Creative Writing
Creative writing is more than just memorising a story you wrote during the year. Your story needs to be adaptable, so that it can fit different types of stimuli.
The easiest way to do this is to focus on:
1. Ideas about belonging
A good narrative has a 'message'. All of these essay theses could be a 'message' for your narrative. Once you have an idea, think about the characters, conflict and setting that reflect your idea.
2. Characters (Who?)
Many student get their ideas from an interesting character put in an unusual place or situation. This is a great way to get started.
3. Conflict (What?)
Every narrative is based on a conflict or problem faced by the characters. In this topic that usually means a conflict which leads to or from belonging or alienation. By the end of the story the conflict should be resolved (at least temporarily) and something has changed:
You should always begin a story by getting straight into the conflict rather than introducing the characters' background.
"Rosa lived in Sydney with her brother and sister. Their parents died in a terrible car accident when they were small, so they lived in an orphanage with an evil matron..."sounds boring and primary school-ish. Instead you could start with Rosa having an argument with the matron: "Just because our parents are dead, doesn't mean you can bully everyone in the orphanage, shrieked Rosa, hurling a book across the desk at Matron..." gives us the same information bect gets right into the action. It also tells us something about Rosa's personality.
Jaq the Hat makes a very good point about your conflict "I think the essence of a good short story is not to make the subject matter unusual but to make normal dramatic - I 'belong' more with the hospital patients than with my society who cant accept me - also the problem is a great percentage of people in psyche units say that they don't belong there; as a feature of mental unwellness is not having insight into your own condition. However not having insight is a more comfortable place to be than having it and knowing that you are ostracised on a daily basis and that people irrationally fear you . It eats away at your own confidence - So very poignant that the only place to be safe is in a place of containing madness because the general population has little insight into their own condition of casually putting 'other' beyond the pale."
You can see from this that, even though she is not writing from experience, she has put alot of research in to the background of her story to develop her idea. Most of this information won't come out in the story, but it is necessary, other wise she wouldn't get the details right to make a convincing story. The research is what allows her to take such an unusual approach to a cliched topic.
4. Setting (Where?)
Your setting is especially important when you are writing about belonging because people belong to (or are alienated from) places as well as people. Choose a setting you know well so you can describe it in detail. Setting your story in Hollywood will not be convincing if you haven't lived there (no matter how many movies you've seen about it!)
More hints about creative writing
The easiest way to do this is to focus on:
- an idea about belonging
- two or three characters
- a central conflict
- a setting
1. Ideas about belonging
A good narrative has a 'message'. All of these essay theses could be a 'message' for your narrative. Once you have an idea, think about the characters, conflict and setting that reflect your idea.
2. Characters (Who?)
Many student get their ideas from an interesting character put in an unusual place or situation. This is a great way to get started.
- Make sure your story has only 2-3 different characters (otherwise it will be too complicated to write in 40 mins and your reader won't know who is who)
- Choose characters that you can understand well (other wise you won't be able to explain their motives)
- Give your character a name and write in third person - ie. "he/she/name of character", not "I" (because it's very hard to make a narrative in first person sound like more than a diary entry)
- Work hard on characterisation (=developing the character's personality and motivations). Shelley MacNamara's blog has an excellent page on characterisation.
3. Conflict (What?)
Every narrative is based on a conflict or problem faced by the characters. In this topic that usually means a conflict which leads to or from belonging or alienation. By the end of the story the conflict should be resolved (at least temporarily) and something has changed:
- A character has changed their point of view about something.
- An experience has ended or a new experience has begun
- A question has been answered
You should always begin a story by getting straight into the conflict rather than introducing the characters' background.
"Rosa lived in Sydney with her brother and sister. Their parents died in a terrible car accident when they were small, so they lived in an orphanage with an evil matron..."sounds boring and primary school-ish. Instead you could start with Rosa having an argument with the matron: "Just because our parents are dead, doesn't mean you can bully everyone in the orphanage, shrieked Rosa, hurling a book across the desk at Matron..." gives us the same information bect gets right into the action. It also tells us something about Rosa's personality.
Jaq the Hat makes a very good point about your conflict "I think the essence of a good short story is not to make the subject matter unusual but to make normal dramatic - I 'belong' more with the hospital patients than with my society who cant accept me - also the problem is a great percentage of people in psyche units say that they don't belong there; as a feature of mental unwellness is not having insight into your own condition. However not having insight is a more comfortable place to be than having it and knowing that you are ostracised on a daily basis and that people irrationally fear you . It eats away at your own confidence - So very poignant that the only place to be safe is in a place of containing madness because the general population has little insight into their own condition of casually putting 'other' beyond the pale."
You can see from this that, even though she is not writing from experience, she has put alot of research in to the background of her story to develop her idea. Most of this information won't come out in the story, but it is necessary, other wise she wouldn't get the details right to make a convincing story. The research is what allows her to take such an unusual approach to a cliched topic.
4. Setting (Where?)
Your setting is especially important when you are writing about belonging because people belong to (or are alienated from) places as well as people. Choose a setting you know well so you can describe it in detail. Setting your story in Hollywood will not be convincing if you haven't lived there (no matter how many movies you've seen about it!)
- Choose a setting that symbolises the character's feelings and use lots of emotive descriptions. (this helps create an appropriate atmosphere)
- Use metaphors and personification in your description (similes are for primary school students!)
- Unless you are a sci-fi or historical fiction addict, don't set your story in the future or the past (because it's more complicated than you think!)
- Use flashbacks if you want to set your story over a long period of time
More hints about creative writing
- Tutor Tales [http://tutortales.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/how-to-write-a-belonging-creative-piece/#comment-1899]
- Save My HSC[http://savemyhsc.com.au/category/area-of-study-belonging/creative-writing/]
- HSC Belonging [http://www.hscbelonging.com/creativewriting/belongingideas.php] This website is maintained by students and therefore unrealiable (don't trust everything on this site) but the creative writing hints are useful.
- Playing with Language[http://belongingareaofstudy.blogspot.com/2008/10/creative-writing-playing-with-language.html] has a useful excercise for getting ideas started or improving a narrative you've already written. Look all over her blog for useful creative writing activities about belonging.
