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A105 Revision: Creative Writing - Chapter 3

Dialogue
1. In Creative Writing, 'Dialogue' is the title given to when two or more characters are speaking.
  1. It is rare to find several characters in the same scene.
2. "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
  1. Sol Stein suggested for a story to have good dialogue, the dialogue needs to be 'oblique' (to contain indirect responses)
    1. See Sol Stein (P. 123)
Distinguishing One Voice from Another
1. Voices help create a character.
  1. Having a good character voice is essential for writing fiction since the characters are at the centre of the story
    1. Character voices can give the readers facts: whole, partial or illusory.
    2. A Good Character Voice can lead/mislead the reader about what direction the story will take.
  2. If your characters all talk the same, the story will become undramatic and confusing for the reader.
    1. 'The Way Character's express themselves is key to their identity' - Doing Things With Words (A105) P. 117
The Narrator's Voice
1. Stories are told by the narrative voices
2. There are a variety of narrative voices that can be used to intrigue a reader
  1. Neutral Narrative Voice - The Significance of Voice passes to a greater degree to the characters
  2. Character Narrative Voice - Someone who is either directly involved in the action or on its periphery.
    1. A Peripheral Narrative Voice is sometimes called a 'witness narrator'
      1. 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)
    2. It isn't uncommon for the character to tell the story.
      1. 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
1. 'Subtext' is a hidden meaning behind the conversation
  1. 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.
  2. "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
2. No matter what is being written creatively, the author must have some idea of subtect in their head.
  1. "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
1. The subtext in prose and poetry is less obvious but just as important
  1. When writing fictional prose, the author has to give context and insight to the characters and what their taught may be
    1. Adverbs and powerful verbs don't have to be used for this.
  2. A narrative technique allows for a look into the character's head and to hear their thoughts.
    1. In effect, the subtext that is brought to the surface of the page gives the reader their inspection
2. Subtext in prose has reached a stage where it is interpreted by the readers.
  1. "Readers bring their own experiences and prejudices and personalities to a text" - Doing Things with Words (A105) P. 130
3. 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.
  1. "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
1. 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.
  1. No one can perfectly recall conversations so they have to be re-created with some artistic liberty
    1. Essentially, Life Writers have a similar task to Fiction Writers
      1. "[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.
      2. 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
1. Oral History is the act of recording voice by social historians.
  1. Most Notably Charles Parker.
  2. 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.
    1. "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
2. "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

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A105 Revision: Creative Writing - Chapter 3

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	Created by Louise Prior about 5 years ago