Zusammenfassung der Ressource
A105 Revision: Creative Writing -
Chapter 3
- Dialogue
- In Creative Writing,
'Dialogue' is the title given
to when two or more
characters are speaking.
- It is rare to find several
characters in the same scene.
- "Dialogue never copies real-life
conversation. It simply takes on the
air of real-life conversation" - Open
University Text Book - Doing Things
with Words (A105), p. 123
- Sol Stein suggested for a story to
have good dialogue, the dialogue
needs to be 'oblique' (to contain
indirect responses)
- See Sol Stein (P.
123)
- Distinguishing One
Voice from Another
- Voices help
create a
character.
- Having a good character
voice is essential for
writing fiction since the
characters are at the
centre of the story
- Character voices can give the readers
facts: whole, partial or illusory.
- A Good Character Voice can lead/mislead the
reader about what direction the story will take.
- If your characters all talk the same, the
story will become undramatic and
confusing for the reader.
- 'The Way Character's express
themselves is key to their identity' -
Doing Things With Words (A105) P. 117
- The Narrator's
Voice
- Stories are told by the narrative
voices
- There are a variety of narrative
voices that can be used to
intrigue a reader
- Neutral Narrative Voice - The Significance
of Voice passes to a greater degree to the
characters
- Character Narrative Voice - Someone who is
either directly involved in the action or on its
periphery.
- A Peripheral Narrative Voice is
sometimes called a 'witness
narrator'
- A Peripheral Narrator
observes the action of the
other characters but does not
take central part in the action.
- E.G. 'The Great Gatsby'
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
(1925)
- It isn't uncommon for the character to tell the story.
- The first-person
narrative can be biased
&/or opinionated so the
given voice is
important.
- A first-person narrative is often thought os as
'unrelaible' and so is used by authors to create
tension and force the reader to think about thier
own responses to the story.
- Subtext
- 'Subtext' is a hidden meaning behind
the conversation
- E.G. In 'Pretty Ice', the faulty tyre on Belle's Mother's car is
used to subtly inter how Belle considers her mother to be
incompetent.
- "There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps
a torrent of language is being employed. This speech is speaking of a language
locked beneath it [...] The speech we hear is an indication of that which we
don't hear [...] I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in
what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, despite
rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves" - Harold Pinter
- No matter what is being written creatively, the
author must have some idea of subtect in their
head.
- "Working with subtext is not a matter of
working it out with notes on it. It's a matter of
understanding perfectly what's really going on,
what's not going on and why it's not, and how
much of it will show on the surface [...] you
have to leave some [of the subtext] for the
audience to work out for itself [...] as a
member of an audience [I] love to be forcede to
think and be challenged" - Jules Feiffer.
- Subtext and Prose
Fiction
- The subtext in prose and poetry is less obvious
but just as important
- When writing fictional prose, the author has to give context
and insight to the characters and what their taught may be
- Adverbs and powerful verbs don't have to be used for this.
- A narrative technique allows for a look into the character's
head and to hear their thoughts.
- In effect, the subtext that is brought to
the surface of the page gives the
reader their inspection
- Subtext in prose has
reached a stage where
it is interpreted by the
readers.
- "Readers bring their own
experiences and
prejudices and
personalities to a text" -
Doing Things with Words
(A105) P. 130
- As a writer, you can indicate subtext (it is important you do), but
cannot reach a stage of reading your voices and texts as definitive.
- "Having a sense of your subtext is important, but
repeatedly defining it for the reader is to be
avoided - a prose writer, like a dramatist, has to
relinquish ownership" - Doing Things with
Words (A105) P. 130
- Voices from Real
Life
- Autobiographers and Biographers, also known as Life
Writers, have a challenge in creating voices for both those
who are currently living and those who have died.
- No one can perfectly recall conversations so they
have to be re-created with some artistic liberty
- Essentially, Life Writers have a similar task to Fiction Writers
- "[Life Writers] have to edit any re-created dialogue so that
the speech is believable and gives an insight into character"
- Doing Things with Words (A105), P 132.
- Life Writing often balances between fictional and
factual, often distinguished by the stated intention.
- Many fictional novels have been discovered
to have been autobiographic.
- E.G. 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath
- Many autobiographies have taken creative
liberties with what is the truth and what isn't.
- Transcripts, Oral History theatre and Verbatim theatre
- Oral History is the act of recording
voice by social historians.
- Most Notably Charles Parker.
- Oral History can be traced to 60--70 years ago when the BBC Radio Services
became interested in presenting dialect of the time and using new
portable recording equipment to cover the period.
- "Creative writers have found
this process interesting and
fruitful for a variety of
reasons, just as the opening p
of Mass-Observation (MO)
archives from the 1980s
onwards has also lef to
numerous life-writing
anthologies and works of
fiction" - Doing THings with
Words (a105) P 134
- "Oral history theatre and verbatim theatre are extremely
conscientious about about fidelity. 'Oral History Theatre' is
an overarching term used to describe drama that uses
transcripts to a greater or lesser degree. 'Verbatim theatre' is
more specific used of drama that is almost entirely
constructed from transcripts and, occasionally, public
documents." - Doing Things with Words (A105) P. 135