Narrative cliches and how to avoid them

Welcome back!

Before you left for break, I explained how we are embarking on writing an original narrative, publishing it, and promoting it on social media.

TODAY, before 11:59 pm, you should post your Narrative Proposal and Character Sketch on your P3 Wix page and upload the correct links to Canvas. Review the last two lectures for more info, OR go to the Class P3 page.

Once you receive feedback on your Narrative Proposal and Character Sketch, it will be time to get to work on your Narrative!

We will be meeting next week for conferences #3 -- our last conference together! Sign up to discuss your narrative, which is due before 11:59 pm on Sunday March 31.

This Week's Twitter Assignment: In a series of 10 tweets, paint a word picture of your hometown

This semester, you have been asked to properly outline your papers in order to organize your thoughts. One of the ongoing debates among writers are the virtues of the outline. Some swear to it while others find it limiting. This is where you have to find the system which works best for you.

Did you find the outlining process we have used in this class helpful? Do you need a list, a storyboard, or can you start writing and let the road take you where it leads?

Consider what makes you feel most comfortable.

Some of you may have discovered that I am a creative writer of short stories, personal essays, and am in the process of completing a novel. I outline, but it looks like a flexible list of events. I write down everything which I believe must happen in the story from beginning to end. The list can and will change as I work on a project. Sometimes events will be placed on the list which I will never write, but I will know they exist. Sometimes the list of events begin years before the first actually scene. The chronological timeline may not be the same order as how the scenes will be appear in the final product.

Know that as you work on a project, everything must remain flexible. Because my projects are often long and require me to spend a considerable amount of time staring at boring Word documents, I look for opportunities to take things off screen. When it comes to supplementary projects like outlines, I like to draw them out by hand rather than spend my time typing on another computer screen. Perhaps you like sticking with your computer or tablet, you can also use Powerpoints, Prezi’s, Excel files, or Good Notes. When you take the project off the standard Word doc, the project is now exciting to view. The string board on detective shows create a visual perception of thought. It also gives the creator a tactile process for arranging thoughts.

Common Beginning Writer Cliches & how to avoid them Now, you are embarking on writing a story. Everyone loves a good story. But the last thing you want to do is fall into beginning writer traps which could cause your reader to turn away from your story. What are the beginning writer traps? 1. Introducing your character by name in the first sentence like it is a Facebook bio or essay Jeremiah Jacobson was a nervous kid. My name is Jeremiah Jacobson and I am 17 years old. This is the diary of Jeremiah Jacobson. In very few cases do stories which begin in this direct fashion work out and usually because something else more interesting is happening. "Call me Ishmael" from Moby Dick works only because his name isn't really Ishmael. 2. Opening with a dream sequence. My first short story when I was in college opened in a dream sequence, which had no relevance to the story and provided no character development. I thought opening in a dream sequence would be cool. It wasn't. The same goes with opening a novel with someone waking up, snapping from a dead sleep, the sound of an alarm clock, or the smell of breakfast. Your reader wants to see the primary character engaging in some type of activity. Sleep (even dreaming) is passive. 3. Philosophizing No one wants to be told how to live their life. It's never as charming as the writer thinks it is. 4. The Mirror This is a cliche because so many writers have used it as a device to let the reader know what the protagonist looks like. Often the character will assess their appearance and describe it as "not good looking but not ugly". The mirror is an overused device. Avoid it. 5. Landscape before character The reader wants to know the character first and then their surroundings. Spending a whole page describing the landscape or the world will only bore the reader. Character will be what drives the story. They will be making the decisions and the actions. Some stories have spectacular landscapes which are often considered "a character in the story", like The Moors in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, or New York City in Sex in the City. But the characters should be the first interaction the reader should have.

6. Excessive backstory How important is the past? Buffy Summers walks into Sunnydale High School and the most the viewer learns in that pilot episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer about her backstory is that she burned down her high school gym because it was full of vampires. And this occurs in a three line exchange with her new principal. The past is irrelevant. If it isn't, you need to start your story somewhere else. 7. Direct Address Speaking directly to the reader as if they are friends or like the writer knows them is too challenging of a task for beginning writers. Often it comes across as the writer trying to be "clever". Readers want a really good story more than an interesting technique. The same goes for writing in 2nd person. These attempts to make the reader feel like a part of the story rarely works. The noted exception to this rule is Bright Lights Big City by Jay Mcinerney, and even so, many readers complain about how much they hate the device. 8. Offensive, exploitive, scandalous or gratuitous content The most boring run of Game of Thrones was the Ramsey and Theon segments of season three. Because viewers got really sick of watching Ramsey torture Theon episode after episode. Those segments didn't really service the story. Everything you write should be in service to driving the story. Does what you are writing speak to character development? Does it take the character from point A to point B? Don't fall into the "I thought it would be cool" trap. 9. Writing something intentionally vague Yes, readers enjoy figuring things out for themselves. But they also want to understand the words on the page and feel like it is leading somewhere. Consider the television series Lost. The show broke all the narrative rules and kept viewers on the edge of their seat every week with unbelievable cliffhangers and endless questions to where all of it was leading. When would all the questions be answered? The finale was one of the most disappointing in television -- other than the finales for How I Met Your Mother and St. Elsewhere -- because the series finale did not provide answers. Viewers had been taken on a long strange trip and they did not appreciate the journey. Additionally, I will provide you this list from Writers Digest about cliche ways to begin your story. However, I also want to leave you with this list of wonderful ways to begin a story and great first lines to inspire you.

You may have never, ever written an original narrative before. Knowing how to properly format a story might feel confusing to you. Before you consult Dr. Google and type "How to write a story?" you should instead contact your local library and find a real physical book that you can hold in your hand and look at to see how it is done.

How to pick a reference text:

• Consider the sub-genre of story you are telling. If you are writing a science-fiction story, you could learn a lot about formatting dialogue and chapter breaks from a romance novel, but why make it so hard on yourself? Look within your story genre so you can see how they write scenes from the lab, spaceship, or Mars.

• Consider the form you are using. Most of you are using short story models. So look to other short stories. The library is full of short fiction collections by writers like Joyce Carol Oates, George Saunders, Edward P Jones, and Carmen Maria Machado.

• Find something you like. If you love, love, loved Harry Potter, then grab your copy of the Half-Blood Prince. Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, Philip K. Dick, Outlander... if you are a superfan of it and it comes in a text-based narrative, then seek your favorite scene and study why it is your favorite scene.

• Don't read for content. This is tough. If you love a scene because freaking dragons fly out of the sky, then try not to get caught up in all the dragon excitement. You are reading this like a writer now, which means you are looking at how the words are being used. Verbs, choreography (how characters move across the room in a scene), when paragraphs break, punctuation, adverbs, and dialogue structure.

Don't Forget:

• Draft #1 of your Narrative is Sunday March 31 before 11:59 pm. You are expected to meet the minimum page count of the narrative form you choose. Minimum guidelines were posted in the 3/11 lecture.

• If you have not signed up for P3 Conferences, do so now!