Week Ten: "Enter the space of the 3D narrative."

This week we were exploring scene building and the effectiveness of the summary vs scene relationship in writing.

The module page had the following introductory blurb:

“A scene is where the narrative explanation of events transforms into an illusion of a particular event happening around the characters. We all know it when we experience it as readers: we enter the 3-D space of the narrative. The great thing about scenes is they can pack in so much information about culture, class, psychology etc and they are also inherently dramatic. We may guess, but we don't know the outcome.”

For me, this perfectly explains the importance of scene writing in stories; they need to be to the point, but they have to convey important information in a dramatic fashion, or else what is the point of them?

Indeed, as the page continued, “the art of writing a good short story often involves choosing the right scenes to focus on. The story of a day is made up of many events.”

Using this as a base rule when writing a short story, the following questions are brought up:

Which scene do you chose to focus on to convey maximum meaning?

And how do you enter and exit a scene?

I would also add to this list, given everything I have learned over the course of this module, “where does this scene fit in the rest of the narrative?” With this, I mean to say why is this scene important to the plot structure? What would be missing if this scene were not there?

I’ve been asking myself that question in all of my pieces so that I don’t stretch my stories too much. I’ve never written short stories before, so it has been a bit of a struggle to select which scenes are absolutely vital to the plot structure, and which can be left out.

In our writing of short stories, we were advised “don't spend time setting the scene, and don't spend time explaining what's happened”.

I found that advice particularly useful in my writing for this week; instead of feeling the need to explain myself or what point of the narrative I was at, I embraced the abrupt feeling of just planting the character in the story and allowing it to unfold around them.

Reflecting personally on what I’ve written, I hope it engages the reader as although the scenes begin and end in potentially abrupt places, the second-person narrative allows the reader to project themselves upon what the character is thinking and feeling. I believe that the emotive responses/events in this piece will be recognised by everyone on some level, and that my slow-reveal of the profile of the character will allow all readers to see a little part of themselves in the story at some point in the narrative.

My notes on this week’s readings:

How to Talk to Your Mother by Lorrie Moore

- Interesting structure – puts the year at the beginning of each paragraph – starts at the end and works backwards – slow reveal of the situation

- Starts with “without her”, immediately begging the question of who this is – a family member or possibly a baby?

- The person is evidently haunted by something but it is unclear what.

- Someone dies, leaving the person is alone – later revealed it’s the mother who dies

- Told in the second person so the gender and identity of the protagonist is not clear at first

- Although the second person voice doesn’t give the character a clear profile at first, a clear narrative voice forms and the reader feels as if they can see inside the character’s thoughts and feelings. It is not a narrative which invites you to project yourself upon the character, which I find quite interesting for a second person story.

- “Ginnie” is living with her mother and she’s difficult to live with – however, she doesn’t fit in well with other people – you get the impression she doesn’t have many friends – perhaps secretly she is happy to have her mother as then she is not alone

- Ginnie never marries, though she has plenty of relationships – some of which result in pregnancies which she terminates

- Historical events are thrown in between the personal events

- Her father dies – they didn’t have a good bond – the father has a heart attack – hence the facts on heart transplants placed in the timeline

Reunion by John Cheever

- The speaker and the father are not close – three years have passed since the divorce of their parents – the father hasn’t made the effort to see his son before this point?

- Charlie likes being with his father – likes the scent of him, feels close to him – familial bond despite the time that has elapsed.

- The father is commanding and rude at the restaurants, resulting in them having to leave four different restaurants – throughout the experiences, the father is adamant and dismissive to the waiters – loses sight of the reason they’re in the restaurants to begin with, focussing instead on provoking various people

- It’s unclear why the father feels the need to provoke the people around him – asserting dominance over them? showing Charlie that he’s important? Or is he just disagreeable in general? Is the behaviour deliberate or incidental?

- Interesting how Charlie’s relationship with his father develops over the course of the story due to his father’s actions – he’s excited to see him at first, but at the end Charlie leaves and his father doesn’t even say goodbye, and he comments this is the last time he sees his father – the father shows who he really is, and Charlie doesn’t like that person

(Note: we were also asked to read “Bullet In The Brain” by Tobias Wolff, but as I did that last week and posted my notes in my last post, I saw no reason to repost them here)

We were given these questions to work through based upon our readings:

1. Focusing on Lorrie Moore's story, work out what it is that makes each of these vignettes a memorable scene.

The personal elements and the historic events contribute to it, but I would say that the most important part is the way the author slowly reveals; the reader is constantly interested and attempting to put the pieces of the story together. Therefore, the scenes are more memorable because the reader is paying more attention.

2. Focusing on Wolff's story, look at the relationship between scenic action and the fictional fireworks of the story's narrative explanation of what's happening. What is it that makes this story work? It could be dreadful, contrived, stagey, but it's not. Why isn't it?

The story feels very real in a certain sense so avoids the idea of being contrived or stagey. Wolff plays with the concept of time in the story, elongating certain parts and speeding up other parts, which feels realistic to how we react to certain events (the second that lasts a lifetime) Anders is not a particularly likeable character, which makes the story seem more natural on a whole; the reader can be reacting negatively to Anders and his actions instead of agreeing with him throughout. In this way, Wolff’s character is not put upon a pedestal of perfection and this works very effectively.

Seminar notes:

- What makes a scene? An event/exchange between characters which relates vital information that moves the plot forward in some way. There has to be something to focus upon – whether that is a character or an object.

- What’s the difference between a scene and a summary? A scene will “add body” to the story whilst a summary is just “a burst of information” – Katie from my seminar

- Characters/humans experience hyper-alertness when they are in danger – they notice things/describe things that the perhaps normally wouldn’t.

- How can we play with the concept of time? Speed up with a summary, slow down with a scene.

- Try to avoid creating a character which is put upon a pedestal – a character can be unpleasant – separate from the author and the character

- Have you ever based a character upon someone you know and don’t like? It can be quite fun as you don’t need to worry about being critical or mean. Instead of a Iago-esk villain that is truly “evil to the core”, you can create a villain that has more of a backstory/motivation. Is a dislikeable character based upon a real person more realistic than a fictional villain?

- “Writers write, and writers edit.” Don’t be afraid to revise.