Types & Techniques of Comedy

Why do people laugh?

• Incongruity or Non sequitur. Humans are rational (supposedly) and laugh at anything that breaks a pattern or does not logically follow.
• Farce or physical humor (often pratfalls, slapstick, hurting people, etc.) What doesn't kill us makes us laugh.
• Superiority vs. inferiority (we laugh at those weaker or in a worse situation than us)
• Mistaken identity
• Absurdity (if it doesn't make sense, we laugh)
• Surprise 

How can writers use these techniques in their writing? Like everything else, choice allows us to skillfully craft our work for a desired effect. Here are some choices for writing comedy:

Anecdotes: This form of comedy conveys an element of non-fiction in the narration of stories, which involve a person or an incident that is worth telling with an ultimate end that is amusing. They aren't really jokes per se but a way of revealing something substantial as part of the story that is being told.

Banter: Throwing light jokes at one other often at the expense of someone within the group. It is not a way of being insulting or rude, but playful among friends and those one is familiar with. A classic example would be sitcoms that have close friends or family members cracking jokes about each other which aren't offensive, but humorous. Think Seinfeld, Friends, and The Office.

Blue Humor/Off-Color Humor: Sexual innuendo. Using profane or sexually related material to make people laugh. Stand-up comedians often use this type of humor, and the characters on South Park or Family Guy.

Blunder: Self deprecating humor. This kind of comedy is where the writer or comedian makes a fool out of himself to give way to humorous moments. Tripping over oneself, being nonsensical, and coming off as absurd or annoying are common traits of this kind of comedy. Stupidity and oblivious-to-reality behavior comes off as quite amusing to audiences. When combined with physical jokes where people could get hurt, but remain alive we call this form of humor 'slapstick' comedy.

Burlesque: The material used for these techniques are either real life characters that a writer might wish to mock or amusingly portray, or serious literary works that are spoofed. Usually this means getting the style of the serious subject right. You'll see this form of comedy in spoof movies that are based on serious films, but with humor that is over-the-top. Desire, Desire, Desire was a type of this kind of comedy.

Black Humor/Dark Comedy: Black humor or dark comedy often refers to the juxtaposition of morbid and farcical elements to create a disturbing effect. Black comedy, is a sub-genre of comedy and satire where grave topics like death, rape, murder, a soul crushing marital affair, human annihilation or domestic violence are treated in a satirical manner.

Commedia dell'arte: Commedia dell'arte is an Italian style comedy of the 16th and 18th centuries improvised from standardized situations and stock characters. Commedia dell'arte includes themes like adultery, jealousy, old age, and love. Many of the basic plot elements of Commedia dell'arte can be traced back to Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence.

Caricature: Caricature involves exaggerated portrayal of a person's mental, physical, or personality traits in wisecrack form. Caricatures can be insulting, complimentary, political or can be drawn solely for entertainment too.

Farce/Travesty: A comedy characterized by broad satire and improbable situations is termed as farce or travesty. A farce is a comedy style which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, improbable and extravagant situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humor of varying degrees of sophistication. It can include sexual innuendo and word play, or a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases, culminating in an ending that often involves an elaborate chase scene. Farce is also characterized by physical humor and the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense.

Gallows Humor: Gallows humor is a type of humor which arises from traumatic or life-threatening situations such as wartime events, mass murder, hostilities or in other situations where death is impending and unavoidable. This genre is similar to black comedy but the only difference is that the comedy is created by the victim.

Irony: Irony is a trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs, and hence is a popular type of humor. Irony is portrayed through words or actions to express something completely different from the literal meaning. Sarcasm is the best known use of verbal irony, for example.

Melodrama: Melodramatic comedy is where the characters and the plot are overly done to portray a situation that drips with over-dramatic overtones. Movies and plays of the sort show themes based on highly emotional scenarios which audiences can relate to when heightened on-screen. These can be losing loved ones, illness portrayals and situations that call for the dramatic.

Nonsense: This type of humor is marked by what the name suggests, 'nonsense'. It doesn't have any real logic or sense to it, but is nonetheless humorous in its delivery.

Parody: Parody is defined as a work created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work, its subject, or author, by means of humorous or satiric imitation. Parody is nothing but a composition that imitates or misrepresents somebody's style in a humorous way.

Practical Comedy: A practical joke or prank is a stunt or trick to purposely make someone feel foolish or victimized, usually for humor. Since pranks or these practical jokes are designed to make people feel foolish or victimized, there is an inherent undertone of cruelty in most practical jokes.

Recovery: A combination of blunder and wit, which means that the comedian or the character usually creates humor by making an error, and then saving himself with a fast and witty comeback.

Roasting: Someone put in the spotlight by using stories that are true / untrue with remarks that are slightly insulting but taken in good humor by the one receiving them. 

Satire: Jonathan Swift defined satire "as a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Satire is a branch of comedy, which makes use of witty language to convey insults or scorn. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to reprimand by means of ridicule, burlesque, derision, irony, or other methods. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily to make us laugh, but to make us think. It is an attack on something the author strongly disapproves of.

Seriocomedy: A play or movie that has a serious element to it although with amusing bits that come and go.

Stand-up Comedy: Another type of comedy is stand-up comedy, which involves a comedian standing up in front of a crowd and amusing them with jokes and funny stories.

Sitcom: Situational comedy, commonly known as 'sitcoms' is a popular type of comedy, most often found on television or in TV writing. A humorous drama based on situations that might arise in day-to-day life.

Woody Allen: Without Feathers

Turn in your Durang scene/play drafts from last class's homework.

We will be returning Durang's collection of plays today and picking up our last collection of short writing.

When we return from the library, please complete the following tasks during period 7:

1. Visit Woody Allen's website and read his bio. More info on Woody Allen is posted here

Please read about Woody Allen. Answer the following:
1. How did Woody Allen get started in his show business career? What jobs did he have and how much did they pay?
2. Name 5 of Woody Allen's plays, books, or films.
3. What awards or honors have been bestowed or given to Woody Allen due to his work in writing and film?

2. Complete any late homework.

During period 8, please go next door with Without Feathers and let's read together a bit.

HOMEWORK: Using the info below, please continue reading Woody Allen's collection.

As you read his collection Without Feathers, understanding "the joke" can be helpful with a little background. Those of you who read widely will probably find more humor in his work. See the information below to help you figure out what you're reading.
Much of Allen's humor requires a little knowledge about form, content, or knowing a little bit about his life (or the life of a Jewish New Yorker intellectual). To help you, please refer to this page for explanation of the allusion and humor in Woody Allen's book.

• The title: Refers to Emily Dickenson’s poem: “Hope is a thing with feathers.” Ergo, if you have no feathers, you have no hope.
• Selections from the Allen Notebooks & The Early Essays: Both these essays parody the publishing industry’s love affair with memoir, creative non-fiction, and publishing a well-known author’s private writings after they have died. Hence, the humor of these weird insights into the famous “Woody Allen” journals. Traditionally, creative essay form always used the same form: the word “ON” and then the subject of the essay.
• Examining Psychic Phenomena: The supernatural is always a good subject to parody. In this case, a review of a newly published “non-fiction” book on Psychic Phenomena. Look up Psychic Phenomena on the internet to see the sort of thing Allen is parodying.
• The Guide to Some of the Lesser Ballets: When you attend an opera or ballet, inside your program you often get the story synopsis. Since opera is usually in another language, and ballet is hard to follow if you don’t know the story, these sorts of program notes are helpful in interpreting the performance. Allen, of course, is poking fun.
• The Scrolls: A few years before the book was published, the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered. In the early 70’s this sort of thing caused a lot of controversy between religious scholars and scientists. They wondered if these scrolls were part of the Bible. Allen is also Jewish, so the humor relates to this fact as well.
• Lovborg’s Women Considered: The playwright Henrick Ibsen is the bane and love of many literary scholars and theatre students. Woody Allen is poking fun of the field of literary criticism (scholars who write about books, authors, and their “private” lives).
• The Whore of Mensa: Allen is parodying the hardboiled detective novel made popular by writers like Dashielle Hammett (The Maltese Falcon). Think of Humphrey Bogart as the narrator and you’ll have the idea. Mensa is a national program/club – entry into which is based on I.Q. The idea then of whores who intellectually stimulate their johns is a very funny idea.
• Death, A Play: Allen was a philosophy major in college. He is also interested in psychology. The two main philosophical ideas this play refers to are existentialism and Nihilism. Existentialism is a type of writing or the study of answering the question: what is the meaning of life? Existentialism tries to explain what the meaning of life is. Some people believe we are alive for a reason, others are Nihilistic and say that there is no point in our existence, that there is no purpose to our lives. Kleinman is representative of everyman. He represents all of us. We sometimes don't know what our purpose in life is (Kleinman doesn't know his purpose in the play, for example). By the way, we are all being "stalked" by death, just as Kleinman is being stalked by the maniac. Death is the great equalizer. All living beings are going to die. Along with LOVE, DEATH is one of the most common themes in literature. Woody Allen made this play into the film: Shadows and Fog.
• A Brief, yet Helpful, Guide to Civil Disobedience: People were protesting the Vietnam War when Woody Allen wrote this book. Even this serious topic is humor-fodder for writers. The allusion to The Trojan Women is referring to a Greek Tragedy (see: God) about the women of Troy banding together to protest the Trojan War.
• Match Wits with Inspector Ford: In the 70’s books such as 5-Minute Mysteries were very popular. The idea was that the author gave you a very short mystery or crime. The answer to the “riddle” was in the back of the book. A fan of whodunits will enjoy this parody.
• The Irish Genius: This is a parody (similar to Lovborg) but dealing with the poet William Butler Yeats. Yeats was an Irish culture fanatic and wrote “Irish” lyrics celebrating Gaelic and Irish legends. His poems drip with allusion and Allen plays around with this idea by providing fake “footnotes.”
• God, a Play: Poking fun at Greek Theatre, Allen is also joking about writers and the process of writing a play and the challenges of performing it. Allen was a playwright before he became a film writer. So you can assume the Writer character is partly autobiographical. Of course, the character of “Woody” is also Allen’s alter-ego in the play. Enjoy the absurdist ideas of the piece. By the way, the machine reference in the play is a reference to: Deus Ex Machina (or God from the machine) referring to a contrived ending of a play (a God comes down and fixes the characters’ problems).
• Fabulous Tales and Mythical Beasts: Bestiaries were an old fashion (Medieval) form of the nature guide. They were all the rage in the 1500’s.
• But Soft, Real Soft: There is a scholarly debate over who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Many critics say that Marlowe (another Elizabethan playwright) wrote Shakespeare’s work. Others say Queen Elizabeth or Francis Bacon wrote the plays. Probably, odd as it may seem, Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays. The title refers to a line from Romeo and Juliet.
• If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists: The Impressionist painter Van Gogh kept close correspondence with his brother Theo. Later a song and a movie were made from Van Gogh’s private letters. The title tells the rest of the joke.
• No Kaddish for Weinstein: Kaddish is a Hebrew prayer of mourning usually recited at a person’s grave. Woody Allen often jokes about Freudian Psychoanalysis or therapy. He is using a comic technique of the non-sequitur (or surprising a reader by saying something unrelated to its subject or something that makes no sense or is nonsensical.)
• Fine Times: An Oral Memoir: Another parody of a book review and autobiography of a fictional character. This one is about Flo Guinness, a speakeasy owner in the 1920’s. Alcohol was prohibited (illegal) in the early 1920’s and later repealed. Guinness is the name of a popular beer. Allen references many famous 1920’s musicians and people.
• Slang Origins: The English language has so many weird expressions and sayings. Allen pokes fun at them in this “essay.”

Christopher Durang: Scene draft

You are welcome to read any of Durang's plays this period. I recommend St. Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You or the Actor's Nightmare. During the weekend, feel free to read any of the plays you haven't yet read from this collection, as we will be moving on to our last work when we get back from Memorial Day Break.

Writing Task:

If you are not reading today, or have finished reading, please write a Durang-esque scene, play. Your play may be a parody, dark comedy, or satire. You may work with up to one other author on this project. If you are working with another author as a collaboration, agree on plot points, a setting and characters, but assign the dialogue responsibility to one of you. That writer is then responsible for writing the dialogue of that specific character. Of course, you may help suggest and assist if your partner gets stuck, but move it along without the digression working with a partner might cause.

Here are a few tropes and ideas gleaned from Durang's work:

• a character with a psychological problem. For a list of psychological problems, look here.
• God being cruel or a religious issue examined (does not have to be Christian, or Catholic!)
• a family or couple in crisis
• a homosexual character
• absurd violence (over the top violence)
• a parody of a famous play, story, or author's work. The easiest thing to do is pick an author or genre of writing that makes you cringe and write about it, exposing the goofiness of the style or characters
• Pick a serious issue (homelessness, or substance abuse, or suicide, etc.) and poke fun at it  

Write a scene using any of the above or any other idea you can come up with based on Durang's work.

HOMEWORK: Complete your play draft, or finish reading Christopher Durang's collection of plays.

Survey

At some point today, please take this survey. Copy and paste the link into the address bar.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CraddockStudentsSpring2012

Christopher Durang: The Nature & Purpose of the Universe

Today we will spend some time reading the plays: The Nature and Purpose of the Universe, Death Comes to Us All Mary Agnes, and if there is time, Titanic.

For homework: Please read any of the plays in this collection from the beginning all the way through Titanic. Personal favorites are 'dentity Crisis and For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls.

Driving Ms. Daisy & Christopher Durang

During 7th period: After our quiz on Driving Ms. Daisy, please take one of your premises you wrote the other day and write a 1-page scene between at least 2-characters. Write until the end of 7th period.

During 8th period, we will be picking up the collection of plays by Christopher Durang. Information about playwright Christopher Durang can be found here on his website. Please take a moment to review his short biography and look around the website. When we return from the library, please go to room 238 to read together. Select a part if you'd like to read today.

HOMEWORK: Complete the play we're reading. Bring your books with you to class on Tuesday.

Driving Ms. Daisy

In groups of 4-5, please read Driving Ms. Daisy and complete the play for Friday, May 18. There will be a quiz on the play.

Plays are representational. They represent real life, they are NOT real life. Actors are representations of their characters. Set pieces are representations of real locations, etc. How symbolic or metaphorical the representation will be is completely up to the playwright (and often the director).

As playwrights, you should be aware that you want to match your action/plot/characters to the style you are attempting to create. A realistic play should "look" real. It should be realistically delivered, often in a realistic setting, using realistic dialogue. Anything that brings attention to itself as being "unrealistic" harms the "realism" of a play/act/scene or beat (a single moment) on stage. Most common ways of bringing attention and harming your realism is switching sets or having actors do something that they wouldn't "realistically" do. Realism, however, works on a continuum. The more "unrealstic", the more the play relies on metaphor or formalistic elements. Pay attention to those moments when a story gets "weird" -- usually the writer has a reason for this to occur.

In Driving Ms. Daisy please answer (complete for homework, if you do not finish during class):

--What actions or events occur that are realistic?
--What actions or events occur that we see as REPRESENTATIVE?
--How does the playwright create a suggested set? How is the set's flexibility used to keep the action of the play going and continuous from scene to scene?
--How is this play different from others you have read or seen? (Streetcar Named Desire or The Piano Lesson? for example)
--What is the play's major dramatic question? That is: what question is lingering in the minds of the audience? What does the audience want answered by the end of the play?

HOMEWORK: Please finish reading the script Driving Ms. Daisy.

The Premise & Play Reading

Bell-Work: Today, on your index card, please come up with a few premises for an original play. Your premise should be stated clearly in one sentence. Continue writing premises until time is called.

THE PREMISE (a one-sentence summary completing this statement: This play is about ______________.)

Please follow our last post for directions today in class. If you didn't get a chance to read If Men Played Cards As Women Do, please start there. The rest of us will be starting with The Boor or Overtones.

CLASSWORK: In groups of 4-5, please read The Boor, Overtones, and If Men Played Cards As Women Do. For The Boor & Overtones, please discuss the writing of the play (its characters, plot, theme, dialogue etc.) and identify the play's premise. Write the premise down on your group's index card to hand in at the end of class. 

From our previous instruction on playwriting this year, please note:

• All plays should have a beginning, middle, and end. They can begin or end just like a poem or story (i.e., ending with a circular, surprise, summary, or open-ending, etc.)
• All plays are written for the stage (not to just be read); they are meant to be performed live by live actors. To get good at this reading and watching plays is essential.
• All plays are written in present tense (not past); all plays use a specific and distinct format
• All plays are more powerful if they are tightly written. To be "tightly written" you should avoid using broad-sweeping plots, with many cinematic scene changes.

Short plays should adhere to what are called the unities:

1. The unity of time (plays should not span many years)
2. The unity of place (plays should concentrate action in one or few settings)
3. The unity of action (plays should limit their plots so they are not confusing)

All plays require conflict
Conflict should be balanced (in other words the struggle between protagonist and antagonist should be a fair fight); it is often better to have an antagonist who is slightly more powerful.

Characters often are antagonists to each other in plays.

Meaning (theme) in a play is tied to the action and conflict being presented on stage

• All plays should be entertaining (and written to be performed)
• All plays should communicate an idea (or belief about the human condition)
• All plays are REPRESENTATIVE of real life. They are NOT real life.
• Plays are NOT movies. The best way to learn how to write scripts is to read them and see play productions whenever possible. 

HOMEWORK: Please read Driving Miss Daisy for Friday, May 18

Cat's Cradle Quiz & Playwriting

After our quiz on Cat's Cradle, we will begin our second pass at script writing.

In groups of 4-5, please read the following short plays together in class:

If Men Played Cards As Women Do by George S. Kaufman (pp. 419-427)
The Boor by Anton Chekhov (pp. 99-112)
Overtones by Alice Gerstenberg (pp. 479-493)

Each member of your group should elect to read one part. Read the plays out loud. Stop after each one and discuss what you thought of the play.

Identify THE PREMISE (a one-sentence summary completing this statement: This play is about ______________.) What is the premise of each of the plays you read. Write down that premise on an index card and turn in with your group members names on it for class credit.

HOMEWORK: None.

Cat's Cradle

Please take the first 15 minutes to read Cat's Cradle. In the second half of today's class, please post a response to the forum about Cat's Cradle.

We will also spend some time in the next room, and might get into plays today.

HOMEWORK: Please complete Cat's Cradle. The test on the novel is Thursday.

Portfolio Advice

A. In dialogue two things:
1. Limit your adverbs. Avoid the use of 'well', 'oh', 'um', 'so', 'yeah', etc. These words don't mean anything when used to begin a line of dialogue and can be removed.
2. Here's the rule about dialogue punctuation: learn it!

• If you use a dialogue tag you need a comma where you would otherwise put a period.
• "Yes, it looks like this," said the teacher. OR "Yes, it looks like this," the teacher said.
• If you use a question mark, stating ASKED in your tag is redundant.
• If the dialogue is said a certain way by your character, you MAY use a tag in the front of the line to indicate to the reader the nuance or subtext of the line. This is optional, though. 
• Surprise in his voice, Jonny said, "This is what I'm saying!"

B. A hyphen is used to join two nouns (such as the word 'em-dash' or 'two-toned' or 'time-keeping'). A dash (em-dash) is typed as two hyphens. They mean something different, so don't confuse the two.

C. Many of you overuse participles phrases. Participles are verbs that describe actions that are on-going or continuing into the future. Here are just a few examples:

breaking, riding, sparing, snarling, grinning, smirking, glaring, booming, yelling, screaming, shouting, shattering, dancing, sleeping, living, dying, leaving, coming, baking, sewing, watching, drawing, speaking, smiling, whispering, mewing, barking, snorting, chirping, bringing, giving, moving, staying, renting, buying, knowing, snooping, stalking, begging, trying, creating, designing, marketing, reporting, drumming, looking, having, getting, complaining, crossing, busing, featuring, ending, beginning, stopping, starting, repairing, restarting, turning, changing, becoming, transforming, landing, looking, seeing, going, gripping, walking, running, working, jumping, hopping, eating, staring, mowing, pulling, sowing, writing, making, laughing, scratching, ripping, licking, sucking, typing, pushing, bowling, skipping, scanning, climbing, playing, sprinting, snowing, throwing, hitting, drinking... etc.

When you tack them onto sentences, they can provide detail:

• Snarling like a wolf, the boy bit through the steak in two chomps. 
• Putting on her jeans, she sucked in her gut.
• The water swirled around him; he was running out of breath.

If you use too many of these, you reduce the effectiveness of an action, and often create run-on sentences:

• Laughing until his sides burst, hiding behind the wardrobe, his panting long and laborious, he was sneaking a peak at the other boys and girls who were smiling and playing in the hallway, enjoying their conversation and snickering.

See? Too much!

Just like commas, a little goes a long way. Try to reduce participles to one or two at the most in a sentence. Using them in your writing too often is annoying and distracting. Okay, writing is a GERUND, but you get the idea.

Cat's Cradle (commentary)

Cat's Cradle may be considered a satire. It is chock-full of irony and parody, but at its core is poking fun at dark or uncomfortable subject matter, and a cautionary tale for us as humans. Vonnegut makes his reader criticize the serious issues of our culture, of which science, religion, nation, and family are only a few. Human stupidity and indifference in this age of technology and threat of mass destruction (consider our recent war...) becomes an important sticking point with the author.

The twentieth century added scientific advancement and industrialization or technology to a mix of religious, class, and international conflict --(remember the 1960's/1970's?) Although science and technology offers us a better standard of living (consider the poverty, for example, of India or rural China, as well as the poverty in Washington D.C., our country's capitol), it also produces human suffering. "The same scientific community that discovered antibiotics also produced the atomic bomb, nerve gas, automatic firearms, and a host of other efficient means to kill and maim human beings. The same process of industrialization that produced cheaper, standardized material goods came hand in hand with abusive labor practices and unsafe working conditions."

Violent religious, ethnic, and international conflicts are prevalent in our study of history. We may think we're beyond that, but are we? The 20th century mistakenly assumed that humankind had finally gotten it right--that we are a mature and logical people who could solve our problems. Not so, says Vonnegut.
Cat's Cradle ridicules our human hubris (excessive pride) by stressing the point that "human stupidity is not only alive and well in the twentieth century, but armed to the teeth."
 
Consider this context and take a look at the character list posted below before you gather in your discussion group today.

HOMEWORK: Complete Cat's Cradle. We will have a test on the book next week.

Portfolio/End of Marking Period

Today, after our reading time with Cat's Cradle, please get together in the following groups and discuss the novel so far:

Group A: Amelia; Caleb; Neriah; Dominic; Tim; Syasia; Clara

Group B: Julie; Hannah; Lizbeth; Neriah; Darren; Jack; Sierra

After our discussion, please return to your seats and complete any writing assignments you need to and print these assignments out for your portfolio. See post below for details on assignments due this marking period.

HOMEWORK: Please try to complete Cat's Cradle by next class (and the test).

Checking Our Progress

In your portfolio it is hopeful (and helpful) to have the following drafts/assignments:

1. Narrative structure draft (May 2)
2. Penfield Poem draft (April 24, 26 & April 30)
3. Pamela Houston Draft (April 15, 18, 20, 24)
4. Vonnegut advice revision (April 20)
5. Nature poem draft (Ode, Elegy, or Pastoral) (April 2)
6. Character Sketch & Internal Monologue poem (March 27)
7. Tense revision (March 23)
8. Madonnas of Leningrad poem or fiction free choice (March 19)
9. The Limerick draft (March 19)
10. The Bradbury-style fiction draft (March 1, 4, 7, 13, 15)
11. Summer, Winter, Spring, Autumn Haiku drafts (March 1, 4, 7, 13)
12. Workshop revisions (we have done a variety of workshops in which you were expected to make some revision and progress on various drafts).

For each draft, please indicate the draft number to indicate a revision.

Other in-class assignments/homework: Debra Dean Workshop, character sketch, Cowboys Are My Weakness Review, Workshop participation, Cat's Cradle reading participation #1, #2, #3...

Narrative Structure & Time

By now you know these terms (if you do NOT, please learn them!):

• Exposition
• Rising Action
• Climax 
• Falling Action
• Denouement/Resolution

If a novel was a five paragraph essay, that means we would have a paragraph dealing with each of these items in different lengths or complexities. Exposition, for example, is best used in contemporary fiction sprinkled throughout a story, not just at the beginning.

But were you aware that we have some choice in narrative structure?
We could write a story:
1. Chronologically - the story is told from beginning to end

advantages: It's easy; Moving a story ahead chronologically is linear and less complicated, often avoiding literary traps and convoluted plot devices; it's simple (we are used to telling stories like this)
disadvantages: It's difficult to tell a complete textured story without shifting time; Without flashbacks--a technique in which you interject a scene or scenes that happened prior to the current action--your storytelling options are limited; it's so familiar it's boring; We often don't know when to stop or where to begin, feeling like we need to cover everything that happens within the characters' lives and histories.

2. Total flashback: starting in the present (for the character), you flashback to a previous scene or event in the character's life and write back up to the present. This can also be called a frame story because the beginning and ending start and finish in the same time.

advantages: Opens up the story and allows the writer to include information that would be absent in the chronological tale; a flashback allows the opportunity to add critical backstory or commentary from the character/narrator, comparing past with present--this adds texture and depth to a story; After the frame (when you flashback) the story is just like a chronological story.
disadvantages: It is possible for a reader to be confused when the switch in time occurs; it is more complex to pull off than the chronological story.

3. A combination of the two (the Zigzag method): think Madonnas of Leningrad, for a recent example: but the zigzag allows for a back and forth structure utilizing the strengths of flashbacks AND chronological sequences and scenes.

advantages: allows for complexity and texture in the story; needed background can occur at any time; it is intellectually more compelling; it can increase suspense; it can create layered and developed characters
disadvantages: It takes some skill to tell a story both back and forward in time; it is a more complex narrative form; readers may become confused as to events.

Lab Activity: Select a fiction piece that you originally wrote as a chronological narrative. Switch the narrative by placing the ending sequences at the beginning (and then again at the end), (i.e., use the flashback or zigzag method.)

Lab Activity #2 & #3: #2 please complete the analysis on Cat's Cradle (due at end of class), then spend time reading the book. #3: complete and revise any workshop pieces you did not get to last class.

HOMEWORK: Please try to complete Cat's Cradle by Friday, May 4. Your portfolio will be collected Friday as well. Please make sure all the assignments from this marking period are complete and printed out in your portfolio.