007, The Miami Herald printed an be discovered. article filled with advice from doctors on how parents –Jessamyn West, author can help their children cope with the grief they may of The Friendly Persuasion experience from the deaths in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Even God used the power of fiction when He instructed the prophet Nathan to confront King David about the double sin of adultery and murder (2 Samuel 12:1- 10). Nathan’s job was to tell David a story that revealed unfair dealings and thievery; when David heard Nathan’s made-up story, he was cut to the heart. Fiction cannot be dismissed as unimportant. It’s not “just a story.” A TEENY-TINY GRAMMAR LESSON Before we get to your first assignments, let’s clear up a confusing topic: Why is kiwi the name of a fruit and an animal? Or maybe we should just review the use of italics and quotation marks in titles. When should you use italics in titles? When should you use quotation marks? These burning questions are nowhere near the same level of importance as the kiwi enigma, but they bear examination.

Load more