ENG 212 Creative Writing I Module 1 PDF

ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I MODULE 1 FICTION Unit 1 Preliminary Issues in Fiction Writing Unit 2 Story Selection and Projection Unit 3 Setting: Situation and Environment Unit 4 Structure: Plots & Plotting Unit 5 Sound: Rhythm of Prose and Dialogue Flow Unit 6 Character (ization): Symbols and Images Unit 7 Sense: Total Meaning and Import/Message UNIT 1 PRELIMINARY ISSUES IN FICTION WRITING CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content 3.1 How to ‘Open’ Novel-Writing 3.2 Purpose and Method 3.3 Shaping 3.4 Tools in Hand - your Mind, Pen, Notebook, and Machines 4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading 1.0 INTRODUCTION Creative writing is a many-sided (ad) venture. There can be many approaches to it. Indeed, one could assume that there is really no distinction between a good novel, and a good play and a good poem; that they are all ‘phases’ of one phenomenon – products of the imagination. But in fact, all writing is CRAFT. From such “crafting”, yes, a learner or reader could extract ‘knowledge’ of various kinds, from either one greater and famous writer, or from various works of many great and famous writers. Because it is “craft”, writing is a “task”, a practical task. But because the ‘practice’ of ‘describing’ an object, ‘narrating;, ‘telling’, about that one object, is different from “dialoguing” with that object when it is a person, a character in action on a stage, which character has a specific “voice”, a particular feature, creative writing needs to be “artificially” separated into fiction (novel), drama (playwriting) and poetry (poetic composing-like music). 18 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 2.0 OBJECTIVES At the end of this unit, you should be able to: appreciate the many-sided splendour of creative writing appreciate the need for revising and correcting the first inspired onrush of words and ideas when you start writing discuss the joy and exhilaration, or the challenges that you faced initially determine from the beginning what kind of “knowledge” or information you consciously want your reader to imbibe from your work determine the content of your work(novel, play or poem) beforehand because it is not accidental. 3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 How to ‘Open’ Novel-Writing As is being emphasized all writing is purposeful. Think now of the word, “Creative”. To “Create” means to bring about by imaginative skill something purposefully new. Because the process affects the producer, the product, and the consumer (here, the reader) of the product, “creative” now becomes an all-affective thing which envelopes all three “stakeholders”. This is why a work of art interests the artist, appeals to the art appreciator, and remains a memorable thing with an autonomous life of its own. 3.2 Purpose and Method Purpose and Method must then merge and drive each other along, much as the fuel in the tank of a car must be in an internally burning engine to ‘exhaust’ itself as it pulls/propels the engine along. How does a writer “pull the reader” into his story in the first place? the first sentence in the first paragraph on the first page of the book. A reader must be “hooked”, like a fish attracted to a bait is. The fish is given an attractive reason to want to feed. That is why he sees the bait, goes for it, and gets “hooked”. Remembers your fish need not “die”, but can be coaxed there from into an experiment, living or dying later? “Narrative Hook” as Rita Clay Estrada and Rita Gallagher call it, must make your reader CURIOUS, INQUISITIVE, and give him a REASON for staying on to read your novel. Method and Purpose also underline a writer’s technique. Consider the following three or four “Openers”/Methods and see the Intent/Purpose of the author(s). 19 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I “Metal on concrete jars my drinking lobes” [Soyinka’s Sagoe in opening the novel, The Interpreters] “Akwaasa!: [The lorry blew through the breeze]” [V.C.Ike in opening the novel, Toads for Supper]. “Once upon a time a young man was savouring the pleasures of a new car”. [Nkem Nwankwo in opening the novel, My Mercedez Is Bigger Than Yours] “Even before my death I have become a ghost…” [Ayi Kwei Armah in opening the novel, Why Are We so Blest?] Some American Romance novel openers include: “She stood alone and lonely under the dim street lamp”. and “I’m sorry, but my ad stated female, not male, to share my house”, Joan Evans said, ignoring her instant attraction to the handsome man at the door.” SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1 Pick any three of these six examples of openers as intimation of method and purpose, and write down five ways in which they are good “baits” to draw a reader into the story and keep him there. 3.3 Shaping Also, in the preliminary stage of beginning a novel, the ‘shape’ of the story is intimated. At the beginning the story rolls loosely around a number of subjects and persons. It may be around a family history, or a political event, or a police clash with a community, or a student who’s gone missing from school or village. You don’t know whether to write down a “facts or anecdotes” collection. Shape comes into your mind as you THINK and as you think, do not trust your mind to retain all of it; get a notebook, or some sheets of paper, plain sheets or ruled feint with margin; remember writing is hard work, and it needs tools to shape it, even as we use our hoes to shape mounds in the farm; or matchets to cut and clear the bush for farming; our spades to make the straight or curving ridges, etc. An unshaped written novel is an uncleared bush, full of brambles and undergrowths and wet, rotten leaves-strewn ground. “Writing is refined thinking”, says Stephen King (2000:131), like a well-shaped form is great harvest. 20 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 3.4 Tools in Hand - your Mind, Pen, Notebook, and Machine Natalie Goldberg [Writing Down The Bones (Boston: Shambhala, 1986.5-7) says that since writing is an attempt to “penetrate life”, student learner-writers must begin at the beginning – that is, with their mind. I agree. The beginner’s mind embarks on a journey, a task. To shape the journey (see 3.3 above), to expedite the task, let’s lend you Robert Olmstead’s analogy: writing, he asserts, is like driving at night. You only have your headlights, but manage to get where you’re going. As writers, we have our shaped novel, play, poem, short story, essay, memoir destination in mind. There are “small concerns” – tools we need. Goldberg lists these tools of concern: the pen you write with. What kind is it? – ballpoints, pencils, felt tips… are slow. Use a fast writing pen so your thoughts are caught up with your hand. Pen must “feel the connection and texture” with paper. You also need a notebook which is to you what “a hammer and nails are to a carpenter”) – preferably a cheap spiral note book easy to carry in a notebook size purse. The notebook may have your favourite commercial, or school, or government advert cover. Also, try out a variety of blank-lined or graphed-paged notebooks, some are hard cover, others are soft. Even when you are travelling on a bus, or in an aeroplane, and a thought you must capture turns up, use the ticket back cover. Some famous writer- doctors used their prescription pads. There was this colleague – a brother and a writer who resided in New York when we were postgraduate students-he never had a notebook. He always typed, and once on train, he had his type-writer on his laps while I played “Travel Scrabble” with someone else beside him. Well, today, there are laptops- do you have one? Late J. D. Ekwere always “wrote” by speaking into the reel-to-reel tape recorder in his office. But nowadays there are the handy Japanese – Chinese, or other Asian-made mini cassette/radio recorders, cheap and battery operated, so you could beat PHCN! SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2 Discuss the use of at least two “tools” in the prelim stages. How would they help you later? 4.0 CONCLUSION People always come to the business of creative writing thinking that “technique” means the actual manner in which a writer struggles to shape his material. Here we have tried to let you see that “technique” really means not just those technical details in the actual execution, but also the manner in which you set about, right at the beginning, to acquire those BASIC physical necessities – the needs of the crafts – with which the desired aim in writing will be accomplished. Thus 21 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I knowledge of what you want to write; the shape of what you are to write; the manner in which, like great masters of writing, you want to hold your consumer of product, your basic tools, from pen to paper and machines – this knowledge is basic. With them you are prepared to WRITE DOWN THE BONES – a strong, meaningful creative work which has MARROW!. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3 Why do you agree, if you do, with this conclusion? 5.0 SUMMARY In this first unit, we have not burdened you with an overload of definitions. Writing in its process and processing defines and re-defines it. We have instead led you to appreciate how to open a novel like the old masters, why you need to shape your thinking, and why you must know your basic tools. 6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. In what sense or senses is creative writing a ‘task’ 2. Open a story of your own in a paragraph using any method as “bait” for your reader. 7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING Goldberg, Natalie. (1986) Writing-Down the Bones. Boston & London: Shambhala Publications. Olmstead, Robert. (1997). Elements of the Writing Craft. Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press Books. 22 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I UNIT 2 STORY SELECTION AND PROJECT CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content 3.1 What is “Story”? 3.2 Sources to “Select” from and Principles of Selection 3.3 “Outlines” of Stories 3.4 Projecting the Story. Defences 4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading 1.0 INTRODUCTION Some writers believe that a good story is the best assurance of success in the final product called the novel. And so, they emphasize the need for a well selected story. In every culture the world over people thrill over to a good story. So, in this unit we shall let you into the VALUE and PLACE of story selecting and the legal implications. 2.0 OBJECTIVES At the end of this unit, you should be able to: identify what constitutes a story discuss the varieties and variations in story perspectives list sources from which to select discuss the principles basic to selecting a story project the story as if you were a camera-eye. 3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 What is “Story”? Ordinarily, as any good dictionary or thesaurus can tell, a story is just the account of events or incidents whose ordering may be extremely loose, tight or disorderly but in whatever form they ultimately posses elements of human sense to an extent. We see “Stories”, more or less, in this sense in the TV news, or newspaper thrillers or sensational rendering of a killing, a theft with perpetrators breaking and entering, a 23 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I conversion or healing of persons on a Christian crusade ground, or even church worship occasion. In fact, our everyday life is full of “stories”. However, when it comes to creative writing, story assumes a special dimension. It becomes an “imagined” or “imaginative”, “invented” – and so, called “fictional” narrative, full of contrived intrigues so plotted as to receive a variety of names such as “Anecdote” (when full of humour and amusement), or “legend” (when couched as transmitted history of a people from their previous times), or “romance” (especially as in a cowboy adventure from America, or a science-fiction/thriller from an H.G. Wells or a Jules Verne, or a Girls’ or Womens’ chit-chat magazine, or an H. Rider Haggard ‘mystery’ in a remote African jungle) when a man and woman, or a boy and girl fall in love. Neither still, nor every kind of fictionally imagined tale with the love- element is a romance story. For instance, N.T.A’s “Super Story” is not romance; the series has one “heart-kicking dilemma, one life-threatening quandary or another, one fear-raising or emotional death or divorce or another as “elements”. So “Super Story” is a “soap” (opera). Other television shows such as “Desperate House Wives” is not romance, though the stories show the women “experiencing” “growth”, “new beginnings”, “raising children” (alone), ‘leaving their husbands’, “becoming economically independent”, or even attaining worker-status for the first time.” The story is “women’s fiction”. Once creativity comes into play, however, a story is a story when well plotted and is arrestingly gripping. So, you need to clarify to yourself, ‘ab initio’, what story you are going to tell: what it is about; how well ordered; theme, and basic idea; and premise (the road map the story follows), (Estrada & Gallagher. 1999:1-5). SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1 What makes a story? Why must you select? 3.2 Sources to “Select” from & Principles of Selection If you have understood “story” as treated above, you’ll realize immediately that there are, and can be, so many stories, and varieties and variations and that as a writer you need to select carefully and meticulously. But first, where does one select from? As can be seen, and has been foreshadowed above, everyday life is a vast source to pick stories from. 24 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I In addition, you could pick and build on pre-existing folk-tales and communal stories. After all, as a writer you are also a researcher. However, there are principles of selection involved here. In using everyday stories and communal folksy stories which are in the society’s common pool of available story stores, there are no copyright laws. The writer-researcher is free to take the folksy stories, re-shape them, modify the characterization, and give them new language. In fact, this selection freedom is what the whole principle of adaptation is all about; it is what the imagination is to re-create (see Unit 1, 1.0). However, where there is a previously told story, especially written up under a known individual’s name and title, you must respect the copyright restrictions so as to avoid going to the “Revenue Court” for plagiarism or manuscript stealing. Armed with unrestricted materials, the writer must now “find” his/her own “story”. To find the story, you must “twist” a plot, give characters new motivations, believable behaviour, add your “invented” complications so as to give your selected story a personality, a uniqueness that will enliven the tale. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2 Apart from communal property folktales, and your everyday life observed sources, can you name and assess some three other sources for stories (Re: TV news, World disaster areas and the like). 3.3 “Outlines” of Stories Someone has said that a writer, creative writer, is an architect, a cook, and farmer. He knows the concrete names of things around him. He must bring them specifically to life, give them their correct, living names, and put them in an order, in an outline. Through an outline he creates a list that may form chapters, or even chunks of the same story. An “outline” helps you grasp and grab your ideas, and stick to them. Jot down something like these ten “ideas”. As Natalie Goldberg would: Swimming The stars The most frightened you’ve ever been Green places 25 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I How you learned about sex Your first sexual experience The closest you ever felt to God or Nature Reading and books that have changed your life Physical endurance A teacher you had (Goldberg, 1986.21) Each is concrete, not abstract; each is real stuff. In “Outlining” you are forced to be honest, to be down to earth, not a romantic dreamer, or an escapist coward. Making an outline disciplines you; forces you to avoid procrastination. Chinua Achebe says it forces you to do now, not go on proposing, “I’ll do, I’ll do”, forever like the rat without a tail that ever hoped to grow one but never did. An outline gives you the chapters; gives you the characters; defines directions and situations, sharpens your mind to see the entrances and exits for your personages, may even push you towards seeing a resolution or conclusion, an ending to your story, especially when from a well-tuned, well-directed, soul-rending conflict, you have given your characters appropriate motivations for action within their assigned personalities. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3 What is an “outline”? Expand on one of the ten listed above from Goldberg. 3.4 Projecting the Story. Defences There is a novel, Anywhere but here, written by Mona Simpson. The story opens in a crisis, like this: “We fought. When my mother and I crossed State lines in the stolen car, I’d sit against the window and wouldn’t talk. I wouldn’t even look at her. The fights came when I thought she broke a promise. She said there’d be an Indian reservation. She said that we’d see buffalo in Texas. My mother said a lot of things. We were driving from Bay City, Wisconsin, to California, so I could be a child star while I was still a child. “Talk to me,” my mother would say. “If you are upset, tell me”. But I wouldn’t. I knew how to make her suffer. I was mad. I was mad about a lot of things. Places she said 26 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I would be there weren’t. We were running away from family. We’d left home. Then my mother would pull to the side of the road and reach over and open my door. “Get out, then”, she’d say, pushing me.” Robert Olmstead has suggested that a lesson in “story projection” can be deduced by analysis this way: This novel begins with a two-word sentence “We fought” – a subject, “we” and verb, “fought” It (the sentence) tells what has been happening between the narrator and her mother, from the narrator’s point of view. These two words give conditions. They create a complicated dynamic. Yet one that is easy to understand. It is not a drama taking place before your eyes, but still a drama that was and is constant. The word, “would” maintains the past tense. ‘Would’ is the past tense of ‘will’ and indicates habitual action, in this case, the relentlessness of the fighting. In the second sentence we find out that their car is stolen. But this information comes to us through an adjective inside a prepositional phrase inside a clause. That the car is stolen is made to be much less important than that they are fighting. Nevertheless, we are told the car is stolen and it isn’t mentioned again in this passage. Simply put, this information is revealed in an adjective, not in a statement of fact, as the fighting is. Another statement of fact is “I was mad”. Notice how each time the narrator makes a statement of fact, she follows it with an example, reason or detail. The thinking is personal and childlike. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense. But more important, it appears to make sense. The narrator’s strength is in her thinking. This is why her mother’s behaviour in the fourth paragraph is so striking. It has consequence. Knowing the car is stolen now comes back to haunt us. The crisis is enlarged. However dangerous we thought the situation, we find we misjudged. Look at all the italicised words and phrases, and you will agree the story and its opening crisis are concretely projected. The reader is on solid ground, the author-creator is on solid earth; the ‘personae’ of the story are solid reality. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4 Open your own imaginary story with a two-word sentence. Come up with ten possibilities. I suggest these three examples for you: 27 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I “We argued…” “We ran…” “He cried…” 4.0 CONCLUSION If you are, or were a javelin-throwing sportsman you would have no problem appreciating the word, “projection” “throwing-forth and far away”. The action will be full of energy, excitement, and breath-taking. This Unit tells you just the place of “projection, “audible-visible” energy of a story that starts its narrative journey. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 5 Write in three more sentences following my own sentences, to expand your understanding of the importance of “story projection”. Or is a story better “handled” than “projected”? 5.0 SUMMARY In this second Unit you have been given the concrete grounds for knowing what a “story” should be; for seeing how even the smallest word/phrase could energize a tale, for knowing the place of “outlines”; for knowing how to select from sources without breaking intellectual property laws. 6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. What is “copyright”? 2. Discuss any difficulties or problems you had in self-Assessment Exercise 4 3. Give three reasons why thinking of “outlines” for your story is equivalent to evolving suitable topics for sections of your imaginative work. 7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING Goldberg, Natalie. (1986). Writing-Down the Bones. Boston & London: Shambhala Publications. Olmstead, Robert. (1997). Elements of the Writing Craft. Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press Books 28 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I UNIT 3 SETTING: SITUATION & ENVIRONMENT CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content 3.1 Setting by What You See: Vision & Space 3.2 Setting by What You Hear: Sounds & Storms 3.3 Setting by Weather and Geology: An Environment 3.4 Setting by Character: Environment & Personality 4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading 1.0 INTRODUCTION Estrada and Gallagher insist, very correctly, that a story is not written in ‘chapters’, but rather is written in “scenes” and their “sequels”, that is in actions organized round a situation and the reaction contrary to the previous. A setting must be like a string of beads to keep a story on track. When well set out you can see a pattern that we diagram like this; and you must be able to describe and define concretely. SCENES = ACTION SEQUELS = REACTION Composed of 1. Goal (direction you are going) 1. Reaction (may be opposition) 2. Conflict 2. Dilemma (Choice must be dictated now) 3. Disaster 3. Decision Indeed, for a story to begin well, the writer must think it through first. To think it through you must be able to know exactly which direction you are going, where exactly you are at any given stage, how you are going to reach your destination. 29 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 2.0OBJECTIVES At the end of this unit, you should be able to: establish a good story in the first scene you set to hold your reader in the first few pages determine what a STORY GOAL is determine what is a SCENE GOAL is decide how to end each scene in a conflict or preparation for a coming conflict, big or small decide how to adjust a story so as to balance pacing, length, emotion and actions in scenes you have set. 3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 Setting by What You See: Vision & space In a novel called State of Grace, Joy Williams writes a setting like this: “… And the ground never dries. The yard is rich mud with no definition between it and the riverbank. Tiny fish swim in the marks our feet make. The trees are tall and always look wet as though they’d been dipped in grease. Many of them are magnolias and oaks. Pods, nuts and Spanish moss hang in wide festoons. The river is the perfect representation of a Southern river, thin and blond, swampy, sloppy and warm. It is in everyone’s geography book. I was not shocked at all when I saw it. I was not pleased, although it is quite pretty…” This SETTING relies on What can be seen. Olmstead avers that only a storyteller who has, and is, as a sharps teller like Williams has an eye for SURROUNDINGS, and a DISCERNING language for the particular vision can write so distinctly or clearly. The “world” this writer describes is “oozing” and “shimmering”. The movement suggests a person’s gaze crossing a landscape, moving from ground, to the tress, to the river. Each descriptive sentence is TIGHT. Each begins the same way: “…The yard… is…, the trees are…, the river is ….” with simple verbs, relating simply what is seen, what is seen is. This description defines. The trees are defined: magnolias, oaks. ‘pods, ‘Nuts and Spanish moss hang in wide festoons’. This programme developer is reminded of an almond tree in his compound at that time of the year when it sheds its dried broad leaves and they scatter far and wide in the wind beyond the foot of the tree itself into the neighbours’ compounds and onto the streets. In this kind of setting a writer shows confidence in 30 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I how to perceive land and environment. In the end what is seen is not just physical but begins to embody an inner, spiritual dimension that gives a setting its peculiar character(istic) and magic and attraction. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1 If you think you have followed this part of the Unit, do two things now: 1. Choose a setting you know well, be it your yard at home, a part of Lagos lagoon near you, or the stretch of highway from Abuja International Airport into the city centre, and describe it. 2. Use a simile/metaphor to give a “push” to five descriptive phrases of your own: e.g. “The water is rotted, smelly…” With a “push”- “The water is rotted, smelly like a lifeless pond where no fish can live”. 3.2 Setting by What You Hear: Sounds & Storms In a collection of short stories by Obi B. Egbuna titled Emperor of the Sea (London: Fontana Modern Novels. 1974), we read this setting. “…Falilah suggested we went for a walk down to the creek. The moon was out… Falilah and I sat on a log of wood, all by ourselves in the silent stillness of the night… like two birds of the air… everything peace and in accord with nature… for about two hours, no word passed between us. She just sat there, in complete silence, staring at me, with a mysterious smile on her face… like a High Priestess in a trance… her eyes burning right through me… I began to feel uncomfortable …tried to get up and tell her it was time to leave, but… it was as if an invisible force was holding me down….. Then, suddenly, Falilah said, ‘Can I trust you?’…” And, from the book, The Fearful Void by Geoffrey Moorhouse, we read a setting: “…It was a child, screaming in nightmare, which woke me. As I rose from the depths of my sleep, sluggishly, like a diver surfacing from the seabed, the corridors of the hotel echoed with those pealing, terrified cries. They poured over the balcony beyond my room and filled the courtyard beneath; they streamed out into the town which was cooling itself, ankle-deep in sand under a new moon, and they were lost, plaintively, among the low dunes 31 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I scattered to the south and to the east. I reached consciousness to the dimmer sound of a father’s voice gentling the infact terrors away, and the night became stealthy with silence again …..” In each we observe dramatic settings. Obi Egbuna’s is a novel/short story; Moorhouse’s is a travel book. Each main character is involved in night, a strange, exotic setting. We enter the experience of nightmarism and mesmerism with the tellers. Names are concretized – “Falilah”, “I”. They do not know what lies ahead. Sound becomes silence, and silence sound. “Down to the creek…” “Moon was out,” “silent stillness of the night…”, “no word passed…” “…mysterious smile as a High Priestess in a trance” (Obi Egbuna’s). Then, “…cries poured… filled… was cooling… ankle-deep… scattered…” (Moorhouse’s). There is innocence in both Falilah and the child. Silence gains human attribution – the ability to move as a thief or as a High Priestess in a trance. In a gripping setting what you hear may be as tough as the silence you don’t seem to hear. That kind of paradox gives strength to the setting. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2 Take a setting like this: “The girl and I walked on in the silence, only hearing our breathing and the crunch of sand beneath our bare feet. Then suddenly, as if determined to jar us or separate us, an eerie wind as if driven by a thousand whistling pines crashed into us…” Continue with three other sentences. 3.3 Setting by Weather and Geology: An Environment James Lee Burke has written, in a novel, In The Electric Mist With The Confederate Dead, like this: “…The sky had gone black at sunset, and the storm had churned inland from the Gulf and drenched New Iberia and littered East Main with leaves and tree branches from the longcanopy of oaks that covered the street from the old brick Post Office to the drawbridge over Bayon Teche at the edge of the town. The air was cool now, laced with light rain, heavy with the fecund smell of wet humus, night blooming jasmine, roses, and new bamboo…”. Peter K. Palangyo of Tanzania has written in the novel, Dying in the Sun, as follows: “…She had weighed him down to the ground and she was running her hands over his short woolly hair, kissing his 32 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I throat and chest with tears of joy, of life rediscovered, wetting his neck and chest. He surrendered himself with his arm around her repeating slowly and inaudibly, ‘yes, yes, my darling’… They lay there… Darkness was slowly closing in but one could still see the narrow pathway that meandered in its carelessness toward the destination they were not too impatient to reach. Birds were still singing, especially the evening dove, and grasshoppers were moving around noisily in the dry grass. A few herd boys were crying goodnight to each other across the valleys. A cow too was mooing because of its overloaded udder or because it missed its calves…. Kachawanga was strikingly quiet … with birds and grasshoppers singing their praise to God…” In these extracts, weather and environment clearly give TEXTURE to setting, to story. Thunderstorms, blizzards, hurricanes, extreme heat or cold, the narrowness of the pathway of a place the author knows well, the meandering of the path, the movement and singing of grasshoppers in the dry grass, the valleys of cows and herd boys – all these STRENGTHEN your setting. Men and women live in weather and coldness or heat, in darkness and twilight everyday. Weather can enhance Mood. They travel together in a story. See how oblivious the lovers in Palangyo are: she “weighing him down…”, he “surrendering…”. Detail upon detail informs the reader about what lies beneath the ground, what other lives float around, “… birds singing …grasshoppers… noisily in dry grass…” Take note of the words which describe. “…churned… drenched… littered… cool… laced… light… heavy… face and wet… blooming…” in Burke; and “… weighed… running… short woolly hair… wetting… repeating inaudibly…” in Palangyo. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3 1. Make a list of as many words as you can which describe or evoke weather, dry or rainy. 2. Where do you live in Nigeria? Follow any of the two patterns above and write about a storm, or a lovers’ meeting scene which is descriptive and evocative of place and emotion. 33 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 3.4 Setting by Character: Environment & Personality Here is how Asare Konadu in the novel, Ordained By Oracle, tells us of a man who would not sleep on a bed but rather preferred a mat on the floor because he complained that the bed was too soft. “…This man was a farmer. He had lived through most of his life on his farm, sleeping as we are doing now (on a coarse mat on a floor). Sometimes he even slept on tree trunks when hunting. Now, he had some money and wanted to see Accra…” “…To him it was like the Moslie man from the Republic of Mali coming to Kumasi… “…Yes, as the Moslie proverb goes, he who does not know Kumasi has not seen heaven. But to him the heaven was Accra. He booked into a hotel and at night when shown into his bedroom refused to sleep in the bed… He said any time he fell asleep he found himself in a deep, deep hole and he kept dropping through a bed of feathers which fluttered round him. So he rose and slept on the carpet on the floor. It was then he had a fine sleep”. You can see here that Konadu gives this farmer an “interior” as well as an “exterior”, with his taste for a particular kind of sleeping comfort, and imagination of what could befall him otherwise. Here is set, a character who loves to balance rural life-time exposure with the “heaven” of cities, and for whom only one city, Accra, holds out that taste of heaven. By the last sentence you see this character is set as a man of realism, set habits, a ‘traditional’ man, rugged – “slept on tree trunks when hunting…”; a kind of adventurer, now that he has made some money. You can see how the contrast provided, even speculatively, about Accra and Kumasi makes places, towns, to shape an image of this farmer for the reader. 4.0 CONCLUSION This Unit has elaborated for you what setting relies on in a good, gripping story. You must know your imaginary places well, be they a road, a river, some bush, or forest; be they big or small, such as seeing all of a country, like Ghana from a small hotel room. Sounds and silences give texture and concreteness to setting. They create environment; food eaten, or being prepared; a marriage planned or hoped for as in Palangyo’s work, a sense of the eerie or extraordinary, 34 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I even a dream as in Egbuna or Moorhouse. Setting gives flesh to both situation and environment. 5.0 SUMMARY In this third Unit, you have been exposed to the characteristics of setting in a story. You have seen the range and variety of settings. Your “vision”, in the things you can see physically as well as the things you can imagine expands through settings; what your ears can gather, “off” and “on” stage, as it were; the kinds of weather - stormy, calm, rough and unsteady, hot or cold give your setting of a story some substance. You can now “see”, “hear”, and “create”! 6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. Invent a diagram of your own in line with suggestion in 1.0 (Introduction) to illustrate “setting as a string of beads” (You may consult your Rosary! If you have or believe in one). 2. Which writers seem to you to make “better” settings – Africans or non-Africans? What do you regard as “better” – vocabulary and diction, or descriptiveness? 7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING Goldberg, Natalie.(1986) Writing-Down The Bones. Boston & London: Shambhala Publications. Olmstead, Robert. (1997). Elements of the Writing Craft. Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press Books 35 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I UNIT 4 STRUCTURE: PLOTS AND PLOTTING CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content 3.1 Are Plots Necessary? 3.2 Story Inside Story 3.3 Handling Conflicts 3.4 Action as Determiner 3.5 Description Inside Structure 4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading 1.0 INTRODUCTION Since creative writing is purposeful work, just as we have purpose in everyday life, the story needs be solid, practical and ordered. That way writing becomes vital, clear, and good. There must be a pathway of travel in the story. Structuring the story is the key to shifting into the essentials of the human experience you wish to express. Structuring gives the writer a perspective. Structure builds together the elements of the story you want to tell. Disparate as trees, the sky, the moon, the stars may be, they are bonded in structure. Embedded in the structure are the plots and subplots. These fertilize the story. Structure helps generate the ideas. Structure itself is idea in itself too. By it you know where you are going. Your mind will be ‘leaping’, because structure is metaphor. Structure is image. Structuring helps you to slowly grapple with the positions which the pillars and pins of your human tale must take. 2.0 OBJECTIVES As the Introduction has tried to emphasize, STRUCTURE is the basis of all design and architecture therefore. At the end of this unit, you should be able to: describe fully the “architectonics” of putting a story together determine why plots are necessary decide how to plot your work without making them mechanical list the many dimensions that make up a story determine the correct handling of the intricacies of story structure list many kinds of what is called “action” in the novel 36 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I decide how to handle action ii fiction-writing decide how to use action or actions to project the fullness and significance of the story. 3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 Are ‘Plots’ Necessary? Once you have decided on what you are going to write about, which normally would be something you know, and you are to tell it in truth, remembering that truth is so vital that the Lord Jesus always pointed its importance by telling his listeners, “Verily, verily… I say unto you …”, you must settle to plot it out. You must be careful here. Life itself as we lead it is not quite a “plotted” thing. You plan a trip, yes, for instance. You plan to have a family, true. But you do not set about these mechanically. Some very serious – and successful – writers have said in interview that they do not believe in plotting, because they see “plotting and the spontaneity of real creation” as incompatible. They believe that “stories make themselves” and that the job of the writer is to give a story “a place to grow”, and so merely “transcribe the stories”. The real truth of course is that even if stories are “relics” one “finds” in life, as “fossils” are found by the geologist in the ground, the writer uses “tools” from a “toolbox” deliberately to shape them or present them intact to the world. How do you use your “tools”? Your tools are used consciously because you have an aim and a direction in which you are moving. As in our tradition, the Elders used to admonish young girls newly married and learning to prepare pounded yam (foofoo) for their beloved husbands, “pound well, and you pound inside the mortar, but pound carelessly, and you’ll crush the bones of your thighs …”. A writer of a story is a pounder. The “pestle” and “mortar” are tools. They must be used with care, caution and deliberateness, moving on in the direction of achieving the smoothest, most appetizingly edible pounded yam. The process is not just carried on “intuitively”. We go stage-by-stage, knowing when and how much water to add, when to turn the malleable powder in the mortar right or left, when to pick up the small knife and scrape off the bits of the foofoo from the pestle. Plotting a story is like using these necessary steps. Therefore, do not think that those who reject plotting are altogether right. Indeed, it was the case that the earlier debate we referred to (see p. … of…) on whether creative writing can or cannot be taught hinged on this argument about the necessity of plots. A famous successful writer like Stephen King, while seeming to distrust plotting, eventually spells out the inevitability of the need to plot a story when he asserts that: 37 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I …..Plot is a big tool… it’s clumsy, mechanical, anti-creative…. plot is… the good writer’s last resort the dullard’s first choice. The story which results from it (plot) is apt to feel artificial and laboured … lean more heavily on intuition… because my books tend to be based on SITUATION rather on STORY…. After this, he goes on to stress that the use of the “outline” and “notebook” – filled CHARACTER NOTES may “enslave” or “liberate” a writer’s, even produce a good plotline in a story by a device called the Edgar Wallace Plot Wheel. A good plot helps to sustain the interest of the reader in a novel. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1 1. How can the “plotting” of a story be a check on the absence of control which “intuition” alone could cause in the process? 2. Give two differences between “SITUATION” and “STORY”. (See further in TUTOR MARKED ASSIGNMENT below). 3.2 Story Inside Story When you have plotted, that is, outlined your story well, got your intuition to be controlled, and remain controllable; you may wish to tell a “story” inside the main story. The problem is how you move with grace and smoothness into that second story. Here is how a well-known novelist/creative writing teacher once illustrated the process. “It was with those feelings that he heard the uncle’s suddenly Solemn voice. What was this voice? This tone? What story?. It was in the dark afternoon on a November day of sleet, told the uncle. We waited and we waited for Louetta to get home from her trip into town. The darker it got the scareder we got”. What does a learner writer learn from such a beginning as this? The author of the story is a man called William Goyen. Now, see, first, how he moves both reader and listener WITHIN THE LARGER STORY. The movement is gradual; it is inexorable. It is as 38 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I if things are sliding under water, falling under a spell. Robert Olmstead describes this first move as that as of the ‘solemn sound of the voice’. Then the question, “What voice”?. Then a reference to TONE, then “What story?”, and before any answer is forthcoming, the story commences. Yet we are not sure until we too are already under its spell and read the words, “TOLD THE UNCLE…”. The story, second story, has thus already ‘Begun’! The storyteller inside your story will sound different from the narrator, will be unique within the larger story. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2 Write down five phrases that describe a voice. For example, “His voice (sounded like) metal on stone”. 3.3 Handling Conflicts You need to know what “conflict” in creative writing really means, implies. Conflict is not simply disagreement. It is not simply the tug and pull of opposites. Take this passage from the story “Two Stories” by Bret Lott. He writes, via the narrator: “…I used to imagine it wasn’t the flu that killed my mother, but a broken heart at the death of her beloved. But the truth of the matter was he’d moved into a logging shack a year before he’d broke his neck, and only showed up to our house at twilight on Saturday nights to have at my mother, then to attend church the next morning, his black hair slicked back and shining with pomade”. Here, something is happening in a mind. A soul is troubled. That is the “conflicted mind”. The writer lets you know and feel, through the narrator, the imaging of a broken heart.’ ‘the fact of flu,’ ‘the truth of abandonment,’ ‘the reality of a broken neck’ – all in four lines! The conflict occurs in a contentious mind, a mind that has to face up to the differences between imagination and truth. The author also reveals and explores the way the imagination can still operate in the face of what it knows to be a fact. Let us take another example in which conflict is in the minds of the characters. Here is a passage from the story, “Living through the winter” by Mary Bush. It’s a telephone talk. 39 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I “…He was ready to hang up when she answered ‘Hello? She said He couldn’t move. The voice went through him like ice. He could feel it even after she stopped speaking. ‘Hello’: She said again. He heard noise in the background, the TV going, and a man saying, ‘who is it?’ over the sound of the TV. ‘Who is this? She said He hung up the phone gently. He sat there for a long time, dazed, not feeling a thing…” See the conflict: someone, a man, a young boy, whoever intends to talk, to converse with some other person – a girl, a woman. He is intimidated, somehow. The scene is full of sound. Conflicting sounds – the ‘voice’ at other end of the phone which goes through him like ice’, TV set is going in the background, like a voice through ice. Then there is a man’s voice, booming, perhaps, with ‘who is it?’ and the girl or woman on this side repeating, ‘Who is this?’ You can see the conflicts and the thwarting of the caller’s intentions – ‘dazed’, ‘not feeling a thing – the conflicts lead to a defeat, according to writer Bush. Conflicts can be created, especially in war situations, boxing arena settings, football pitches, or even in a classroom. They must indicate a direction to solving their tangling or to reveal a commitment or disengagement, a lack of interest, timidity or stubbornness. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3 Make two (2) lists for phrases, like (see the one from Lot’s story) “I used to imagine …” and a second list for phrases like “He was ready to…” (from the Bush story). Do five phrases for each: e.g “I used to imagine (think) that girls are shy, but to tell you the truth…” (5 times) e.g “He was ready to give up the effort, but just then his big brother showed…” (3times) 40 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 3.4 Action as Determiner A master of the art of how novels are structured, Dwight V. Swain has been quoted as asserting as follows: “That a story tells how a character overcomes obstacles on the way to an important goal” (Estrada & Gallagher. 1999.47). The actions of characters, especially when in conflict or in unpressing opposing views, make a story. Estrada and Gallagher affirm that a so-called story about “happy people, in a happy house, in a happy town, in a happy country, in a happy world” is NOT A STORY. There must be obstacles to action, or action producing challenge to what someone would want to but then cannot do. Characters are determined by actions. That is life. In a well-written novel (romance novel, for instance), Estrada and Gallagher insist that “love, that most basic emotion that is part of every person on this planet hurt, anger, despair and betrayed must mingle with hope, doubt, anticipation, desire, fear, disloyalty, wishes and faith” (1999:48). Action in all these is determiner of conflict. Take this passage that Robert Olmstead uses to show how action to interior’ determines characters, from the story, “Shed of Grace” by Melissa Pritchard. “…I will not defend myself. I was experiencing..... revenge towards my sister. But I intended this familiarity to stop; I fully intended to control its limits. Later, when he drove onto the dirt road which led to the graveyard, saying that he had left something, I knew that my revenge had conjoined with his and that we would very soon prove uncontrolled, weakly submissive to our instincts. He parked behind the white shed, leaving the door of the truck yawning open…” See how the mutual ambitions of the Narrator (Sister) and the Husband (of the first woman) to betray her become one. See the ‘action in the character’s interior – what Gabriel Okara calls the inside, in the second paragraph. The action takes place as ‘thought’ – so it is not told, it is not narrated – but the use of the first person narration style carries it. The first person narrator is in alliance with the reader, thus drawing him to immediately share potential action as completed action. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4 1. List phrases that show a character expressing interior action. For example, “I was experiencing …”; “I know at once that …”; “I had planned…” 41 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 2. In the first two lines of the passage, the narrator-character explains her. Create a small movement where one of your characters does the same thing. For example, “…I was enjoying what was happening on a Lagos beach at Xmas…” You may further refer to the opening scene of Wole Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero. 3.5 Description Inside Structure In 3.4 we tried to show how action can drag the reader into the heart of a story when well told. We indicated that sometimes not all action is narrated, as Pritchard demonstrates. Now we do not mean that describing a scene or describing narratively is not necessary. After all, a story must be told. We now want to refer here to the importance of description inside the story structure - remember we are still elaborating on the phenomenon of PLOT. Stephen King asserts (2000:173) that description is what makes the reader a SENSORY PARTICIPANT in the story (emphasis mine). Good description is a skill one must learn. You learn it by reading a lot, and writing a lot. How much must one write? Just write. Don’t be like the young female lecturer who started writing a novel, describing characters and situations six times, and then discarded all, because she said each attempt made her “sound like Achebe”, but she wanted to be different! How? Is Chimamanda not like an Achebe in Purple Hibiscus? In description, you fist VISUALIZE what your reader is to experience; then you TRANSLATE that vision into words inside your story. Description must be neither thin, nor too thick. Let us examine Elechi Amadi’s The Slave, chapter 10: “…Olumati felt vaguely happy and wondered why. Then he remembered he was due to occupy his new house in a few days’ time. The walls were now dry and smoothly scrubbed. So were the floor and sleeping mounds. What remained was the charcoal-and-chalk decoration on the front wall. It was not really necessary, but Aleru was insisting. His house, she said, should look right, whether he was worried or not… …As usual, Aleru called in Adiba to help. Adiba was known to be good at putting on wall decorations. Some said she took after her brother in matters of skill. Like flood waters which always collected in the same places 42 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I after rain, skill tended to reside in certain families…” (The Slave. 1978.83). Here, description consists in a few well chosen details – Olumati’s new house, … walls now dry, smoothly scrubbed,…” remaining the “charcoal-and-chalk decoration on front wall…”. The skills of the Adiba family are like “flood waters… collecting in same places after rain…” Description here too is straight. Not too thin. Not too thick. It is also a set scene. 4.0 CONCLUSION This unit has given you all the possible main guidelines to place of plot and description or narration inside a story. The main content is that a plot is as necessary to a story as arms and legs are to a total body. Conflict, Action and Description are those limbs. 5.0 SUMMARY In this fourth unit of module 1, we have dealt with structure in totality. The human anatomy, for instance, without flesh, is a gathering of bones without beauty, dry and frighteningly white. When bones of an anatomy are covered with full flesh, there is beauty of form. Structure is the beauty of a story. 6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. What do you understand by the “architectonics” of story-telling? 2. Give a brief description of the lounge of a modern fast food joint in a Nigerian city of your choice as prelude to a story on a festive occasion. 3. Name ten novels you’ve read and find descriptions in them memorable. 7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING Goldberg, Natalie.(1986) Writing-Down The Bones. Boston & London: Shambhala Publications. Olmstead, Robert. (1997). Elements Of The Writing Craft. Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press Books. 43 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I UNIT 5 SOUND – THE RHYTHM OF PROSE AND DIALOGUE FLOW CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content 3.1 Syntax & Rhetoric – is it Important? 3.2 Language of the Word, or the Word of the Language? 3.3 Dialogue 3.4 Rhythm and Voice 3.5 “Poetic” and “Prosaic” Language 4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading 1.0 INTRODUCTION The English language is not the African’s native tongue/language. Both as speaker and as writer of it therefore, the African must know the rules of correct usage of the language, though he may be doing his thinking in his indigenous idioms or thought – patterns. The creative writer who is African therefore needs a particularly careful approach to the use of English if he is to be a successful writer. He must be master of GRAMMAR. There is ‘grammar’ in ‘conversational’ language, there is ‘grammar’ in reading, there is ‘grammar’ in writing. For us in Nigeria, in particular, one must notice there is a difference, somewhat, between American and British grammar, just as in oral speech, there are differences. Many of us are confused. Despite the domination of the computer and information technology language/communication systems by the American, it is suggested here that as far as possible, the creative writer to be here sticks with the British for British grammar, says Stephen King, is more “sturdy” than the American. Whether Americanizing, or Anglicising, any way, you need to know that Bad grammar produces bad sentences. A good novel is always written in good sentences. 2.0 OBJECTIVES At the end of this unit, you should be able to: determine the importance of exhibiting a good knowledge of syntax in your writing distinguish between complete and ‘incomplete’ sentences 44 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I make language sound ‘pliable’ create good dialogue distinguish between ‘prosaic’ and ‘poetic’ language in the novel. 3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 Syntax & Rhetoric – Is It Important? Natalie Goldberg does three things to illustrate the centrality of good syntax for the writer who has a good ear for language, who knows all the parts of speech of English, who can distinguish between ‘nouns’ and ‘verbs’ and ‘articles’ and ‘conjunctions’. To the writer, the good writer, words in English are not simply wooden blocks to be moved around at random. As the mind is always trying to construct a meaning, so the words must be arranged to make sense (see unit 7). To adapt the first example of the three which Natalie Goldberg uses, let us write, like this: 1. “…I can’t write because I’m a bucket of water and my mouth goes dry and there’s nothing to say and I’d rather drink water from a cup…” Now, if every word was equal to the other, and there was no ordering of words, and your mind cannot construct anything, you’ll have to repeat the words, something like this 2. “Write I’m an mouth rather water say drink and nothing dry I an write say and my goes drink cup I’m an write I nothing say goes can’t because nothing cup I’d dry to and say water rather my bucket nothing there’s say. Or, she suggests, now put in some full stops, a question mark or two, an exclamation mark, colons, or semi-colons. Do that anyhow, without thought. Don’t try to make sense. Have fun. 3. “… Write I’m an mouth rather water. Say drink and nothing dry! I am write rather say and; my goes drink cup because an there’s. I’d to dry goes write can’t. Cup my bucket nothing. Rather to my water…” Here, you see clearly that the English language, British or American (and therefore, any other brand – Nigerian – others African, Australian or Canadian) needs to be locked into a sentence – syntax of this formula: S – V – (O) that is Subject – Verb – Object (direct or indirect). So, sentences come out as, “I see the bird” – or “Okon killed the goat”, where a “subject” acts on an object, where “I” or “Okon” is the centre of the universe. The way we think, in sentences, is the way we see. 45 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I Philosophically, for the writer, there is a two-way traffic. “I see the bird” – but the “bird ‘sees’ me” too “Okon killed the goat, - but the goat has an effect on him too. This philosophy, opened up, is the spread of perception, along the slide of language, for writer and reader! Natalie Goldberg rightly insists that “the more you are aware of the syntax you move, see, and write in, the better CONTROL you have and the more you can step out of it when you need to… breaking open syntax, you often get closer to the truth of what you need to say” (Goldberg:63). Nouns and verbs remain the “two indispensable parts of writing”; They make subject and predicate, beginning with a capital letter, and ending with a full-stop, they combine to make a COMPLETE THOUGHT which starts in the writer’s head and then “leaps to the reader’s”. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1 1. Name all the parts of speech in English that you know. 2. How important to good grammar is syntax? 3.2 Language of the Word, or the Word of the Language? As we have seen from the section on the place and significance of syntax – that is that ordered arrangement of words in a sentence to create sense, feeling, and total meaning – words are the key to basic thinking for the creative writer. There’s the “tale” told about James Joyce, the famous Anglo-Irish novelist who authored Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, monuments of word-craft in 20thc novel-writing. Joyce had spent a whole day in his study, supposedly writing chapter of the novel, Ulysses. Later in the day, his friend and biographer, Stuart Gilbert, came to see him. Joyce, the story goes, looked all wan and exhausted from his exertions. Gilbert asked how many chapters Joyce had written that day. The reply was short, shocking but insightful and significant – “one word”, Joyce is said to have replied, “One word, all day?” Gilbert couldn’t believe it. “One word”, Joyce repeated, and fell silent. The “language” which a “word” speaks, then, in any good writing, tells tales and is far-reaching. Because the writer must have the ear, the mind (intellect) and the skill, to select and select the most fitting, fitting to character, situation, plot and overall meaning! For instance, Stephen King illustrates, emphasizing the need for brevity in style, and accuracy in choice of words, that there are two types of verbs: ACTIVE and PASSIVE, where the first does something, while with the second is being done to the subject of the sentence. “YOU SHOULD AVOID THE PASSIVE TENSES”, because everything about 46 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I its use is passive, unresponsive, weak, circuitous, tortuous and cold, like lawyers; Torts language!! King says, and one must agree. Write: 1. “Freddy and Myra carried the body out of the kitchen…” Not “The body was carried from the kitchen by Freddy and Myra…” 2. “The meetings is at seven…”. Not “The meeting will be held at seven o’clock…” 3. “My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss.”. Not “My first kiss will always by recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun!..” 4. “The writer threw the rope…”. Not “The rope was thrown by the writer…” SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2 1. Make three sentences using the passive tense, and another three using the active form of the verb. 2. Give three reasons for preferring your active sentences. 3.3 Dialogue We are still focusing on sound in the prose of the novel you are to be taught to write. Dialogue, well written, can flow, can carry humour and entertainment; can be poignant; can give insight into the colour of the soul of your characters; can not only tell the story, but also move the telling along, propel it, dig into the forward-moving action. It is important to let you know that “dialogue” is not “conversation”. Lynn Emery asserts that “…conversations ramble on with lots of digressions. In fiction, dialogue …serves a purpose – to increase tension, share information with the reader … move the plot along…” (Estrada: 85). So, there are four purposes of good dialogue: (i) to reveal information about the characters and their backgrounds, or supply back story (ii) to increase tension 47 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I (iii) to move the story forward (iv) to show character motivation, growth, perspective, emotion. (Estrada.86) Let us use Estrada and Gallagher’s illustration to show how these four purposes can be achieved. First, a man and a woman meet. They start to “dialogue” as follows: “You want to marry me?” “Yes, ma’am.” “Why would you want to do that?” “Because I’m thinking’ we get on well together.” “And that’s a basis for a lifetime of wedded bliss?” “Yes, ma’am” Here, there is a bit of characterization – the woman is a bit resistant. There’s a bit of plot – there is a proposed marriage. But there is no description of the characters or their actions. Now, let’s see what happens when there is some narrative, some description: Angela’s hand stilled on the tea pitcher. She stared at the man who sat on her new leather couch as if he owned it himself. As if he already belonged there. “You want to marry me?” “Yes, ma’am”, he said, his green eyes full of fun and mischief. He was as handsome as always and twice as unreliable as he used to be. Some things never changed; Rand Martin was one of those things. Her hands shook as she poured tea into a glass and filled it with ice cubes. She couldn’t think of one logical reason for this madness. With a voice as calm as she could make it under the circumstances, she asked the question that popped into her befuddled mind. “Why would you want to do that?” 48 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I “Because I’m thinking’ we get on well together”. She blinked several times, absorbing his words but not really understanding his meaning. “And that’s a basis for a lifetime of wedded bliss?” He looked surprised at her question. “Yes ma’am.” Here, the dialogue is unchanged. But elements of narration and description have added more to the scene – the setting is clear; the characters now have names; it is clear why the woman is resisting; she is nervous because she is attracted to the handsome Rand Martin, though he seems unreliable. The four purposes must combine to flesh out all the robustness of the novel, build tension, show the characters’ characters (inside) and advance the story by a known pace to the resolution. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3 1. Do the man and woman speak similar dialogue? 2. How does the “external” balance the “inside” of a character once dialogue opens? 3.4 Rhythm and Voice Must a writer always write complete sentence each and every time? Stephen King gives us an appropriate answer. “If your work”, he says, “consists only of fragments and floating clauses, the Grammar Police aren’t going to come and take you away. Even William Strunk, that Musolini of rhetoric, recognized the delicious pliability of language. ‘It is an old observation’, he writes, ‘that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric’. Yet he goes on to add this thought, which I urge you to consider: ‘Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the rules’… If you don’t have a rudimentary grasp of how the parts of speech translate into coherent sentences, how can you be certain your are doing well? There is a comforting simplicity at the heart of the rudiments of grammar, where there need be only nouns, the words that name, and verbs, the words that act.” In other words the rhythm and voice of the writer’s creation are embedded in an effective use of correct language. For example, “Rocks explode!”; “The Broadcaster transmits!; “McCrimon urges in Writing with a Purpose. 49 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 3.5 “Poetic” And “Prosaic” Language It is in the need to create, with correct, sharp sentences, and clothe up word with unusual meaning that the writer creates “poetry” and/or “prose”. Especially, if the voice on the particular subject is expressing a deeply felt, urgent message from the heart, the passion-filled heart of a speaker. The language, for instance, of most of Martin Luther King Jnr’s speeches in the pursuit of human rights and equality of status for black people in America in the 1960’s; the speeches of Winston Churchill urging Britain on to war against a tyrannical Hitler; or the speeches of Dr. Hon. Nnamdi Azikiwe baiting the colonial masters of Nigeria in the years, 1934-1964. Even the language patterns created by today’s Pentecostal pastors in their prayer and devotional daily manuals, one can see “poise” and “poetry” flowing together. This example may suffice; it is a prayer from Rev. (Dr.) Chris Kwakpovwe’s Our daily manna Devotional booklet. Observe the rhetorical patterns, balances of associated sounds and phrases: “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it! Today, I declare and confess… all spiritual blessings…. I boldly declare… and dwell… I believe and I declare no evil, no plague... can come near my dwelling… I believe and I declare that I shall not die, but live… Today … the Lord is my helper… Today is shall not waste my destiny… Today I declare and I declare the Lord is my banner… Today, I hear the sound of … rain… 4.0 CONCLUSION From the main content, it is clear that good, clear language is at the root of good, winsome writing. One does not have to be a musician to plant music into the language of a story in a novel. Emphases on selected words, each sweetened as roasted groundnut, to modify an old Irish playwright’s summary of it, will see the vision of an author gain a place on the shelf of classics. 5.0 SUMMARY In this unit, we have underscored and illustrated the major objectives of language usage when “prose” becomes “poetry” as the author opens his heart, whether it is in a persuasive public speech of a character, or it is in the impassioned prayer language of a devotee in the privacy of his church premises. We’ve seen that language needs to be “pliable” – syntactically coherent and grammatically “sturdy”. 50 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I We’ve seen how to use sentences with active verbs. So that our language ‘marches’ like a soldier in a parade, not lilt along like a wounded snake through dry grass. 6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. Use a good library to search out a speech from one of Martin Luther King Jnr. of America, Sir Winston Churchill of Britain, and Dr. Hon. Nnamdi Azikiwe of Africa, and note five language qualities of the speeches. 2. Write a sample “speech” for a male or female character in a novel you propose to write on the consequences of exam malpractice in a tertiary institution. (See the example of Camillus Lekah’s when the wind blows). 7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING See as for numbers 1 and 2 in Unit 1. Political speeches from various sources of excellent public speakers like: America’s Malcolm X America’s Martin Luther King, Jnr. Nigeria’s Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, President, Federal Republic of Nigeria. Prayer Devotionals by top class world Evangelical Preachers such as Rev. Dr. Uma Ukpai, Rev. Dr. Chris Kwakpovwe, Reinhardt Bonke and others. Winston (Sir) Churchill, war-time leader of Great Britain. 51 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I UNIT 6 CHARACTERISATION (WITH SYMBOLS AND IMAGES) CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content 3.1 Building the Character 3.2 Character and Life 3.3 Characters as Symbols and Images 4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading 1.0 INTRODUCTION A novel is like a rich forest upon which human beings depend for its wealth of crop trees. The crop trees are tall oaks, deciduous and evergreen Iroko; fruit – bearing mangoes; or pear trees. The edge of the forest may be lined with climbing shrubs even sweet-smelling flower shrubs. There may even be a few tall palms – oil palms, coconut palms, date palms at the edge of the forest. Characters, men, women, children; professionals, from domestic servants, vehicle drivers, artisans, to royalty and rulers, politicians, dictators, emperors, presidents and kings occupy places at the edge, in the middle or dead-centre of the book – characters are the ‘trees’ of the novel. They have to be tall enough to be remembered; fat enough to hold certain ground; intelligent or foolish, or wicked or kind enough to move and be moved in the ‘world’ of the story being told; in the ‘universe’ of the story. Who does not recall Achebe’s Okonkwo? Who has forgotten Elechi Amadi’s ‘Concubine’ Ifeoma? Who does not relish Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Sailor’ and even the ‘Sea’ which though watery, lives with the old man’s medal as a lively, concrete, creature? Indeed, it is in characterisation that the writer readily becomes a creator and a style maker. Ezeulu in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, for example, is so gripping in attention that the reader and interpreter of the soul of the story of a collapsing civilization can no longer even remember that he was just an ‘illiterate’ high priest of a god of a tribal setting battling the ‘civilized’ giants of a cultured and colonizing religion and commerce-driven empire! When a character is that good, the reader suspends disbelief! Real ‘drama’ resides in the character. 52 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 2.0 OBJECTIVES At the end of this unit, you should be able to: create or build a character in fiction create characters based on life experiences or and the imagination alone detect the difference between character in non-fiction and character in fiction (Olmstead 14-15; Goldberg, 143;) determine what makes a character real in a real world discuss the meaning of appearance in a character determine the position of both hero and heroine – in the mesh of action called conflict discuss the development or growth of a character in fiction infuse proper motivation for your characters, whether they are protagonist or antagonist (adversary). 3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 Building the Character Society is made up of a range of people. In some the people are said to be in “classes” – poor and working class; rich and leisured; they live in the countryside or cities and urban conglomerates; they work in farms or in factories. In a work of fiction, the writer draws from this range of people. The characters, that is, the personages of the action in the story, like the crop trees of a rich forest, must be built, constructed, made rich, richer, than ordinary mundane life-living people in everyday society. Stephen King says “…the job (that is of building the character) boils down to two things; paying attention to how real people around you behave and then telling the truth about what you see. You may notice that your next-door neighbour picks his nose when he thinks no one is looking. This is a great detail, but noting it does you no good as a writer unless you’re willing to dump it into a story at some point” (King.189). Let us take one illustration. Aubrey Kachingwe of Malawi (born 1926) has written a novel, No Easy Task. “Briefly, the novel tells the story of Jo Jozeni, son of a village pastor. Jo is offered a job on a newspaper in Kawacha, the capital of a British colony in Central Africa. Although his roots are in the country, Jo gradually takes to life in the city; and through his colleagues becomes involved in politics, though always remaining a little outside the ‘inner circles’ suddenly his attitude changes: at a political rally… it is his own gentle, retiring father who emerges as a hard, and determined political fighter. Jo is faced with a difficult choice: should he identify himself 53 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I with his father? Or take the line of least resistance, marry his girl, and settle down? Or look for something else out of life?” I have quoted the blurb on the Heinemann African Writers Series, editorially advised by Chinua Achebe, word for word. That gives you the setting. That gives you the environment. To see how Jo Jozeni’s character is built up and merged into the circumstances in which he must make his choice, let us look at the very opening of the novel: “I’m sorry, man. We can’t take any more passengers in the bus. It’s full”, the conductor said. He started to close the door. “Can’t you squeeze me in, please?” I pleaded. “I have only this small suitcase. That’s all”. “I can’t take any more”, he said firmly.” The traffic patrolmen are very strict these days. You want me to lose my job?” He rang the bell. “This is the last country bus for today, and I have been standing here waiting for it in this hot sun for over one hour”, I said, half to myself, “surely, you can’t leave me?” I dropped my suitcase and clung to the rails of the door of the bus. The conductor pushed me off and I almost fell under the wheels as it started to move. My suitcase was run over but I was luckier. I stood up, dusted myself, and looked at the suitcase. It had been flattened out of shape, and was gaping half open. A little dust had got inside. It made me bitter to think that I would have to walk three miles back to the school at Makwasa, and possibly spend the night alone in an empty classroom. The place was empty now because the school was closed. I had just been there to see the principal about getting me scholarship to England, but he had promised nothing. Now I was returning to my father at Bangwe, a little mission station thirty miles farther in the interior. I did not like to go back to that school even for a night. The principal would probably tell me to go away. Reverend John Webb and I never got on well, although he was the missionary in charge of all this area, 54 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I including Bangwe where my father was the parish priest, and had thus known my parents years. Lately he had been my principal. Perhaps we knew each other too well. Suddenly, I heard a car hoot. Shaken, I jumped off the road. The car pulled up, and the two men inside it laughed heartily. I recognized the one driving. “I am very sorry for blocking the road, Mr Dube”, I said apologetically. “One should expect that sort of behaviour on a country road”, he said without anger. “But you are educated, Jo, and ought to know how to conduct yourself on a highway.” “I am sorry, Sir, I repeated. “That’s all right. Jo. Only don’t do it again,” he said. “Now, why are you here?” “I am going to Bangwe – I was going – but the bus has left me behind,” I said. “There was no room” “I am going there; can I give you a lift?” “If you can, Sir, most grateful”. “Take your bag and come in,” he said. He turned to his friend. This is Jo, the son of the Reverend Josiah Jozeni.” “And this gentleman. Jo” he said to me, “is Mr. Zake Lukani, a great friend of mine. We are both going to see the old man. Make yourself comfortable” I shook hands with Mr. Zake Lukani as the car started to move… Dan Dube was the first African to be a municipal councillor on the white-only Kawacha Town Council… an outstanding businessman and clever politician… tall and broad, at forty-five … respectably handsome… I never understood how the mysterious Dan Dube and my father were such good friends… my father was over sixty, and, because of poverty and hard work, looked much older than his age… laughed seldom, and outside his clerical work… had no ambitions. Yet the two were good friends. (Kachingwe: No Easy Task. 1966.1-3). In this tightly-knit, economical writing, you can see how the characters of Jo Jozeni, Dan Dube, Reverend Josiah Jozeni, Mr. Lukani, and even 55 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I Reverend Webb have, with deft touches, been made to stand as the trees in this forest of a story! The rest of the novel develops details that tell the reader of poverty, ambitions, politics, beliefs, views and conditions that move society. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1 1. Point out how you see character build-up here. 2. What “traits”, from the bus conductor to Dan Dube’s offer of a lift to Jo, tell you that Jo will have “no easy task”? 3. Use a Dictionary to see how many meanings “trait” has. 3.2 Character and Life The big question is, “Are the characters in fiction drawn directly from life?” If they are, why then do writers often disclaim the fact when they write, ‘… any resemblance to any living person here is purely coincidental and unintended … characters here are all imagined …’. If novels are about life, if they are about society as men and women and children and families and communities, share experiences in a context, then the characters must reflect life, must come out of society. Natalie Goldberg says, if fictional characters must do this, that is reflecting life; come out of society, the writer must follow the old adage. “Don’t tell, but show” – that is, “don’t tell us about anger – or any of those big words like ‘honesty’, ‘truth’, ‘love’, ‘sorrow’, ‘life’, ‘justice’ – show the reader the situation “in which the character brings out the particular feeling or embodied idea. Let the character live sharp and clear and be the concrete picture you describe. For instance you can write about the nature of life from observing the birth of a child in a modern hospital: just describe WHAT you see: the mother’s face … the rush of energy as the baby finally enters the world with a piercing cry, after the nurses have urged and/or bullied the woman in her several attempts at “pushing”, the husband breathing with his wife… the reader will see characters illustrating the nature of life. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2 56 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 1. Recall a number of “life-situations” in Nigeria, such as a traffic jam, a scuffle between two children retiring from school and struggling to pick mangoes, and do two – three sentences “showing” of the characters involved. 2. Describe one breath-taking incident you’ve ever experienced in no more than a paragraph. 3.3 Characters as Symbols and Images You may wish to write an allegory, or a parable. In such seeming “fantasy” writing, your characters are “abstract” objects personified. In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, in many Biblical “stories” which Jesus used to illustrate facts and rules of life, the characters were not always “persons” as we normally think of them. Instead you may want to focus on the things around you that make you ask whether life is worth living or not, things like crime, poverty, injustice, death; or the “things” inside each one of us, things like frustration, boredom, despair, and turn them into “living” characters. Read carefully the parable of Jesus at Mark 4:1-10, 13-20, and you will see how an abstract of “farmer” (“Sower”), “Seeds” on “path”, on “rocky places”, or “thorny ground”, and on “good soil” translate from abstractions to concrete features of life in “the word” of God among various experiences of people – with Satan, with superficial attitudes, with succumbing to deceits and temptations. In the end, “sower”, “seed” and “soil” become lively characters. To further clarify how abstract, symbolic characters may be understood and created, let us look at a contrast: realistic characters created in action. Remember that all your characters are in a setting, have voices, have beliefs and concerns in their environment, do develop and evolve. ‘Abstract’ characters tend to be fixed in a situation where they exist to illustrate some idea or belief. Now, real-life characters are real. Let us take an example of a character really created by “showing” her actions, in the famous American novel. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, as Robert Olmstead illustrates it. “…The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise – she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression – then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room. “I’m p-paralyzed with happiness” She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, 57 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.” Here is a character, real, with a name; you come to know her from WHAT she is doing: - “attempts to rise, “leans”… “laughs”… “speaks”… “laughs again”…” “hold hands”… looks”…”promises”…”hints”…”murmurs”…. Each action affects the story-teller because, he in turn, “…leans”, “laughs,” “listens”, “holds” her hands. Behaviour and appearance here help to further concretize the character. It is not like that in the abstract characters of the parable or allegory. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3 1. Make a list of your own of as many movements as you can which you think a person could make to display ‘character’ 2. One character’s series of actions observed by another do affect that observer. Now, take these examples: a) “Ugo was crying and I started to cry too” b) “Nkwekwe tossed the bone in the air and the dog leapt and grabbed it in its snout” c) “Esther leaned toward me and I learned away” Using one of these, develop a short scene between two characters. 4.0 CONCLUSION Character and character creation are a big challenge to the writer. He has to build them; he has to take them from life, but not brazenly or carelessly; he has to balance various aspects and observe and use the least detail, provide them with believable motivations, or even make them abstract. Characterization produces excellent story. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4 58 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I Do you agree that characters are the tall trees that populate the forest that a good novel is? 5.0 SUMMARY In this unit, characterization, we have set facts about character-making in fiction concretely out for you: Characters must be well-drawn to become memorable. A notable character can be made out of any kind of social type. Characters are built, develop, and are not still-pictures, but mobile and dynamic in their actions and words. Characters come from real world and life around the author, not just from imagination. 6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. What do you understand by the expression “Reader suspends disbelief when a character is good”? (See ‘introduction above) 2. Do African stories differ from American or other non-African ones? In what concrete ways? 7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING Goldberg, Natalie.(1986). Writing-Down The Bones. Boston & London: Shambhala Publications. Olmstead, Robert. (1997). Elements of the Writing Craft. Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press Books. Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. “Ecclesiastes” in the KJV of the Bible. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Kachingwe, Aubrey. No Easy Task. London: Heinemann, 19 59 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I UNIT 7 SENSE AS TOTAL MEANING, IMPORT AND MESSAGE CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content 3.1 Reality and Illusion 3.2 Chronology and Chronicle 3.3 Endings and Import 3.4 Revisions and Corrections 4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading 1.0 INTRODUCTION In the novel, as in any other branch of the creative language arts, one must agree with Stephen King that “…the business of meaning is a very big deal. If you doubt it, think of all the times you’ve heard someone say ‘I just can’t describe it’, or ‘That isn’t what I mean’…” If you believe that then you know that meaning is central. As it is, then remember what has been said about the word. The word is a representation of meaning; for, even at its best, writing almost always “falls short of full meaning” (King 118). In this unit, full meaning of a creative work is the total, overall sense which it conveys at the end of it all. Words must be appropriate. The vocabulary must be fitting, suitable, not dressed up, nor pretentious, or bombastic. Meaning is not necessarily destroyed with “big” vocabulary however, or with “simpler” vocabulary. The word just has to be appropriate. Let us take some examples: 1. When I was a young secondary school student we used to make a joke of Psalm 23. Psalm 23 goes, in the KJV (King James Version) Bible, as follows: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures He leadeth me beside the still waters He restoreth my soul 60 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil. Note the impeccable, irreplaceable “simple” words employed here. The Bible, as had been said often, is the classic of “simple” deep language… We, as students, changed that simple vocabulary in order to let Psalm 23 read like this: The Deity is my pastor, I shall not be indigent! He causes me to repose in verdant lawns He conducts me by the quiescent pools… Yeah! Though I perambulate diametrically via glens of Sepulchral dormitory, I shall not be perturbed by any apparent catastrophe… Clearly, our schoolboy version [in which “the Lord” becomes “the Deity” and “Shepherd” becomes “pastor”, and “to lie down in green pasture” becomes “reposing in verdant lawns…” and “walking through the valley of the shadow of death” becomes “perambulating dametrically via glens of sepulchral dormitory”] [as in italics above] is inslubrious, even ludicrous. Stephen King has a joke from George Carlin which spells out the inappropriateness of such: says Carlin, “…in some company it’s perfectly all right to prick your finger, but very bad form to finger your prick (King:118). Sense depends to a large extent on the word. 2.0 OBJECTIVES At the end of this unit, you should be able to: choose the right words and vocabulary that make total meaning pleasurable adopt methods of re-vision and re-writing that would ensure a perfect work determine when to present a real or illusionary meanings discuss the importance of the final message of a novel. 61 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I 3.0 MAIN CONTENT 3.1 Reality and Illusion Meanings in a work of art may be calculated to create a feeling that the word, the universe is a concrete reality, or is a fantasy, an illusion. The classic example of illusion Alice in Wonderland by “Lewis Carroll” (Charles) Lutwidge Dodgson). Alice in Wonderland (1865) and through his Looking-Glass (1871) says George, Sampson, “originating in stories told to little girls, have become enduring parts of English “nonsense literature” (Sampson. 604). The illusions appeals to all ages of readers, whereas by contrast, the novels of Daniel Defoe about low class people are known in literature as “supreme realistic pictures of low life. Moll Flanders (abbreviated). The effort by a writer to create truthful reality can be found in the very character of the writer himself. For example, here is how George Sampson summarizes the life of Daniel Defoe (1659-1731). Defoe’s life and work (total meaning) defy summary. A few general considerations will help us to understand him. Like Dickens … he was highly endowed with the “experiencing nature”. Nothing was too small to escape his notice; nothing was too large to fit into his comprehension. His curiosity was insatiable, and he knew how to turn the smallest detail to literary account. To write was as natural to him as to breathe. He made fiction seen like truth and truth seen like fiction. Neither his mind nor his character can be called lofty; yet his gifts were many and various. He was the perfect journalist. He could write on anything or nothing… (Sampson: 378) We are urging you here, as a creative writer to be, as a creative writer whose works will make total sense, present a message and have import, you need to emulate Defoe: be able to “experience” nature; be able to observe the minutest details in life around you – e.g. the small ants carrying a dead huge grasshopper, rolling the carcass along, to their hole-home to prepare to feast during the rainy days, be insatiably curious; breathe writing, eat writing; In the case of Defoe, realism even took a turn in the full titles of his novels. The one we call Moll Flanders is a novel fully, humorously, titled: 62 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I The FORTUNES and MISFORTUNES of the famous MOLL FLANDERS who was born in NEWGATE PRISON and during a life of – continu’d variety for Threescore Years… was Twelve Years a Whore, five times a wife (whereof one to her own brother) Twelve Year a Thief- Eight Years a Transported Felon in Virginia at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent, written from her own Memorandums. Defoe, even in the title of Moll Flanders wanted to take Realism to the extremity of truth in order to show how faithfully his writing reflected true life. SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1 1. Write out five instances where you have “experienced nature” 2. Can you use any one of the five above to provide a concise title for a possible novel? 3. Name any writer you have found realistic” and any you have found illusionistic in Africa. 3.2 Chronology and Chronicle The achievement of a good overall meaning – ‘Sense’ – in a novel can also come from the way a writer has handled and touched up what Estrada calls “Time Line” in a work that has been written over and over again. Time line or chronology helps you re-set and set the ‘vision’. The time span within which a story takes place, the manner the writer ties up all loose ends, show how well the goal of meaning overall has been attained. A story is not mere ‘chronicle’ – Rita Clay Estrada and Rita Gallagher have suggested, appropriately, that the writer may do well to follow a story “worksheet” all through the period of writing so that a total senseful story can emerge. A meaningful story is a story that has remained ‘on track’, so to speak. You may need to keep the worksheet 63 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I in your computer, to fill the blanks with as much information as you need. A good worksheet will show you, they say, “how neatly your mind connects the dots to a better plot, character and, consequently, the book”. Here is a modified chronology/chronicle story checklist worksheet: NAME OF STORY: START DATE PREMISE: END DATE STORY GOAL: i. Lesson goal ii. Any holidays (break) FEMALE CHARACTER NAME i. Any story behind it? ii Physical Description: iii. Tags: iv. Her Goal: v. Personality Quirk vi. Growth Area: vii Her Hobby: viii Her Career: MALE CHARACTER NAME Any story behind it? Physical description: Tags: His Goal: Personality Quirk: Growth Area: 64 ENG212 CREATIVE WRITING I His Hobby: His Career: 1. Friend/Relative Any story behind it? Physical description: Tags: Quirk/Habits: Purpose/Goal Revelation of conflict during first meeting Important relation of conflict during other meetings Twist of thoughts Dark period Revelation of right or wrong Who? Why? Adversary other than person Overall time line Resolution (Estrada & Gallagher, 109-111). SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2 1. Provide a Time Line for an imaginary story titled “Uju buys her first book “or” Kola visits Coca-Cola factory”. 2. Give ten reasons why a novel needs to be revised for fullest meaning to stand out. 65 ENG212

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