STORYTELLING IS NEAT LIFE IS SLOPPY Perry Glasser

STORYTELLING IS NEAT; LIFE IS SLOPPY Perry Glasser

BASICS l l l Plot in fiction or tales in memoir require conflict People are revealed by struggle Stories proceed by causality Climax is the confrontation of opposites Retrograde Plotting for Closure

BASICS: Plot & Conflict l Character vs. Character – l Character vs. Physical Environment – l “To Build a Fire”; The Old Man and the Sea Character vs. Social Environment – l Batman vs. Joker; Rocky Balboa vs. Apollo Creed Beloved, by Toni Morrison Character vs. Self – The “psychological” story l Should Anna Karenina leave her husband children for her lover? Agonies of choice with an object both good and bad…drugs, alcohol, guilty pleasures, anyone?

Characters & Struggle l l l Nice people have nice lives - boring Characters in trouble – whatever shall they do? –defines compelling reading. (The characters don’t need to know it, but we do!) Write about troubled, willful characters – We learn what our characters value and what they are like when they perform under stress – Victims make few decisions; the world decides for them and so they are less interesting characters.

Structure l Exposition – l Social or personal stability is upset Rising Action – Complications – character(s) struggle to regain stability l l Climax – l l Wants Fears Needs Confrontation of the plot’s opposites Falling Action Resolution – Stability is restored Remember: Chronological Structure need not be the same as Narrative Structure!

Causality l l l Because stability is upset, characters move through time and space. – That’s called “motivation” Because they have distinct personalities and talents, characters struggle in specific ways. – That’s called “characterization” Because the challenges they confront don’t immediately restore stability, the story moves forward. – That’s called “rising action” Because they persevere in fulfilling their motives, they eventually confront whatever opposes them. – That’s called “climax” Because of their experiences, characters change. – That’s called “significance” Because, because….

Climax and Confrontation l l l The climax is exciting because it epitomizes the “fight. ” The climax is a necessary scene – sometimes called “payoff. ” The issue must be in doubt with the antagonists each capable of victory, though one can be much an underdog. Ahab on Moby Dick’s back says “To the last, I will grapple with thee. . . from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!” Khan quotes it, too!

Retrograde Plotting 1 - Imagining l l The writer while creating mentally turns the story upside down and thinks backward. If I want my protagonist to leave the earth as North America splits in two, what will I need to invent to make my artistic vision plausible? – – My protagonist will need certain cognitive characteristics My protagonist will need a means to leave the planet My protagonist will need certain physical characteristics to achieve that goal I will need to invent a reason for North America to split.

Retrograde Plotting 2 - THINKING The writer needs her story to advance from A 1 to A 5, two crucial moments that mark change. Her sense of craft tells her how to write scene A 1. It’s terrific! What a start! Her sense of craft will tell her how to write scene A 5. She has vision! She THINKS backward. How can A 5 be achieved? Ah-ha! We need to take the reader through A 2, A 3, and A 4. She is plotting backward!

A Final Thought l l Your imagination supplies narrative form. N. A. is to split in two because – Terrorists are planting atomic weapons along a fault line: can they be stopped? – An evil wizard is casting a mighty spell, and so we must leave by winged dragon for a better, purer place from which to fight Evil – An evil Emperor has constructed a Death Star and so we must leave by our rickety spacecraft to organize the intergalactic resistance. – Natural causes hastened by poor ecology. No one heeds our heroine, an independent rocket scientist…(to be played by Jodie Foster) – Natural causes, but humankind’s only hope is the mysterious widower, handsome Nobel prize-winning physicist, Lance Recluse, who needs to be summoned from his grief over the death of his wife. The fate of the world is in the hands of star-journalist, the young Belle Innocente as she journeys to his private laboratory on an isolated tropical island…

DISCUSSION & QUESTIONS Time permitting: An exercise – The Story Machine