The Fictional Narrative

1. The Fictional Narrative Breaking it down, then putting it back together. Part One: The Exposition

2. The Exposition • Engages the reader’s attention • Sets the stage for the story • Time (period, century, decade, year, month…) • Place (planet, continent, nation, state, city, street…) • Historical Context (war, epidemic, reign…) • Introduces the main character(s) and basic situation • May introduce the conflict

3. We engage the reader with a “hook.” • A narrative hook (or hook) is a literary technique in the opening of a story that "hooks" the reader's attention so that he will read on.

4. The "opening" may consist of several paragraphs for a short story, or several pages for a novel, but ideally is the opening sentence.

5. One of the most common forms is dramatic action, which engages the reader into wondering what the consequences of the action will be.

6. This particular form has been recommended from the earliest days, stemming from Aristotle, and the widely used term in medias res (in the middle of things) stems from the Roman Empire.

7. But action is not, in itself, a hook, without the reader's wondering what will happen next, or what caused the actions to occur.

8. Beware… • Overly dramatic openings may leave the reader indifferent because the characters acting or being acted on are non-entities; even murder of a faceless character may not engage interest.

9. The writer must balance key aspects of story development: • Characterization (people) • Plot Events (action) • Literary Devices (suspense, foreshadowing, irony…) All while paying attention to the precise use of language.

10. The use of action as the hook, and the advice to so use it, is so wide-spread as to sometimes lead to the use of the term to mean an action opening, but other things can be used for narrative hooks, such as…

11. mysterious settings,

12. or engaging characters,

13. or even a thematic statement. • “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” • -Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities How might the reader respond mentally to this opening?

14. When a story does not lend itself to a good hook when it is laid out linearly, the writer may tell the story out of order to engage the reader's interest.

15. Part Two: Rising Action • After engaging the reader, the writer takes the reader on a time journey through events during which the conflict intensifies and the characters become more real.

16. The story may begin with a dramatic moment and, once the reader is curious, flashback to the history necessary to understand it.

17. Or it may be told as a story-within-a-story, with the narrator in the frame story telling the story to answer the curiosity of his listeners, or by warning them that the story began in an ordinary seeming way, but they must follow it to understand latter actions.

18. Flashback • In history, film, television and other media, a flashback (also called analepsis) is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached.

19. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened prior to the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory.

20. In the opposite direction, a flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future. The technique is used to create suspense in a story, or develop a character.

21. Foreshadowing • Foreshadowing is a literary device in which an author drops subtle hints about plot developments to come later in the story.

22. An example of foreshadowing might be when a character displays a gun or knife early in the story.

23. Merely the appearance of a deadly weapon, even though it is used for an innocuous purpose — such as being cleaned or whittling wood — suggests terrible consequences later on.

24. Classically, foreshadowing is a literary device whereby the author plays on common beliefs or causal connections that most viewers or readers will have some direct experience with, thereby causing them to anticipate a specific chain of events.

25. In Romeo and Juliet, both main characters state early on that they would rather die than live apart.

26. In modern use, it is usually more subtle, often working on a symbolic level. For example, if a character must break up a schoolyard fight among some boys, it might symbolically foreshadow the family squabbles that will become the central conflict of the story.

27. Other times, it is seemingly inconsequential, with the goal of having the audience be surprised by the story's climax and yet find it justified.

28. If a character learns that a certain man was a regular at the diner where her mother worked many years before, it helps to justify the events later in which she learns that the man is her biological father.

29. Foreshadowing can be carried out by characters predicting the future.

30. This may range from a woman predicting that her son will come to a bad end if he continues on his way, to a character with the explicit ability to foresee the future prophesying an event.

31. Similarly, omens, such as breaking a mirror, can be used to foreshadow bad luck.

32. Beware… • If foreshadowing is not done carefully, the common experiences of life can make the foreshadowing too obvious and allow the audience to predict the outcome of the story.

33. Example: a character behaves in an odd and erratic fashion and complains continuously of a headache, then later is diagnosed with a brain tumor.

34. So let’s review. • The three jobs of an exposition are to…? • A fourth job sometimes is to…? • The setting of the story includes details of ...? • The job of a narrative hook is to...? • The length of the hook ranges from up to several ________ down to one _______. • Four common types of hooks are…?

35. The writer must balance what three aspects? • Rising actions is…? • A frame story is …? • A flashback is…? • Foreshadowing is…?