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EWRT 30Class 7

+AGENDA

Due: Project #1: Poetry: Sat 7:00 am

Lecture: Elements of FictionPlotPOV

Guided Writing: POV

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Talking about Writing: Elements of Fiction

Basic Elements of a Story

1. PLOT - the story line; a unified, progressive pattern of

action or events in a story

2. POINT OF VIEW (POV) - the position from which the story

is told

3. CHARACTER - person portraying himself or another

4. SETTING - the time and place of the action in a story

5. TONE - the attitude of the author toward his subject or toward the

reader

6. MOOD - the feeling or state of mind that predominates in a story

creating a certain atmosphere

+Plot

The series of events and actions that takes place in a story.

+Elements of Plot

•Conflict• Man VS Man

• Man VS Nature

• Man VS Society

• Man VS Himself

+Plot Line

Exposition: The start of the story. The way things are before the action starts.

Rising Action: the series of conflicts and crisis in the story that lead to the climax.

Climax: The turning point. The most intense moment (either mentally or in action). The conflict is generally addressed here.

Falling Action: all of the action that follows the Climax.

Resolution: The conclusion; the tying together of all of the threads.

Conflict: Struggle between opposing forces

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The Three Little Pigs

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Exposition: The three little pigs live at home with their mother. They go off into the world to find their fortunes.

The 1st little pig builds a house out of straw, but the wolf blows it down.

Climax: The wolf tries to climb in through the chimney, but the little pig is ready for him. The wolf falls in a pot of boiling water.

Falling Action: The little pig celebrates with wolf stew!

Resolution: The little pig continues to live happily ever after in his safe, little home.

The 2nd little pig builds a house out of sticks, but the wolf blows that one down too.

The 3rd little pig builds his house out of bricks. The wolf tries and tries to blow the brick house down, but he can’t.

Rising Action:

Conflict: Man vs. ManThe wolf is trying to eat the three little pigs.

+Point of ViewWho tells the story

+ POV Depends on the NarratorNarrato

rThe narrator is the “one who tells, or is assumed to be telling, the story in a given narrative,” that is, “the imagined ‘voice’ transmitting the story.” The narrator is distinguished from the real author (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms).

+Omniscient Point of View: An external narrator is telling the story. (S)he speaks for all characters and knows everything.

“Hansel knew he belonged in the front because Gretel was just a girl. Gretel dropped breadcrumbs behind her as she went, knowing that her bumbling brother couldn’t be counted on to find his way home.Ahead of them, an old witch waited, her stomach rumbling at the thought of what a delicious dinner the two plump children would make.”

+“In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase. He looked down at the guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping.

Cormac McCarthy All the Pretty Horses

Limited Omniscient: Third person, told from the viewpoint of a character in the story. (S)he knows only what one character sees, does, and feels.

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The first person narrator uses the pronoun “I.”

“I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. I’m not lying. He got stuck up there.

The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver

+ Review: Three Common Points of View

Omniscient: The narrator knows everything, including what each character is thinking, feeling, and doing throughout the story. 

3rd Person Limited: The narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other characters are presented only externally.

1st Person: The narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge about both events outside of those in which he or she is directly involved and motivations that are not his or her own.

+The Three Little Pigs is a classic folk tale from the oral tradition. It was originally published in the 18th Century with an Omniscient Narrator

The story follows three pigs sent out into the world by their mother. Each of them builds a house: one of straw, one of sticks, and the last of bricks. The wolf blows down each of the first two houses, but he cannot even scuff the brick house. Finally, he attempts to sneak in through the chimney. The third pig is ready for his entrance and places a pot of boiling water in the fireplace. When the wolf leaps into the chimney, he lands in the pot and the pig makes a stew out of him.

+Identifying the Omniscient Perspective

their mother, who loved them equally, told them " Whatever you do, do it the best that you can because that's the way to get along in the world.”

 The first little pig built his house out of straw because it was the easiest thing to do.

a big bad wolf came along and saw the first little pig in his house of straw.

The [third] little pig saw the wolf climb up on the roof. He lit a roaring fire in the fireplace and placed on it a large kettle of water.

Definition Omniscient Perspective: The narrator knows what each character is thinking, feeling, and doing throughout the story. 

+3rd Person Limited: Mother Pig

This version of the Three Little Pigs is presented as a third-person narrative by the mother pig. After she sends her three boys off into the world with her bit of advice, she is left to wonder about their fates. She, and consequently the reader, knows nothing of their adventure with the wolf until she receives a phone call from her third son.

An abbreviated version of the complete tale

+Identifying the Third Person Limited Perspective

Day after day, she waited for news of her offspring. She busied herself by cleaning their rooms.

One late night the phone rang. It was her third son, George. “Mom,” he yelled “you were right.” John and Paul built houses out of straw and wood. This gigantic, bad wolf came and blew them down one after the other.

The boys left and she, as any good mother would, worried incessantly about how they fared.

Definition 3rd person limited: Third person limited point of view is a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other characters are presented only externally.

+1st Person: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs is presented as a first-person narrative by the wolf, who portrays the entire incident as a misunderstanding. He had gone to the pigs to borrow some sugar, had destroyed their houses in a sneezing fit, and had eaten the first two pigs just to avoid food going to waste (the pigs had died in the house collapse anyway). Ultimately, he had been caught violently attacking the third pig’s house because the pig had continually insulted him

An Abbreviated Version of the Complete Tale

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“Everybody knows the story of the Three Little Pigs. Or at least they think they do. But I'll let you in on a little secret. Nobody knows the real story because nobody has ever heard my side of the story. I'm Alexander T. Wolf. The real story is about a sneeze and a cup of sugar.”

First-person – The narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge/vision about events outside of those in which he or she is directly involved and motivations that are not his or her own. The first person, however, allows for an intimacy between the reader and the narrator that cannot be rivaled by another POV.

+Identifying the First Person Perspective I was making a

birthday cake for my dear old granny. I had a terrible cold. I ran out of sugar, so I went to borrow a cup from a neighbor.

I mean who would build a house of straw?

When the dust cleared, there was the second little pig - dead as a doornail. Wolf's honor.

Now I'm a pretty calm fellow. But when somebody talks about my granny, I go a little crazy.

Definition 1st person: The narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge about both events outside of those in which he or she is directly involved and motivations that are not his or her own.

+Why different perspectives?Because each one has its own benefits!

The omniscient point of view gives the reader a broad, objective overview of the story, but it is difficult to create well-developed characters or much intimacy from such a distance.

The third person point of view allows more development of characters than the omniscient approach. Moreover, the narrator seems more objective than one from a first-person point of view.

The first person point of view allows for a very intimate, warm connection to the narrator, but the facts in the story are often seen as more subjective. We all know that when we tell our own stories, we leave out the parts we don’t care to share.

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So

Consider this? Does it change anything? or everything? Imagine this story. What perspective would you use here? 3rd limited or first through the pig? Third or first through the wolf? Omniscient?

Guided Writing

Devise a plot for the story of The Three Little Pigs as a murder with the wolf as a hit man. Choose a POV to make it interesting. Use the drawing as your prompt.

1st person: the Pig or the Wolf3rd Limited: the Pig or the WolfOmniscient

+Homework

Post #7: Your new version of The Three Little Pigs.

Reading: Note the Plot and POV of each “The Tell Tale Heart” Edgar Allan Poe“A Very Short Story” Ernest Hemingway

“Dr. Chevalier’s Lie” Kate Chopin