Narrative Structure & Revision

EQ: Are you aware that we have some choice in narrative structure? What advice does Vonnegut give young writers? Who is Woody Allen?

Period 7:
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): 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.)

Writerly Advice: Vonnugut’s Advice On Writing

On pages 9 and 10 of his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. listed eight rules for writing a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that the greatest American short story writer, Flannery O'Connor, broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.
Look over your own writing and see if you are following any of Vonnegut's rules. Go back to your hint, flash, or micro fiction and add to it. Perhaps start in a new spot in the plot or add details to flesh out your characters, settings, and themes. Add dialogue where none existed before. Create scenes.

Period 8: Learn a little about Woody Allen here. Take some notes using the graphic organizer-side one (to hand in as participation credit). Let's pick up Woody Allen's book Without Feathers and in small groups of 1-3 read "Selections from the Allen Notebooks", "Psychic Phenomenon", and "A Guide to Some of the Lesser Ballets." As you read, identify the comic techniques on your notesheet (side 2).

The title of this collection of short stories and humorous pieces is an allusion to Emily Dickenson's poem. You can read her here. 

HOMEWORK: Begin to prepare your fiction portfolio. Read the stories: "The Scrolls", "Lovborg's Women Considered", and "The Whore of Mensa" (pages 24-41). As you read identify comic elements in the stories. See post above for more details and notes.