Using Narrative Structure and Narrative Time in

Creative WritingWith Natasha Lester

Natasha Lester• My fourth book, Her Mother’s

Secret, has just been published

• Last year I published the bestseller, A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald

• I’m also the award winning author of What is Left Over, After and If I Should Lose You

• I regularly teach for the Australian Writers’ Centre, and at universities etc

Agenda• Story, plot and structure

• A simple plot outline

• Inciting Incidents - why they’re so important

• Complications, crises and endings

• Story Spine

• Scene vs summary

• Compressed narratives vs large narratives

• Playing With time

• Narrative Distance

Narrative Structure

2 Types of Stories

• Stranger comes to town

• Pride and Prejudice

• The Lady and the Dog

• Person leaves home (Man goes on a journey)

• Jane Eyre

• The Book Thief

The basic story structure

Conflict (inciting incident)

Climax

ResolutionComplications

The Key Story Ingredients

• 3 key scenes - an inciting incident, a climax and a resolution

• Plus: a number of scenes linking (building up from) the inciting incident to the climax

• It’s sometimes useful for students to imagine that stories have a shape and they can consider whether theirs has one or not

The Inciting Incident• Plot begins with the inciting incident

• Often students don’t have one and the story is dull and uninteresting - nothing happens and there is no plot

• Something must happen that changes the character’s normal life and sets them on the path of their journey

• It must be an event that’s out of the ordinary, but it doesn’t need to be extraordinary

• If this event didn’t happen, the story wouldn’t happen

• Pride & Prejudice: Mr Bingley & Mr Darcy come to town

• Jasper Jones - Jasper knocks on Charlie’s window

• To Kill a Mockingbird - Atticus takes on the Robinson’s case

Complications

• After the inciting incident, there should be a series of complications or obstacles that get in the way of the thing your main character sets out to do as a result of the inciting incident

• In Jasper Jones, Charlie wants to help Jasper. But he also wants to do the right thing and he wants get closer to Eliza. These are complications as they are at odds with him helping Jasper.

• Without complications, we get a story where “nothing happens”.

Pride & Prejudice• Inciting incident: Bingley and Darcy arrive on

page 1. It’s an out of the ordinary event for their village.

• By the end of chapter 1 (p3), we know the Bennets have 5 daughters who need to be married and conveniently 2 wealthy young men have arrived in town, thus Mrs Bennett’s goal for the book is to have them marry one of two of her daughters.

• 1st complication - Mr Bennett won’t visit Bingley

• 2nd complication - Darcy snubs Lizzie at the ball

Your turn• The event that started it all …

• Write a scene that could be an inciting incident (Consider the 2 story types -stranger comes to town, person leaves town)

• What is this event that starts it all?

• What does it start?

• What is the thing your character decides they want to do as a result of the inciting incident?

The Climax• The climax moment of the story is the moment of

understanding for both the characters and the reader.

• It’s an event that brings all the threads of the story together and solves the mystery or leads to a resolution

• It should be reasonably dramatic: confrontation/revelation

• Examples are:

• The attack on Scout and Jem by Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird

• The revelation that Laura’s death was due to suicide in Jasper Jones

• Catherine de Burgh’s visit to Lizzie in Pride and Prejudice

Types of Resolutions• Surprise ending - twist (Atonement)

• Happy ever after ending (Cinderella)

• Tragic ending - not obligatory to show the reader the tragedy. It can be more dramatic and satisfying to understand what will happen without it being shown in detail (Wuthering Heights, Burial Rites)

• Open ended - when moral or thematic issues are broad (The Riders by Tim Winton)

• Partly Open: Jasper Jones

• Closed: Specific genres such as romance/crime usually require a more specific and complete conclusion i.e. the murder is solved or the couple get together (Pride and Prejudice)

For a Short Story …

• The students need to consider

• What is the inciting incident?

• What is the climax?

• What are some of the complications that arise and that lead from the inciting incident to the climax?

• How will it all end?

The Story Spine

The Story Spine• Once upon a time there was a girl named Evie whose mother

wanted her to marry the boy next door. Every day Evie worked on her embroidery with her sister and wondered about the changes she knew were happening in the world.

• But, one day, Evie helps a woman give birth in secret. The woman dies, the baby survives.

• Because of that, Evie decides she wants to be a doctor.

• Because of that, she has to go to medical school.

• Because of that, the boy next door and her parents throw her off

• Because of that, she becomes a chorus girl in the Ziegfeld Follies to support herself. etc, etc

• Until finally …

• And ever since then …

The Story Spine• Class exercise:

• Ask the students to choose a book they are reading/studying

• Is it a stranger comes to town or person goes on a journey story?

• Have the students write out a story spine for a book

• Sometimes identifying the key scenes in another book can be useful in helping them to think of scenes in their own writing

• They could then use this as the basis for their own story -what if they chose the same type of story/inciting incident but used their own characters ideas?

• ie - begin with a “knocking on the window” scene as in Jasper Jones. Who is knocking? Why are they knocking? Is it welcome?

Your Turn

• The Story Spine is a useful outlining tool

• Have a go at outlining a story that might spring from your earlier inciting incident piece

• Fill in each of the gaps in the outline with a few words or ideas

Narrative Time

Scene vs Summary• Stories are made up of 2 elements - Scene and

Summary

• Scene and summary are ways of treating time

• Think of Summary as the mortar and Scenes as the bricks. Scenes are the building blocks of your story and they are often held together by pieces of summary

• Summary covers a relatively long period of time in a few words, scene covers a short period of time in a lot of words

• Students often write an entire story in summary rather than using scenes. A story should be mostly scenes, with some summary gluing it together.

Examples

• The Natural Way of Things

Summary

• Summary can:

• fill in background info

• alter pace

• create a transition

• move us forwards or backwards in time quickly

• Too much summary is dull as it’s the writer telling the reader what is happening without allowing the reader to see it

Pride and Prejudice Told in Summary

• One day, a rich man called Bingley arrived in town. Mrs Bennet was very excited about this as she had 5 daughters she wanted to marry off. She asked her husband to visit Bingley so that she could introduce her daughters to him but he refused. Mrs Bennet was cross. But luckily Mr Bennet really did visit Mr Bingley and his daughters were all really excited at the thought of now meeting him, and his friend Mr Darcy.

• Can you tell me anything about the personalities of the characters by reading this? Is it engaging?

• Summary tends to rely on thought and description which is fine in small doses and for non-vital information but not for anything more

• Students can tend to overuse thought and internal monologue and this can be a good way for them to see why it quickly becomes dull and what else they can do

Scene• Scene:

• allows us to experience the story

• get to know the characters

• takes place in real time

• has action and dialogue (characters doing things and saying things)

• scenes usually have turning points or mini-crises in them

• key moments of drama should always be written as a scene i.e. inciting incident, climax etc

• Be careful not to create a scene out of something unimportant, as then the story becomes too long and boring

Scenes Need to Have a Point

• Opening scene go P&P

• Versus summary of Mr Bennet’s visit to Bingley

• Why is this told as summary?

• Each scene must serve a purpose in the story - kick off the story, introduce the characters, add a complication etc. If it has no purpose then convey the information quickly in summary

Ideas for the Classroom

• Have the students identify scene and summary in a book they’re reading

• Have them consider why scene and summary have been used at those points

• Have them try writing the scene as summary and the summary as scene and assess what affect that has.

Your turn• Take one of the following pieces of summary and turn it

into a scene:

• They met at the bar at seven o’ clock as arranged. She recognised him because of the red jumper he’d said he’d be wearing. They had a nice night and she thought she might go out with him again.

• The girl (or boy) was taken to an old school room. She didn’t know where she was or why she was there and she felt afraid. She wondered what might happen to her.

• Consider what might the characters do or say. How can you make sure the reader gets a feel for who the characters are and what they’re like by building the scene around their dialogue and action.

Transitions• Moving from one time period to another

can be tricky

• The main thing to remember: less is more

• Too much explanation that the time period has changed bogs the story down

• Remind the students that readers are smart and will pick up on one concise sentence

• This is where they would use summary

Transitions

• “The air has lost its sharpness, and the sun is over the ridge now. Winter is receding.” The Natural Way of Things (p255)

• “Even though it’s the third week of October, the summer beats on with the rhythm of a clothes dryer.” The Help (p303)

• Christmas has come and gone. I tried not to notice it.” The Blind Assassin (p378)

Transitions• Refer to seasons, weather or time

• The following transitions are fine but:

• Two months later.

• Two years passed by.

• The night of the party arrived at last.

• No need to fill in every detail of what happened in the preceding two months/years/weeks. Just summarise the important events i.e. Her Mother’s Secret

• A gradual reveal of what has changed is much more interesting as it keeps the reader reading on to find out the answers

Transitions• In the classroom:

• Have students identify some of the classic transition devices in the books they're reading i.e. weather, seasons, time

• Have them note how many sentences are devoted to the transition and how much information about the intervening period is given

• They’ll start to see that you can leave out quite a lot and skip large pieces of time with relatively few words -confidence and trust in the reader is key

• Study how the author gradually fills in the details of what has happened in the skipped time period, rather than trying to fill it all in at once

Playing With Time• Chronological narrative: Story is told

chronologically in order

• Parallel Narrative: two or three different narrative strands woven together, usually from different timeframes or different characters’ perspectives. Illustrates that people/times that appear very different have emotional similarities. The past echoes in present. i.e. The Hours by Michael Cunningham, The Help by Kathryn Stockett

• Reverse Narrative: Starts at the climax, and then goes back to the start and moves forward until the story catches up to the climax. A “why?” story rather than a “what happens story” i.e. We Need to Talk About Kevin

Playing With Time• Flashback Narrative: A narrator looks back to and

retells the story of their younger life. Wisdom gained from age and experience recasts younger life into a new story i.e. The Blind Assassin, To Kill a Mockingbird

• Frame Narrative: a story within a story - someone tells a character a story, who then recounts it to the reader. Used to highlight unreliable nature of story and memory and recounting, it filters what actually happened through a certain perspective i.e. Wuthering Heights

• Artefacts within a story (letters, journals, poems, newspaper clippings, a book). Used to show how versions of a story can differ depending on where and how they are published/told i.e. Possession, Burial Rites, The Blind Assassin

Playing With Time• Looping Narrative (groundhog day): The

story turns back on itself, or the same story is retold in different ways. Used to play with the idea of whether we can change the future i.e. Life After Life

• Multi-Strand Narrative: the story is told in a certain number of chapters and each chapter is voiced by a different character. This makes the reader question whose side they are on and whose story they believe i.e. The Slap, Lost and Found

In the Classroom

• Identify and read narratives that play with time in different ways

• Discuss why the narrative is structured that way and what effect it has on the way the reader perceives the characters and engages with the story

• Try out some writing exercises that use these ideas on a smaller scale

Ideas for Class Exercises• Write a blog post/newspaper article/letter/poem/story/diary

(any text). How could this format be used in your story on an ongoing basis?

• Write a beginning to a story with your narrator already knowing what the climax is. How does this change the way you begin your story?

• Write a scene set in the past and a scene set in the present where the main characters are engaged in the same activity i.e. at school, eating dinner with family. Can you show the emotions that cross time?

• Have Character A tell Character B a story from their past, then, in another scene, have Character B write it down or reflect upon it later. Which parts of the story do they remember best? Which parts do they gloss over? Which parts do they misremember? Why?

Your Turn

• Write a scene out twice, from the point of view of two different characters which begins: This is what he/she did …

More Time Devices

• Slow Motion

• Flashback/Narrative Distance

Slow Motion

• Is used as in a film, to slow down the passing of time, to describe in minute detail what is happening.

• Use in moments of great intensity to heighten the drama of the moment i.e. pivotal scenes, inciting incident, climax etc

• Draw on all the senses, lots of description, slow down all movements so they can be fully imagined

Your turn

• Describe a key moment of drama or a simple action in slow motion - a car crash, someone falling over, a fight, a person dropping something

Flashback/Narrative Distance

• Flashback is another way to play with time but it works best when students understand narrative distance

• Narrative distance refers to distance in time between the telling narrator and the experiencing narrator

• The telling narrator is the person telling the story at an older age

• The experiencing narrator is the same person, but at the age they were when experiencing the events

Narrative Distance

• In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout mostly relates events as if she was a young child, the experiencing narrator.

• But occasionally, she interjects as her older and wiser self, filling in explanations that the child wouldn’t be able to

• You can just use a telling narrator, or you can combine the telling and the experiencing narrators in a story

Narrative Distance• Greater distance in time passing equals less

reliability but more emotional perspective

• It provides the opportunity to add wisdom and explanations and excuses perhaps

• It can make the reader question whether the narrator is to be trusted i.e. The Blind Assassin

• The experiencing narrator has more emotional intensity and more immediacy though

Writing exercise

• The most terrifying experience of my childhood was - have the narrator recount an event that happened many years ago, as the telling narrator

• Use the ‘I’ or first person POV

• Recreate it as a scene, describe the terrifying experience in detail but from the perspective of distance due to the passage of time

• Consider what parts of that event are still painful and in what way? What do they gloss over, what do they dwell on?

That’s It!

• Thanks so much for coming today

• I hope you enjoyed the session and hope it has give you some ideas for taking structure and time into your classrooms for creative writing