teachersnotesch8.html

We start out with an excellent quote from Annie Dillard: “The Writer of any work...must decide two crucial points: what to put in and what to leave out” (273).

Story: Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end--as Aristotle noted long ago. You have examined the classical structure of stories and you know they can start anywhere and end anywhere. Plot is what happens in the story as it is presented.
Plot happens--once, I joked that this would be a good bumper sticker for writers.
JB calls plot the “present tense” of the narrative (273): the present conflict, the current situation that makes readers wonder how or why _____ came about. The story could go on from there. What happens after that? Well, let’s see (274). Plot gives meaning to the story with the hows and whys--whether all the connections are made for readers or not. Sometimes the writer wants the reader to make connections that are not given in the plot (275). Sometimes the reader sees more than the writer intended, and sometimes the writer had more than one intention. This will be addressed more at the end of this chapter.

*Is anyone else seeing Leroy the Lion wearing a yellow T-shirt? I know JB wasn’t thinking of that with her example on pages 274-75.

Where do you start? What is the most interesting, attention getting part? What is your purpose? Who is your intended audience? What would this character do or say to get this point across to this audience? Let your work rest awhile, and come back to it later with new eyes. Read it aloud and try to get into it a new way. John suggested reading sections out of order--the last part first, for example. What if the last part first sounds best?

How interesting! Try the try this on page 276.

Scene and Summary
Summarize the background details, but be specific about scenes you want to build in the mind’s eye of your readers--paint the picture for them clearly enough so that the readers see a vivid scene. JB says: “We need to see the moment” in time, noting any change(s), and “when this change occurs” (277). JB continues: “Since the changes in your story will take place in fully developed scenes, it’s important to limit the number of scenes, and summary can be useful to get you from one [scene] to another” (278).
Backstory and Flashback
Backstory is basically the background story--whatever happened before the story on the page started, but flashback is a step back into the past on the page, with the story and the plot presented again (278-79).
Transitions can be very difficult (280). The try this at the end of page 280 can give you practice, and the more you practice the easier the transitions will become. Examine how writers you admire make their transitions. Explore how you could use their techniques.

Text and Subtext
“As a writer you are always trying to mean more than you say,” reminds JB. This is the layering you have heard me talk about. Some writers go back and add depth and texture to the work after they have written it. Sometimes it comes whether a writer wants it or not--and sometimes the writer may not even see it until someone else points it out.

A soon to be colleague of mine recently shared a gem from another writer/teacher I have long admired--Donald Murray: he told her to continue working on the topic at hand, saying it was important "because we sometimes don't get to choose our topics, they choose us."
This corresponds so well here, because we may say more than we mean to say in our work and not know it, or not know why. We may feel compelled to change a text or not to change it, we may feel compelled to take the work in a certain direction but it wants to go another way no matter what we do. This struggle will become part of the work itself. Let the words flow. Here’s another set of quotes that are perfect to end with:

“The text is what is stated in any situation: the subtext is whatever remains unstated--with the usual implication that the unstated is what’s really going on” (281)--the truth on the surface and “an iceberg’s work of the truth submerged, the reader reads [the] truth as well as the words” (282).

The try this on page 282 at the bottom is worth exploration. Where would you take these lines? Do you have some to share with us?

The try this on page 3302 could also be very interesting. What would get you in trouble? Why? Write it.