Note: Hyperlinked terms let you click through to the site's Writer's Glossary.

DISCUSSION

Students revealed what plans they had for their project stories for submission to The First Line. Students should have basic ideas of everything, even if everything isn't quite fleshed out in detail.

We also reviewed the various parts of a story and other story-related terms covered in Week #1 and Week #2.

Dialogue tags. We also covered a few points I forgot to go over last week regarding dialogue tags. Those points were:

• When to use them. We discussed how to intersperse them throughout dialogue for three purposes:
  • To let the reader know who's speaking
  • To break up lengthy dialogue so it reads more like a story and less like a script
  • To convey action occurring during the scene (often to help with the previous purpose on this list)

DISCUSSION

Character example: We talked about the importance of building good characters, no matter what roles they play. We discussed character flaws and character motivations.

We then did a group-discussion exercise in which I offered an example of a character in a situation: "Jack is in a canoe on a remote Maine lake on a solo fishing trip. He is afraid of water, so this is a big step. But there’s a lake monster swimming beneath him, trying to tip over his boat." I asked the class for questions to ask me in order to flesh out the character. Students responded with many. Some examples of questions a reader would ask are:

• Is he a skilled boater?
• Is he a skilled fisherman?
• Does he believe in monsters?
• What motivates him to boat alone when he’s afraid of the water?
• Why is he afraid of the water?
• Can he swim?
• Where is he from?
• Does he know Maine?
• Has he ever been boating before?

Building scenes. We discussed the importance of how scenes are built, and how valuable every word is in a story.

• Every scene in the story should matter
• Every scene should advance the plot — or develop the character, which advances the plot
• Every paragraph should advance the scene
• Every sentence should advance the paragraph
• Every word should advance the sentence
• Strive to find the right word. Use three adjectives instead of four, two instead of three, one instead of two.

Dialogue. This is very important, so we reviewed the importance of good dialogue:

• You should know how to use punctuation properly with dialogue.
• Watch for contrived dialogue. Dialogue should sound real, not like something from a bad B movie. To be sure your dialogue isn't contrived, read it aloud. Chances are you'll notice it sounds bad.
• Watch out for fancy dialogue tags. For the most part, stick with "said," "asked," or "replied." Use "exclaimed" or "exploded" sparingly. Words like "stated" and "specified" and "related" just don't work as dialogue tags. And don't resort to a thesaurus to find new ones like "elucidated" or "enunciated" or my personal favorite "ejaculated." Dialog tags are to let us know who's speaking, to break a long conversation up with narrative, or to otherwise help control the flow. They should be invisible and should not call attention to themselves.

Adverbs. Watch out for adverbs in dialogue tags. Too many can weaken a story. Find a way to communicate that adverb through character actions, dialogue choices, etc.

Manuscript format. We reviewed proper manuscript format. Follow this when you write your story. Stick to Microsoft Word format, which will be important for when you begin using Track Changes for peer editing. DO NOT use other formats. DO USE the manuscript template you can download off this site. For reference, download the manuscript-format example on this site.
 

EXERCISE

Dialogue. First, we visited www.TerryBisson.com and read Terry's story "They're Made out of Meat." This story uses only dialogue--no narrative, and not even dialogue tags.

Then, we wrote dialogue-only scenes. The requirements were to have three characters involved in the dialogue and not to use narrative. However, dialogue tags were allowed. This exercise was for practice in writing good, non-contrived dialogue; to ensure your readers knew who was talking; and to practice using proper dialogue tags.

If you missed this exercise, please read the story and spend 15 minutes writing only dialogue.

Genres. First, each student wrote down his favorite fiction genre and also his least favorite fiction genre. The class discussed these, with students explaining why they liked and disliked those genres.

Then, we began writing stories based on our least favorite genres, without including the favorite genres. For example, if you absolutely loved science fiction and absolutely hated romance, then your exercise was to write a romance story without any hint of science fiction. We ran out of time, so students were assigned to work on these exercises at home and share them with the class.

If you missed the class, identify your most and least favorite genres and write in your least favorite genre. This does not have to be a complete story; even just a scene or two will be sufficient. This exercise normally takes up a half hour at the end of class, so you don't need to write a lot. Just write within the confines of a genre you'd rather not write in. We will not be reading these aloud in class, but we will be discussing them.

ASSIGNMENTS

Begin your stories! Students began writing stories in class, and continue at home.

Goal for next week: Get something written. It doesn’t have to be an entire first draft, but it should be a good start and more than just a few paragraphs or pages. HOWEVER, I encouraged a rough first draft. That doesn't mean you need 3,000 words; it would be at least a skeletal bit with all five things (protagonist, antagonist, plot, resolution, and change) present, even if all scenes aren't written or are abbreviated.

Word count: Remember, the word count of your finished story should be between 2,500 and 3,000 words, although a little more will be okay. As you work up a first draft, don’t obsess about word counts. Worry about writing a first draft, introducing all your main and supporting characters, developing a strong plot, building action scenes, and resolving the plot with a participating protagonist who changes. At the same time, keep word counts in your mind. If you know you’re only halfway through your story and it’s already 3,000 words, you’ll know there will be some heavy editing to go through later. But editing will come later. Do not worry over it at this point.

Also: Finish the hated-genre stories and be prepared to discuss.
 

IF YOU MISSED CLASS

Get the in-class exercises done. If you have missed more than one class, you'll have to plan to get together with me before the next class to review the large amount of material you missed.

Home