Day 24

English 75 Summer 2011 Day 24

1. Bonus Points for Blog due Thursday.  You can go back to start of TKR only.
2. Third Essay Assignment (Rough Draft due Thursday, Final Draft due August 8^th)
3. Dialogue Checklist.

Setting

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

–Anton Chekhov 

1.      Time & Place (physical environment)

2.      TKR

For example: Greasy Lake, The Storm,  

Exercise:

• Write about the time: (five minutes)

§  you watched light settle on the water

§  you saw the first smudge of dawn

§  you woke before the others

• Write about something from memory that seems lit by a particular kind of light.  (from Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck)
• There was this one tree.

5 w’s

Senses/Imagery

Point of View

Narrator: 

A voice or character, the one from whose perspective the story is told

First Person:  A story in which the narrator is a participant in the action.  Refers to him/herself as “I”.

Unreliable:  events are related in a subjective or distorted manner by a person who is deceptive, self-deceptive, deluded or deranged.

Stream of consciousness: the procession of thoughts passing through the mind.  Not logical, but mingled randomly.  Mostly a modern technique.

Third Person:  A type of narration in which the narrator is a nonparticipant. Characters are referred to as “he,” “she,” or “they.”

All-knowing/Omniscient:  A type of pov in which the narrator knows everything about all of the characters and events in a story.  Moves freely in time and space.  Generally third person.

Limited Omniscient:  Sees into the minds of some but not all of the characters.

Objective:  Reports dialogue and action with minimal interpretation or access to the characters’ minds.  Like a fly on a wall.

Point of view continued

1. First Person

1.       Single character's point of view.

2. Advantages of First Person

                                                               i.      maintain naivete or innocence

                                                             ii.      Narrated out loud.

                                                           iii.      Irony of narrator/Humor

1.       Also, unreliable/biased narrators

                                                           iv.      Immediacy?

                                                             v.      Disadvantages

1.       Less flexible

2.       Can be contrived

3. Third person

                                                               i.      Better for "hot" material.

                                                             ii.      Flexible.

                                                           iii.      Omniscient/Limited (All characters v Single character)

                                                           iv.      Objective/Subjective: (No thoughts or feelings v. Thoughts and Feelings)

                                                             v.      Disadvantages

a.       "Head hopping"=confusion unless handled right