Start Writing Fiction

Fact and fiction

Trying to write both fact and fiction can help you realise the relationship between the two.

Write a paragraph (50 to 100 words) containing one fact and three fictitious elements.

You can write about yourself, about your interests, about history – about anything you like.
Then try the reverse – write a paragraph containing three facts and one fictitious element.

Post your fact and fiction paragraph in the discussion below.

Then look at the posts from your fellow writers. Can you spot where the fictions are and
where the facts are? Ask these questions:

• Is there anything that distinguishes the fictitious elements?

• Are there common elements that you and your fellow writers write about as ‘facts’?
• Do any of these passages suggest stories to you?

What can you use?

Fiction thrives on elements that are factual or seem factual; it traditionally contains
much information which appears real and normal.

What did you find from reading the fact and fiction paragraphs and from writing your own?

You may have seen or heard game shows with a similar premise – panel members
talk imaginatively and often comically about themselves, or an object or a moment from
history, trying to smuggle through facts that the other panellists don’t notice. The fun thing
is that the truthful things are often the elements that sound most invented. But common
factual details are of use in stories too.

Writing what you know is all important to the would-be fiction writer. Your source
material doesn’t have to be exotic, or fantastical. The most mundane details from everyday
lives can provide the most fruitful source for stories. And sometimes the mundane mixed
with the fantastical can be amusing too.

Keeping track of useful details

Taking note of details of the appearance of people who take your interest should become a
habit – people you see on the street, or in other venues.

Write down, in your notebook or journal, any interesting and unusual details that strike you
about any of the characters from the video.
These notes may help you to create characters you will be imagining and writing about in
the weeks to come. They may, at some point, form the basis for a short story.

Reviewing your notes

It’s important to review the details and ideas you collect in your notebook.

Read the notes you made after watching the video. Did you concentrate on physical
details? Did you note any details of clothing or expression?

Now open all your senses, and take notice of things around you in everyday life.
Concentrate not only on what you see but also on sounds, smells and touch.

This should become a habit – a way of seeing the world. Always reflect on the notes you
have taken in your journal.

Did you note things you heard – the way people speak or a squeaking or breathy voice?

Did you note any smells – like a distinctive perfume, or the smell of fried fish on someone’s
clothes?

When reflecting on your notes, highlight any details you find especially interesting and to
which you might want to return, to work on in more detail later.

Why writers write

There are all sorts of reasons why people start to write. Throughout this
course you’ll listen to established writers speaking about their work.
Here are a number of novelists talking about how they began to write.
You’ll hear Alex Garland, Michèle Roberts, Tim Pears, Abdulrazak
Gurnah, Monique Roffey and Louis de Bernières.

ALEX GARLAND:
I got into writing really through drawing comic strips. My Dad’s a
cartoonist and I grew up around comic books, I was always reading them
and I, he draws so, you know, as a kid I was copying him and did
drawings and um, I always thought that would be how I’d make my living
really. At a certain point I think I was about 21, two things happened.
One is I began to realise that I wasn’t as good at drawing as I needed to
be in order to really make this work and I also began to get frustrated I
think by how long it took to tell a story because you’d write it and then
you’d draw it and the drawing which wasn’t that good would take me
ages and ages and ages, and eventually what I did was, I just ditched
the pictures pretty much and stuck with the words.

MICHÈLE ROBERTS:
I think I began writing, and of course this is a story I’ve made up in
adulthood looking back, and it’s a story that changes I think probably
every 10 years as I go through my life – I think I began writing to invent
some kind of cultural identity for myself, because of being half French
and half English, that was the major conflict in my life.
I think being a Catholic was very important to me. Partly in a positive
sense because it gave me lots of stories – Catholicism is a source of
what we might call magical realism – mad, crazy things the saints get up
to – miracles, and so on and so forth.
Catholicism was also a very bad place for a young woman growing up.
It’s a very misogynistic religion – I think it’s founded on the fear of the
body and in particular the female body. I felt completely crushed by it.
And also crushed by the practice of sitting in church listening to a priest
who was very angry and particularly with young people, rant on Sunday
after Sunday about our sins and our evil and our inequities. And I think
as a very angry young woman I just began to start talking in my head
and as soon as I could, I left the Church and read voraciously and lived a
free life and began to write down all the angry things in my head and
they turned into stories.
So in a sense I think, I always had the love of language, because
growing up in a bilingual household with a story-telling English
grandmother and a father who’d wanted to write stories about his war
time experience, a mother who taught French literature, I was
surrounded by story-telling and books, and poetry and recipes and
people quarrelling and using language very powerfully and I think that I
began to find that subjects arrived. And nowadays when people ask me
what I write about, I say – food, sex and God. And that just about sums
it up.

TIM PEARS:
I always wanted to be a writer from when I was very young, I think it came
from being somewhat unhappy as a child. In my second book, In the Land
of Plenty the main character in it, the middle son of a family, Freeman
family about whom the book’s, that follows their fortunes he’s a sort of
semi-autobiographical character, he’s a photographer who takes
photographs, partly to try and understand the world by looking through the
lens of the camera, and partly to have something to hide behind, and I
think really, that’s, for me writing has been that, or was that, that’s why I
became a writer. Because, I was perplexed by, by life and by people and,
grown-ups and the world, and writing was an attempt to understand it, but
also, something to, to hide behind.

ABDULRAZAK GURNAH:
Why I’m not sure, I guess why’s one of those things that happens as
you’re doing it, but how is more like a stumbling into it more than, you
know, having some kind of ambition at a certain age and saying – I know
what I’m going to do, starting to write, rather than wanting to. And the
starting for me happened with coming to England. I mean I used to write
before, like at school, write the odd thing and so on, but it was only kind
of playing, doing it for your friends and that kind of thing. Not what we
mean when we say ‘a writer’.
But it was after coming to England and kind of thinking about what it
means to have left home, to have left people you know, to have come
here, coming to grips with the things that were happening, not all of
which were nice things. And it was during that process of thinking about
things, understanding your position in relation to where you are that I
started to write things, just things, and then after a while the things you
think, well can I do something with these things. And you gradually
realise that you’ve got something that is developing or that is growing
and then get silly and say I could write a book! You know, that’s how it
began really.

MONIQUE ROFFEY:
I think it was, um, just a sensibility I’ve been writing from a very young
age even as a child and in the same way that some people are naturally
very musical or interested in insects or good at tennis or you know, crazy
about trains or whatever it is, I mean from a very young age I’ve been
writing diaries and journals and I just think it just progressed. I was a
journalist for a while and um you know I was always writing something
else, a screenplay or a comedy script or a tele this or a, you know,
something. I think eventually when you’re old enough, you know, and
you want to take yourself a bit more seriously I just woke up one day and
said right – I’m going to make the next step and I’m gonna write a novel,
I’m gonna have a go. So it’s been something that I’ve always done, there
was never a conscious decision.

LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES:
I always knew that I was going to be a writer. My father wrote poetry so
in our house it was quite normal to want to do that sort of thing. And I
knew it from a very early age, I suppose from about the age 12. And um I
had a couple of fantastically good English teachers, I think about three
all together who were a definite inspiration and a guide.
Then all through my teenage years I wrote poetry mostly the sort of
embarrassing soppy love poetry that one does write about ‘Why don’t
you love me?’ and ‘I’m going to kill myself’, that sort of thing. And then
um in, in my 20s I actually forgot that I was going to be a writer because I
thought I was going to be a rock star and I wrote songs and things
instead. But I did carry on writing things from time to time and then when
I was 35 I had a motorcycle crash that put me in plaster for six months
and during that time I really couldn’t go out much, so I wrote my first
novel to keep myself entertained

The writing journey starts

It’s helpful to listen to what other writers have to say about the wish to write, but it is also
important to listen to yourself too.

Does any of what the novelists say in Why writers write resonate with your own feelings
and experiences of why you want to write?

Discuss some of their responses in relation to your own motivations and reasons for
wanting to write. Ask:

• What were the similarities in their respective journeys towards writing?

• How much did fact mix with fiction in the way their own life experience and personal
 circumstance influenced them as writers?
• What elements of your life experience and personal circumstance do you think
might influence your writing?

Developing a character from your notebook

Review the notes you’ve collected in your notebook to find a character to develop further.

Pick a character. If you’ve collected, in your notebook, details about people you’ve spotted
or spoken to during this week, pick one of these characters. Alternatively, you can pick one
of the characters from the opening video, Keeping track of useful details.

Write a short character sketch – no more than 200 words – in which you concentrate on
appearance and any particular mannerisms you noted.

You will come back to this later so save a copy on your computer or device.

Reading characters

Reading other novels and stories to see how characters appear is one of the most
essential preparations you can undertake.

Take a look at these character sketches from George Orwell’s Burmese Days and Zoë
Heller’s Notes on a Scandal. Note down how you think the writers are managing to portray
character.

The first thing that one noticed in Flory was a hideous birthmark stretching in a ragged
crescent down his left cheek, from the eye to the corner of the mouth. Seen from the left
side his face had a battered, woe-begone look, as though the birthmark had been a bruise
– for it was a dark blue in colour. He was quite aware of its hideousness. And at all times,
when he was not alone, there was a sidelongness about his movements, as he
manoeuvred constantly to keep the birthmark out of sight.

Orwell, G. ([1934] 1967), Burmese Days, Penguin: Harmondsworth, p. 14.

The first time I ever saw Sheba was on a Monday morning, early in the winter term of
1996. I was standing in the St George’s car park, getting books out of the back of my car
when she came through the gates on a bicycle – an old-fashioned, butcher-boy model with
a basket in the front. Her hair was arranged in one of those artfully dishevelled up-dos: a
lot of stray tendrils framing her jaw, and something like a chopstick piercing a rough bun at
the back. It was the sort of hairstyle that film actresses wear when they’re playing sexy
lady doctors. I can’t recall exactly what she had on. Sheba’s outfits tend to be very
complicated – lots of floaty layers. I know she was wearing purple shoes. And there was
definitely a long skirt involved, because I remember thinking that it was in imminent danger
of becoming entangled in her spokes. When she dismounted – with a lithe, rather irritating,
little skip – I saw that the skirt was made of some diaphanous material. Fey was the word
that swam into my mind. Fey person, I thought. Then I locked my car and walked away.
My formal introduction to Sheba took place later the same day when Ted Mawson, the
deputy head, brought her into the staffroom at afternoon break for a ‘meet and greet’.
I was off in a far corner when Mawson ushered Sheba in, so I was able to watch their
slow progress around the room for several minutes, before having to mould my face into
the appropriate smile.
Sheba’s hair had become more chaotic since the morning. The loose tendrils had
graduated to hanks and where it was meant to be smooth and pulled back, tiny, fuzzy
sprigs had reared up, creating a sort of corona around her scalp. She was a very thin
woman, I saw now. As she bent to shake the hands of seated staff members, her body
seemed to fold in half at the waist like a piece of paper.
‘Our new pottery teacher!’ Mr Mawson was bellowing with his customary, chilling good
spirits, as he and Sheba loomed over Antonia Robinson, one of our Eng Lit women. Sheba
smiled and patted her hair.
Pottery. I repeated the word quietly to myself. It was too perfect: I pictured her, the
dreamy maiden poised at her wheel, massaging tastefully mottled milk jugs into being.

Heller, Z. (2003) Notes on a Scandal, Penguin: London, pp. 11–13.

Comparing your characters

Can you use any of these methods in your stories and with your characters?

Having looked at the characters and ways of revealing characters in the passages from
Burmese Days and Notes on a Scandal, go back to your character sketch and add any
elements – for instance, details of appearance or behaviour – which you think might bring
the character to life for your reader.

Consider the ways in which your reader might be getting involved in the invention and
imagining of your characters.
Orwell uses third-person narration, and focuses on one physical aspect of Flory to create a
picture of his psychological state.
Heller uses first-person narration, which means we are dealing with two characters – the
character being described, and the character doing the observing and describing. This
adds an intrigue about the relationship between the two characters.
Neither method is better than the other – they are just different approaches. Check
whether you are using third or first person narration.
Remember that your reader will always have to participate in the imagining of your
characters.

Week 2: The habit of writing

Start date:

A page with the word 'Discover' written down.

Do it your way
How do you write? What inspires you? Where do you like to write? Do you set aside a
regular time to write? Find encouragement, tips and tricks to discover what works best for
you.

Finding your way

A writer’s journal will help you establish a writing habit and could also help you launch into
projects.

Writers often worry about how to get started. The first step is the same for any writer,
novice or otherwise – you start with a blank page or screen. Which is why your notebook is
such an important resource for ideas.

You may also find that props or particular working methods make writing easier for you.
So, this week, you will be exploring and developing your own rituals.

So far you’ve looked at how you might get started. Now, you’re going to see how
using a journal may not only help you establish a writing habit but could also help you
launch into projects. Writers often worry about the first steps.

It’s the same for any writer, novice or otherwise: you start with a blank page or
screen which is why your journal is such an important resource for ideas. You may also
find that props or particular working methods make writing easier for you. So this week
you’ll be exploring and developing writing rituals. You’ll hear about the rituals of writers
such as Michele Roberts, Monique Roffey and Alex Garland. You’ll be using your journal to
record detailed observations of people and read a couple of characters sketches from
novels by Graham Greene and Kate Atkinson. You’ll try different ways of starting a story
and you’ll write a mini-story.

Why writers write

Listen to these novelists talk about the methods and practices they find
useful, including the writer’s notebook and morning pages. The writers
are Michèle Roberts, Monique Roffey and Alex Garland.
As you listen, note down which approaches are most or least suited to
you.

MICHÈLE ROBERTS:
In the first six months when I’m fumbling and grumbling and scrambling, I
write a lot, I write obsessively in my notebook. I write ideas that are
hopeless and don’t work. I write diary entries about not being able to
write and about being a complete failure and about silence and about
writer’s block, and I write about anything that comes into my head,
because what I’m doing is practicing – I’m freeing up the unconscious,
I’m letting language out to start dancing, and I think it does sound rather
close to madness what I’m describing, but I don’t mind. I know it’s a
madness contained in my room and it’s a madness that will flow into a
novel – I can handle it.
I wouldn’t want to upset anyone or alarm anyone by saying you have to
have a nervous breakdown in order to write, it isn’t about that, but it’s
about going down below the level of everyday, daily language, the
language we use for chatting to each other. Going down into the
unconscious where language is much looser and wilder. I think of it as
being in a kind of beehive and there’s all this buzzing and bees rushing
about and you’ve just got to be there. [Laughs.]

MONIQUE ROFFEY:
When I wrote Sun Dog um, I um, I’d previously read about this idea of
doing morning pages, it was Dorothea Brand. And she has this idea that
in order to sort of harness your unconscious, writing in the morning,
writing before you do anything else is a great way to sort of harness your
unconscious, and consciously get yourself going and I took that idea up
and so I wrote Sun Dog very much like that.
I would get up, go straight to the computer, gummy teeth, bad breath,
gummy eyes, you know not stopped for coffee, not stopped for anything
and I would just write for an hour or two in that state, in my jim jams. And
I wouldn’t make my bed as again it was all a series of rituals and
superstitions but I just went from bed to my word processor and started
writing. And I wrote like that every day for a year or two practically.

ALEX GARLAND:
I tend to work mainly late at night, I think that was a consequence of um,
I suppose initially it was because of living with my Mum and that past 10
or 10.30, that’s when the place was quiet and I’d get work done. But it
became a habit and I stuck with it, it’s a good time to write in general I
think. Although, having now met some other writers and spoken to them,
it’s quite interesting how many of them opt for the very early morning. I
think you get the same deal. It’s quiet essentially, you’re less likely to get
disturbed or interrupted by anything.
And sort of veering towards the slightly more pretentious, I’d say that
something about working either late at night or early morning, maybe
because it’s got a kind of proximity to dreams – either you’re about to
start dreaming or you’ve just been dreaming and the sort of proximity
there with your unconscious or something that’s going on in the back of
your head, I think that can be helpful, and I think when I look at my stuff
there’s often a slightly sort of trippy, hallucinogenic quality to it which I
think is to do with when it gets written partly

What works best for you?

There’s no right way to write; only the one that’s best for you. This will be a matter of trial
and error.

Do you work best late at night, or early in the morning? Do you prefer silence or does
music help?
Do you need coffee?
Would you want to write in bed (some writers do)?
Would a café or library be better for you?
Experiment to find out what works for you. Use your writer’s notebook when trying these
methods. Reflect on what suits you best. You may find that you are quite fussy and need
special conditions. Or you may find that you are suited to more than one situation or
approach.

As you’ve heard from Roberts, Roffey and Garland, everyone is different and it is up to you
to discover the conditions that suit you best.

Imagining writing spaces

Trying to picture the worst place for you to try to write can help you realise what your best
venue might be.

Imagine two different venues for writing – one that seems most suited to you, and one that
you would find bizarre or too difficult. Write a paragraph describing two writers at work, one
in each of the venues.

Post your paragraph as a comment below for discussion and read and discuss what your
fellow writers have posted. Showing your work to others and discussing it is an important
part of the writing process.

Remember:

Sharing your work with fellow writers is essential. You need to know how your work comes
across to others.
You also need to develop the skill of reading your own work critically; looking at the writing
of others can help you to do that.
We can all see more easily what works and what doesn’t in work that isn’t our own.
Start to get used to making helpful comments to your fellow writers in which you tell them
what you like about their writing, but also what you think could be improved. Gradually, you
will find you can start to do this with your own writing too.
In this instance you can comment on how vividly you saw the writers at work in the various
settings. Could you picture the scenarios?
This is only a paragraph – you will soon be commenting on longer pieces of writing. Take a
look at the Feedback guidance PDF for information about how to go about discussing the
work of your fellow writers.

Observation – the importance of detail

Michèle Roberts and Tim Pears

Learning from other writers is important for every writer, not just those starting out. Each of
us see the world from a unique perspective and observing and describing every detail will
give a fresh insight to your writing.
Listening to Michèle Roberts and Tim Pears, what do you think is the importance of detail
to their storytelling? What sort of detail are they talking of? What effect does it have?

Why writers write

Giving your readers enough detail is essential. Listening to novelists

Michèle Roberts and Tim Pears, what do you think is the importance of
detail to their storytelling? What sort of detail are they talking of? What
does Roberts mean by ‘slowing down’? What effect does it have?

MICHÈLE ROBERTS:
Well in Daughters of the House, I tried to slow down my writing and it
wasn’t really in order to make evocations of place, it was in order to write
better. Because I can write with great facility and I write very badly when
I do that, and I’ve often found when I’m starting a novel, particularly if I’ve
put it in the past tense and if I use a third person narrative, it’s terribly
easy to get possessed by the ghost of Georgette Heyer. Now I did love
her when I was a little girl of 13, wanting to find out about sex and
romance, but they are stories that just gallop off with you – they throw
you across the saddle like the heroine is tossed over the saddle, and
away you go. And actually for writing my own novels, this wouldn’t do.
So to slow myself down, and slay the ghost of Georgette Heyer, I tried to
turn into a kind of witnessing camera, I suppose, and look at things very
closely, in great detail, and just use all my senses.

TIM PEARS:
In general, writing is about detail isn’t it? It’s about, when you’re reading
a book, you’re reading about the moment and the description of small
things is, I mean a novel is composed of lots and lots of moments, and
lots of sentences and each sentence, I guess, is an attempt at something
concrete in this strange symbolic form that language is so, it’s all about
detail really.

Heightening your observations

Developing your powers of observation and including a high level of detail can affect
your writing style – for the better.

Read back through the notes you have made so far and the character sketch you
wrote in Developing a character from your notebook.
Now try to add to your notes and sketch, making your observations as detailed as
possible. Think back to the person you observed and see if you can remember more
precise details about that person.
This closer scrutiny and attention to detail might also spark ideas for a story.

Developing your powers of observation and including a high level of detail can affect
your writing style – for the better.
 Read back through the notes you have made so far and the character sketch you
wrote in Developing a character from your notebook.
Now try to add to your notes and sketch, making your observations as detailed as
possible. Think back to the person you observed and see if you can remember more
precise details about that person.
This closer scrutiny and attention to detail might also spark ideas for a story.

Comparing characters again

Reading other writers is an essential part of your own development as a writer.

You have seen different approaches to character portrayal in the extracts from Orwell and
Heller, and as well as in the extracts from Greene and Atkinson.

Now reconsider your character sketch:

• Is there an opportunity to add the thoughts of your character?

• Can you situate your character in relation to a particular location?
• Does what your character says in their dialogue tally with what they think, or is there
a discrepancy?
• Can you smuggle in some details about your character’s back story, their life prior to
when we meet them?
• Can you try to infer how your character acts in the world – for instance, are they
overwhelmed or in some sense out of control (like Spicer in the Greene extract) or
are they hapless (like Victor in the Atkinson extract)?

There are, of course, many more options for how a character might operate in the
world – they might be optimistic, miserly, whimsical, stoic. There are many other
possibilities.

It is important that you now build a habit of reading to see how other writers have
revealed their characters. Don’t rely on these two readings, or on the previous two. Look
for the way characters are revealed in all that you read. You can choose your own sources
and examples; read as much as you can.

How can I be original?

The more you read, the more you will learn about the various techniques of
portraying characters. But on occasions an anxiety can arise from your reading: how can I
possibly be original?

Originality
Originality for its own sake often results in ‘false’ writing: real people are seldom
either so self-conscious or remarkable that they think and speak in entirely new ways. On
the other hand, attempting to convey or describe something as accurately as possible will
very often result in striking or fresh-sounding expressions.
 Observing precisely how something appears to you, or how it might appear in the
eyes of one of your characters, will often result in you writing something original. How?
Because every person observes or perceives things – the world, themselves – in a
different way.

Does it matter if you don’t know many interesting words?

The language you already know and use is vital: it’s a thumbprint of who you are. All
the words you already know are potentially interesting, if used well, and all have interesting
origins. Where they come from can say a lot about what they mean. Use a good dictionary
so that you can find out where ‘ordinary’ words come from, and see what other meanings
they might have.

Get into the habit of looking through your dictionary whenever you can, noting in
your journal words you like and word-derivations that are interesting to you.
Start to keep a note of words you hear in conversation, and in everyday life: the phrases,
words and speech patterns people use.
Think about words you particularly like and why. Keep a note of them, where they
derive from, and why you like them. They needn’t be ‘exotic’ words, but perhaps ones you
liked because you heard them used in a surprising context.
Be wary of using large, Latinate or multi-syllabic words gratuitously. Make sure that
such words earn their place in your story. If in doubt, use the shorter, more commonly used
word.
Be wary of using hackneyed terms or phrases, clichés and the types of phrases that
are too familiar.
Plain language, deeply understood, is ample to convey the most sophisticated and
complex meanings. Often ‘ordinary’ words are made vivid and memorable by appearing in
unexpected places, or by being used in surprising ways.

How can I be original?

The more you read, the more you will learn about the various techniques of
portraying characters. But on occasions an anxiety can arise from your reading: how can I
possibly be original?

Originality
Originality for its own sake often results in ‘false’ writing: real people are seldom
either so self-conscious or remarkable that they think and speak in entirely new ways. On
the other hand, attempting to convey or describe something as accurately as possible will
very often result in striking or fresh-sounding expressions.

Observing precisely how something appears to you, or how it might appear in the
eyes of one of your characters, will often result in you writing something original. How?
Because every person observes or perceives things – the world, themselves – in a
different way.

Does it matter if you don’t know many interesting words?

The language you already know and use is vital: it’s a thumbprint of who you are. All
the words you already know are potentially interesting, if used well, and all have interesting
origins. Where they come from can say a lot about what they mean. Use a good dictionary
so that you can find out where ‘ordinary’ words come from, and see what other meanings
they might have.

Get into the habit of looking through your dictionary whenever you can, noting in
your journal words you like and word-derivations that are interesting to you.
Start to keep a note of words you hear in conversation, and in everyday life: the phrases,
words and speech patterns people use.
Think about words you particularly like and why. Keep a note of them, where they derive
from, and why you like them. They needn’t be ‘exotic’ words, but perhaps ones you liked
because you heard them used in a surprising context.
Be wary of using large, Latinate or multi-syllabic words gratuitously. Make sure that
such words earn their place in your story. If in doubt, use the shorter, more commonly used
word.
Be wary of using hackneyed terms or phrases, clichés and the types of phrases that
are too familiar.
Plain language, deeply understood, is ample to convey the most sophisticated and
complex meanings. Often ‘ordinary’ words are made vivid and memorable by appearing in
unexpected places, or by being used in surprising ways.

Familiar words in unfamiliar places

‘The sea fog began to lift towards noon. It had been blowing in,
thin and loose, for two days, smudging the tops of the trees up
the ravine where the house stood.’
(V.S. Pritchett, 1979)

In this passage from V.S. Prichett, the phrase ‘thin and loose’ may not
be a way of seeing fog that has occurred to you before.
The fog is not just presented as uniformly thick but has a particularised
variety a quality of changeability and movement.
Thin and loose are ordinary words that we all use frequently but in this
context, they create a vivid and perhaps unexpected image.
‘Smudging’ is also a familiar word. We have probably all worried about
smudging ink when we are writing or leaving smudges on a polished
surface. But we may not have thought about trees being smudged by
fog. Though, once the idea has been introduced, you can imagine vividly
what it looks like.
Again, an ordinary word has been used in an unexpected way to create
a fresh and imaginative picture.

(Pritchett, V. S. (1980) ‘On the Edge of the Cliff’ in On the Edge of the
Cliff and Other Stories, Chatto and Windus: London, p.3.)

The blank page

A blank page can seem daunting. You can prepare by taking time to research and
review your notebook. Then start writing – but remember, sometimes the best inspiration
comes after the first few pages.
Your ‘preparation time’ might be:

• Gathering information or research: check that you know enough about a character
or place or period before you begin to describe them or it.
• Visualisation: perhaps your story stems from a single image? Focus on that; turn it
over in your mind. You might not know where it came from or why, or even what it
means. Composing a story around this image might be your way of ‘unpacking’ it,
and discovering its significance through writing about it.
• Regarding length: have in mind an approximate idea of the length you imagine your
story will run to, before you write it.
• Considering shape: will there be much dialogue or description? Will the story be
divided up in any way, perhaps into sections or scenes?

Searching your notebook

Your notebook is a great place to prepare to write. You have already made notes on
people you have observed, and you have written, edited and augmented a character
sketch.

Look back through your notebook and see whether you can imagine any of these
characters forming the basis for a story. If you can, see whether you can apply any of the
pointers (research, visualisation, length and shape of story) to the idea.

Post for discussion any ideas you have for how you might develop a character into a story,
or any questions you have about how you might shape your story.

Should I wait until I’m inspired?

Sometimes, the best inspiration comes after the first line, or more likely still, after
writing a few pages.

Inspiration is very often the result of habit, of getting into a rhythm of work, and of
setting yourself goals of how much and about what you wish to write each day. Oddly
enough, the determination that you will finish a particular piece of work is a great source of
inspiration. So set yourself a realistic goal each time you sit down to write. Find out how
much you are comfortable writing each day. Achieve that. Then extend it and try to double
your output.

Remember: decide where you’re going before you set out. If you end up
somewhere else, simply ask: do you mind? It might be a good thing to have strayed from
the path. Assess this once the work is done.

Don’t wait until you have the perfect first line. In practice, it often transpires that
perfect first lines no longer fit with the story once it’s written out. Instead, try to think of your
opening line as being simply like a doorway that you must pass through to get into the
‘room’ of your story. The doorway is much less important than what’s inside the room –
focus on that. If you find yourself ‘seeing the whole story at once’, and you’re unsure
where to begin, concentrate on one particular detail and start there.

Example: You want to write about a young man and his girlfriend. He’s just realised
he’s in love with her, and is going to say so, but you think that having him just saying ‘I love
you’ will sound a bit flat. So, think about how else you could approach it. You could:

• begin with him trying to decide which shirt to wear

• begin when he’s stuck in conversation with someone else, and can’t get away. He
has something important to say, and yet a friend is talking to him about football
• begin after the actual moment of him telling her ‘I love you’
• tell it from someone else’s point of view – for example, one of the boy’s friends,
overhearing him, or the girlfriend herself.

In this way, focusing on an apparently ‘irrelevant’ detail might be the perfect way in to your
story:

• a plane flying overhead as he speaks, drowning out his words

• a piece of lettuce stuck between her teeth that makes him smile
• a gang of schoolchildren who loiter close by, making him self-conscious.

Peripheral details like this can have the effect of making the scene seem more
believable: real life is full of such details and delays, obstructions to the main story
unfolding.

If you’re still unsure about how to begin, surprise yourself – approach your story
from a different angle. Or surprise your story – make a particular detail appear distinctive.
Or start your story randomly, at a point that you don’t think is important. It might turn out to
be crucial.

Remember: once you’ve reached the end, you can always go back and ‘add on’ or
improve your beginning.

Finding a voice

Writing is no more complicated than someone’s voice, telling a story. Different

strategies are available to you for getting started. You can use prompt phrases, for
instance. These can also lead into approaches to editing.

Explore the following ideas for how to get started with a story and also how you
might approach editing the story.

Immediately, without thinking where it might lead, write approximately three lines
that follow on from the phrase ‘Emma said that …’
When you’ve finished, cut ‘Emma said that’. Notice how little has been lost: you’re
still left with whatever Emma said.
You can use whatever names you want. Here’s an example: ‘Joe said that it was
always the nice girls who hated him. They took one look and …’ This would become: ‘It
was always the nice girls who hated him. They took one look and …’
 When you have trouble starting a piece of writing, it might be helpful simply to begin
with a formulation like that, that you can cut later on. Simply use the name of whoever is
telling the story, or whichever character it’s about. In this way, you can think of writing as
no more complicated than someone’s voice, speaking – just ‘telling a story’.

More starting ploys

There are many other tactics you can use to help you to launch into your writing.

For instance, begin with ‘I remember’, write three lines to follow on from that phrase. For
example: ‘I remember that last week there were thunderstorms. It rained and was grey
right up until Friday evening.’

Delete the initial phrase and you would be left with: ‘Last week there were
thunderstorms, right up until Friday evening.’

There are numerous other starting phrases, just to get you launched. These are
grammatical formations which you might then go back to edit out, if you so wish.

Discuss with your fellow writers whether the phrases suggested so far (‘Emma said’
and ‘I remember’) have been of help. Did they help you to attain a voice for telling the
story? Also discuss what other opening phrases you might use to get you started.

Ideas for a story

Writers often worry that they won’t be able to think of ideas for a story, but ideas can come
from anywhere.

Turn on the radio and take note of the first thing that is mentioned. Alternatively,
open a book randomly and take note of the first thing you read at the top of the page. Use
this one thing as the basis for either the start of a story or an entire story, whichever, it
should be no more than 500 words. Imagine a character, someone who is central to what
the story is about. Try to use clear, vivid language so that your reader can see the
character. Use some of the characterisation techniques we have talked about so far:

• physical description
• thoughts and inner life
• personality
• where the character is located
• the character’s back story
• how the character acts in the world.

You might not wish to include all of these various aspects in your story but you might like
to know something about them nonetheless.
 And if you wish, to help to get you started, use some of the starting tactics
suggested in Finding a voice and More starting ploys (‘Emma said’, ‘I remember’ – or any
other similar starting phrase.)

Write this story in your notebook, on your blog or in a Word document on your
computer. You’ll come back to this story in Week 3 and improve it by reviewing and
redrafting.

Summary of Week 2

What inspires you to write? At the end of Week 2, you will have thought about your
motivation, rituals and maybe tried out some new writing practices.

As you embark on your first story (or start of a story) for the course, remember what you’ve
learned about character and about how you can be original in your writing. Do some
research if you need to – it is important for creating authenticity in your writing.

Your first draft

Editing is all important. Most writers spend as much, or more, time editing and redrafting
as they do writing first drafts. But you can’t edit without first of all getting that first draft
down.

Once you have a first draft, you have something to improve on. This is where you
can rethink what you’ve done. Change whatever you like. Say things differently, or clarify
where necessary. You can improve your writing.

Welcome to Week 3. So, you’ve explored a few different ways to get a story started;
we’re going to think about the importance of editing. You may be worried that your writing
doesn’t come out right first time. Of course, it will happen like that, but most writers spend
as much or more time editing and redrafting as they do writing first drafts. This anxiety
about the quality of writing is the same for any writer: it often stems from a fear of writing
badly, which is entirely understandable - no one wants to do that. But the most important
thing is getting that first draft down. Remember, you don’t need to show your work to
others straight away - sometimes just remembering that no one will see it can liberate you.
Once you have a first draft, you have something to improve on. This is where you can
rethink what you’ve done, change whatever you like, say things differently or clarify
wherever necessary. So, this week you’ll learn about the importance of reviewing and
reflecting upon your writing.

We’ll consider the sorts of things you need to bear in mind as you edit and make
changes to your work. You’ll also exchange feedback with your fellow writers and you’ll
start writing another story.
Reviewing and redrafting

Rereading, reviewing and rewriting your work are crucial and often ongoing activities.

Reread the story you wrote at the end of Week 2, prompted by something heard on
the radio, and check what you’ve written. Try reading it aloud, as that can help you to
become aware of things in the writing, such as its rhythm, elements that you don’t notice
when you are reading it silently.

Can you see ways in which you could bring the character (or characters) more to
life? Rewrite the story incorporating your new ideas.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do the characters come across vividly?

• Is any of your word usage surprising?
• Does it help the reader to ‘see’ the characters?
• Now that you look at it again do you think any of the descriptions are predictable
and dull?
• Are any of the words and phrases you have used too familiar?

Reading work in progress

Remember that you can get your ideas for future stories from all sorts of sources.

For example:

• the radio, as you’ve done with your recent story

• a newspaper article or headline
• a fragment of speech overheard
• a childhood memory
• a smell
• an image
• story prompts from the Prompt cloud PDF.

Discuss these questions with your fellow writers, with regard to your radio story:

• Did you think what you wrote was a story?

• What made it a story?
• Did it have a structure?
• How did you go about portraying characters?

We will talk more about what makes up a story, but for now think of it as a narrative
with a beginning, middle and end.
What is editing?

Editing is an important part of the creative process. You will learn some hints and
tips for editing your work: when to look at the big picture, when to look at the detail, and
when to share your edited writing.

A writer is simply a word for a person who writes. That’s all it takes to ‘qualify’ as a
‘writer’. But remember, published stories and novels very seldom emerge fully formed, or
perfect, as if by magic. They have undergone many transformations before they reach the
shelves. They are rarely, if ever, the raw expression of a writer’s output.

The short story writer V.S. Pritchett habitually wrote first drafts that ran to ten times
the length of his final draft. This underlines the integral role that editing plays in the
business of writing. A draft is just that, and can be revised up until the moment it is ready
for publication.

To start writing fiction also means to develop your faculty of self-criticism. A great
part of writing fiction is knowing how, why and when you should edit your own work. This is
just one of the points at which honesty enters the equation of writing. The more ruthless
you can be about your own work, the better it will be.

Editing is your friend

So, what counts as editing and when should you do it?

It’s important to balance ‘editing’ against ‘self-censorship’. To write in perfect

freedom – to express yourself without self-censorship – is one of the most important
aspects of writing fiction. Your aim is to tell a story as you think it should be told, to the best
of your ability. Editing, once that piece of work is done, is simply a way of clarifying that
intention, of saying more clearly what you mean to say.

For example, you write what you think, at first, is a wonderful opening paragraph.
You are very proud of it, understandably so: it is a fine piece of writing. But by the time
you’ve finished the piece, something doesn’t ‘ring true’ about those opening lines. ‘But
they’re so good!’ You can’t bear to part with them. Ask:

• Do they belong in that story, for sure?

• Are they really what you meant to say, or do you just like the way they sound?

Be ruthlessly self-critical and scrupulously honest at moments such as this. You will
develop the ability to say what you mean (and not just like what you say: ‘showy’ writing is
much easier to achieve than good writing).

Remember, editing is your friend! An average piece of writing can become a good
piece, with good editing.
Editing practice

Editing is a practical activity and its benefits are only fully appreciated when you undertake
it.

To demonstrate the importance of clarity, focus and the role of editing as part of writing,
edit the following passage down to no more than two lines:

The heavy black and blue winter sky groaned awfully with rain clouds that at any moment
were really about to fall crashing heavily down upon the street where, because it was rush
hour, so many people, wearing all manner of different clothes, hats, shoes, boots, some of
them carrying bags, suitcases, briefcases, scampered and strolled about the place as
though oblivious to what was just about to happen over their very heads. One of these
people was called Hilary and concealed inside her voluminous coat she carried the loaded,
snub-nosed gun, and she also seemed to be the only one looking upwards into the
tempestuous thundery heavens.

Remember to ask:

• What really matters about this scene?

• What ‘adds’ something to the scene?
• What merely adds confusion, detracting from the main point?

Suggested edit

Considering what other writers might cut or keep can help you to understand the core
meaning in the passage and the editing process.

This is one suggested edited version. It gives you an idea of what might be considered the
core content of the passage:

The winter sky was heavy with rain. It was rush hour. Hilary concealed the loaded gun
inside her coat.

Your version may not be quite the same. Ours is very short. Compare it with yours to see
whether you decided to retain anything that we have cut, and think about the effect of
either leaving that element in or taking it out. Think about why we might have cut out some
of the elements, and consider how much stronger the short version is.

Remember that editing often occurs at the level of the sentence and is concerned with
word order and punctuation, but also at the level of the whole scene, and even chapter. It
is important to cut any overuse of words such as ‘quite’ and ‘really’, to be aware of any
passages that are overwritten, and to ensure clarity of meaning. And then there are such
aesthetic considerations as style, voice and rhythm. This brief illustration is focused more
on the issues of overwriting, redundant words, and clarity of meaning.

There are two different but equally important skills that a writer needs to develop, skills that
sometimes seem contrary: the skill to observe details that can bring a story to life and the
skill to cut out extraneous details, elements that don’t add to or improve the story.
Editing – big decisions

Editing is a process of decision making. Every writer will make different choices and have
different reasons for their choices.

This is the process we followed to cut down the passage.

Just from a glance you can see this passage is too crowded with qualifying words and
phrases - adjectives and adverbs. It is overwritten, with unnecessary information and is so
cluttered that it loses sense. Always be wary of qualifying verbs with adverbs (‘awfully’
here) - try to find stronger verbs in the first place. In this case the verb ‘groaned’ isn’t even
needed because it adds nothing to the meaning. Colours are sometimes interesting and
can help give readers images but here they seem contradictory. But ‘heavy’ suggests it
might hold more meaning than just literally describing the sky - so maybe it’s worth
keeping. The suggestion that the cloud were about to fall is an overstatement.

And from here onwards the sentence loses its form, shape and meaning. A plain
speaking phrase conveys all that’s needed, ‘it was rush hour’, all the other information is
superfluous and doesn’t contribute anything. The next bit of important information is about
Hilary.

When you get to characters in scenes it is best to make them active and the subject
of your sentences - not to use passive tenses. So, ‘was called’ is best changed, so that
Hilary becomes more prominent as the active character. The excessive adjectives -
‘voluminous’ and ‘snub-nosed’ don’t add much. And the repeated reference to the sky has
to go - once is enough. You don’t need to over emphasise such elements.

Finally, back to the first sentence to see what’s left from all the cutting - what was
essential? And now the opportunity to rejig that sentence and use ‘heavy’, literally
describing the sky but also getting it to work in a slightly portentous way. Something bad is
about to happen. And there we have the final edited version.

Editing summary

Ernest Hemingway said he could tell he’d had a really great day’s writing when even the
work he threw away was good. The South African writer Nadine Gordimer describes how
she ‘used to write three times as much as the work one finally reads.’

Have the courage to edit your own work, even when you might have spent time and
energy in producing it. It’s better to have written ten drafts of a story and end up with
something you are proud of, than to have had a great idea for a story, but let it go to waste
by being nervous about setting it down in case it wasn’t perfect first time, or by thinking
you need certain skills before you attempt it, or by ‘talking it away’.

Remember you don’t need to wait to be inspired. You can find all sorts of ways to begin
writing, and you can then reflect on what you have written later and start to do the work of
selecting what to keep and what to edit out.

After you have written a first draft, interrogate your writing using this editing checklist.
Remember that the aim in editing is in many ways the aim in writing: clarity of expression.

• Is it what you meant to say, really?

• Have you found the best way to convey it?
• Would a particular event really have happened that way?
• Would a particular character definitely use that expression or turn of phrase?
• Does an idea or scene really belong where you’ve put it, or would the piece be
better if that element was cut? Could it be used elsewhere, or on another occasion?
• What’s missing from your story? Details or background information?
• Is there enough to engage your reader?
• Do events occur in the best order and are significant events given enough weight,
or are they lost beneath less important things? If so, is that what you intended?
• Does it read too slow, or too fast?
• Overall, does the writing convey the right tone – does it create the mood you hoped
for?

Learn through writing

If you don’t start to write you won’t write. It sounds like advice which is too obvious to
repeat but many people talk a good story or book. Comparatively few begin.

It’s important to be bold, to start. Sometimes stories ‘keep’ – only you know when
something is ready to be written. But often stories can be lost by waiting for the ideal
moment to write them down.

Remember, unlike many other kinds of work, writing is your training. A doctor trains for
years before qualifying; a writer’s training is the writing itself. Without writing, a person
can’t ‘become’ a writer. To say that a person has ‘a great book inside them’ might be true,
but it isn’t saying anything more than that there are great stories everywhere, in
everything, wherever you look, just waiting to be told. The trick is to tell them. Only that
way do they ever become ‘stories’.

Become your own best judge: the aim is to discover your kind of writing.

Generate something new

Beginning a new project should be made easier if you have been using your writer’s
notebook frequently and wisely.

Look through your notebook to see whether there are any ideas there you might be ready
to use for a story. If there are, remind yourself of the things we have already said about
getting started. Try to start something new – different from the character sketch and the
story prompted by the radio.
If you don’t have an idea in your journal you want to develop, try looking at newspaper
headlines to see if something sparks off an idea. If you still don’t have something that
grabs you, try the Prompt cloud PDF, at the bottom of the page.

Remember that stories are about characters, so once you have an idea for a story make
sure you have a strong impression of the characters that will be at the centre of the story.

There is no specific target to meet here. Just start writing and see where it takes you. It
might become a story that you want to develop further, and you might carry on working on
it. It might be something where you write the first paragraph or two and then decide you
don’t want to proceed further, and you’d rather try another idea. That’s up to you. Try to
write at least 200 words, up to a maximum of 350 words in a Word document, in your
notebook or on your blog.

Something you work on now could become the basis for a longer story later in the course.

In the next step, you will be invited to share this start of a story (up to 350 words) and
exchange feedback with other writers.

Share your story

Submit the start of the story you wrote in Generate something new.

It may not be as polished as you would like but getting feedback on your work helps you to
improve your writing. Your fellow writers will read your work and offer helpful comments.

Remember: if your writing contains graphic material, you must put a warning in brackets
after your title, for example, ‘(explicit content)’ or ‘(strong language)’. (For more
information, see Before you start….)

Commenting on work
Reading the work of other writers who are trying the same tasks as you can be invaluable.
It will speed up the development of your editorial skills.

Now read work by your fellow writers.

Ensure that you make at least one positive comment and at least one critical comment
about each piece.
Give reasons for your comments, don’t just say ‘I liked this’ or ‘I didn’t like that’.
We recommend you write at least 150 words when reviewing but you can, and may often
want to, write more.
Check the guidance in the Feedback guidance PDF on giving and receiving review
comments.
If you have time, make comments on more than one story – try three stories; it is better to
do a thorough job on three than a less helpful job on more.
Note that if you leave this page you will not be able to return to the same story to review so
it is best to write and submit your review in one go.
Assignment Guidelines
You’re going to be asked to give feedback on the following aspects of the author’s
assignment:
How was the central character portrayed and was this portrayal clear and interesting?
What made you think this piece was a story and did you want to read on?
What were the most, and least, successful aspects of the writing?
Please keep this window open and do not navigate away before submitting your feedback.
If you close the window or navigate to a different page, you will be given a new assignment
to review when you return.

You must first submit an assignment in the previous step before you can review other
learners’ assignments.

Reviewing criticism and comments

Exchanging work not only accelerates your writing and editing development but puts you in
the privileged position of having a reader pay attention to your work. They will have a
reciprocal interest in the work and they will be better placed (than your husband, wife or
aunt) to offer objective feedback.

You will probably have received comments about:

sentence-level editing, changing word order and using different words

the portrayal of character, and whether the reader has been able to see the character
structure and whether the passage works to establish the start of a story.
Remember the guidance in the Feedback guidance PDF, available at the bottom of this
page – always pause on any feedback that you receive. Don’t plunge straight into editing
and rewriting.

If there are several comments about the same element then it usually means there is an
issue there. If you want to resist some suggestions and observations, you may well be
right – but make sure your reasoning is sound.

Proceed to the next step to review feedback from other learners on your work.

Summary of Week 3

This week you have submitted a story for review by your fellow writers and received (or will
receive very soon) feedback on that story. You have also given feedback to another writer.
Are there any common aspects that you noted in others’ work and which reviewers noted
in your writing?

The process may have felt quite daunting at first but hopefully it will have encouraged you
in your own writing and given you confidence in giving feedback. You’ll get another
opportunity to take part in this peer review process in Week 5.

Next week, you’ll think more about character and developing your plot line. You’ll also
explore where to find ideas for stories. If you want to get a head start, mark this step
complete and move on to Week 4.

If studying this week of Start Writing Fiction has inspired you, take a look at the area
specifically created for you to explore more about writing fiction on OpenLearn.

How you might use your notebook

What have you written in your writer’s notebook so far? Find out how other writers use
theirs and how you can develop a ‘notebook habit’.

Your writer’s notebook is a secret space where you can try out your ideas – map them,
interrogate them, collect them. A journal can also form a kind of personal ‘running
commentary’ to yourself, on your thoughts about your own work.
In the stories you’ve written so far, you’ll have seen how ideas can come from anywhere.
We will now look further at where ideas for stories may come from, and how to make them
matter personally to you.

Welcome to Week 4.
So far you’ve discovered how an important part of ‘setting out’ is starting to keep a
journal. You can try out your ideas - map them, interrogate them, collect them. A journal
can also form a kind of personal ‘running commentary’. It’s private you can write there
without fear of censorship, intrusion or critical comment. We’ve seen how ideas for stories
can come from anywhere and this week we’ll look further at where ideas for stories may
come from and how to make them matter, personally, to you. You’ll see an extract from a
Fred D’Aguiar novel with a personal resonance and we’ll also be looking at research.

You’ll hear from novelists Tim Pears, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland talking
about the value of research to their writing. You’ll discover how your journal can become a
tool to help you undertake research and record observation. You’ll consider ways of turning
events into a plot; and how plot can develop from character.

Why take notes and what to note

By now you should have quite a few things in your writer’s notebook, besides the set
writing tasks you have undertaken. Your notebook should be a repository for what you
collect.

Alongside some of the activities included in this course, your journal might include:

• general notes and sensory observations of the world around you

• things you have seen or heard, felt or read – perhaps passages of other people’s
writing, or turns of phrase that you admire
• words and word-derivations that are new or interesting to you
• facts that you want to remember
• lines or phrases that you might use in your work
• images: postcards, pictures, photographs that are in some way significant to you,
perhaps because they conjure up a scene or story that you might write about
• descriptions or sketches of characters and places you might wish to write about
• notes about periods in recent or distant history that you are interested in
 • ideas and plot lines that might be useful in future, or that you are gathering for
particular pieces of work.
• A single line noted down can prove to be the basis for an entire story or even a
novel.

Describing her writer’s journal, the American writer Joyce Carol Oates says:

‘It resembles a sort of ongoing letter to myself, mainly about literary matters. What
interests me in the process of my own experience is the wide range of my feeling. … after I
finish a novel I tend to think of the experience of having written it as being largely pleasant
and challenging. But … the experience is various: I do suffer temporary bouts of frustration
and inertia and depression. There are pages in recent novels that I’ve rewritten as many
as seventeen times.’

(in Plimpton, G. ed. (1989) Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review interviews,
Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 367.)

Over time, a writer’s notebook can act as an anchor to remind you how certain
ideas originated, and where you initially meant to take them. It will also form a rich source
book for you to draw on, to help to guide you through your work.

Also, for ‘writer’s block’ and the nerves of facing a blank page or screen, a journal
can be a great comfort – full of notes, reminders, jokes, special words or word-derivations,
leads and prompts to get you started again.

Think of your notebook as being rather like an ongoing map of your writing’s
progress. You add to it every day, so each day your map improves and becomes more
useful to you.

Remember, whatever works for you, works.

Research

Tim Pears, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland

Writing fiction often involves finding out about things you don’t yet know enough about, or
checking things you are not sure of. Sometimes you will use your notebook to detail your
research. But what research do other writers undertake?

Here novelists Tim Pears, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland talk about their approaches
to research. Do their approaches have anything in common?

Writing fiction often involves finding out about things you don’t yet know
enough about, or checking things you are not sure of. Sometimes you
will use your journal to detail your research.
Here novelists Tim Pears, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland talk about
their approaches to research.

TIM PEARS:
It’s one of the great advantages of writing a novel is that it’s an excuse to
find out about a whole world I always have that at the beginning of a book.
I think right, what do I really want to find out about for this book. I’ve got
some basic idea but, it’s got to be embedded in a world, a real world, a
world of people, and work which is something I’m kind of generally
interested in is what people do.
From everywhere, you know like a magnet, people sometimes say that,
you know the most important thing that we must do is to remember, do not
forget, you know do not forget, there’s a great a kind of a 20th Century
injunction, do not forget, do not allow things to be forgotten, and that
novelists are somehow, it’s one of our jobs, it’s a guardians of memory.
But in my own experience and for other writers that I’ve spoken to, it seems
like one of the common attributes is a poor memory, and it’s almost like you
kind of fill yourself up with things, and then you let them go, because you
move onto the next thing. So, certainly for In a Land of Plenty it was
dealing with the recent past with things that had happened in my lifetime,
but certainly I couldn’t rely on my own memory, so I would just draw on
everything; newspapers books, other people’s memories a lot.
Photographs, I think photographs are very useful, because you forget hair
style, fashion and so on and then it just all comes back, when you see a
photograph and you think, my god we were dressed like that, and all things
come back.

PATRICIA DUNCKER:
I’ve written one historical novel which is my second novel, James Miranda
Barry. To some extent, I think all novels are historical novels because
whatever period you’re writing about, has to be thoroughly researched, and
the last novel that I wrote was a contemporary novel, that was set in our
present time. And I still found that I had to do almost as much research for
that as I did for James Miranda Barry.
With James Miranda Barry the research was fun because it was set in
the early part of the 19th Century through to about 1865/1870 and one of
the things about that period which really interests me is, the fact that you’re
moving from the Regency through to the Victorian period. So we’re
gradually becoming more and more straight-laced, and religion is
becoming more and more important in the society. So that the reading I
did was, a lot of history, an awful lot about the professions of my
characters. One was a doctor one was an actress, so I read an awful lot
about what the conditions were on the stage of that period, and about the
state of medical research in the 19th Century.
The other aspect of the book that was fascinating for me was the West
Indian content of the book. Because James Miranda Barry was a doctor
in the colonial service who worked abroad, and he spent some of his
professional life in Jamaica, which is where I come from, so it was
fascinating to read all the things that I’d vaguely heard about in history or
knew a little about, but to go into them in depth. Particularly, the slave
revolts, because there is a scene in the book which is about, the Morant
bay rebellion, about which I knew absolutely nothing, except that we
frequently commemorated it on stamps, until I’d researched it up. But I
wouldn’t say that I did less research for the novels that are contemporary,
and in fact, the research tends to be the same, it’s about professions, about
locations, and about the histories of places.
ALEX GARLAND:
I didn’t really do any deliberate research on either of the two books.
Coincidentally, I was a back packer that was what my life revolved
around in a way. Writing was always a secondary concern to me about
how I could get a ticket or a visa and where I wanted to go. The
Philippines, I was particularly fond of, I’d been there repeatedly for years
and years and years by the time I started to write The Tesseract so I
didn’t really need any research.
I think also research, deliberate research can be difficult because it’s a
kind of side step away from imagination or it can be if you’re not careful.
And that can show up in writing as well. I think very often, you know,
another one of these little truisms about writing is that a lot of writing is
about editing and about what you take out, and I think that’s very true
and if you leave a reader with a sense that something’s been too heavily
researched I think that’s bound to distance them from their emotional
contact with the narrative.

Different approaches to research

As you can see, different writers have differing approaches to research – and you may find
a similar variety among your fellow writers on this course. But are there things you have to
do?

Discuss with your fellow writers what the novelists that you’ve just heard – Tim Pears,
Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland – say about research. The relevant questions might
start with:

What are the key areas of research for writing a novel?

Does life experience have anything to do with research?
Do you have to undertake research for a novel or story that is set in the present day?
Are there any dangers in researching for a story? If so, how do you counter these
dangers?
Can you rely on memory if writing about an era within your lifetime?
What was the difference in attitudes towards research between the three writers?

The notebook habit

Research might well be one of the uses you have for your notebook. Whether it’s
research, observations, ideas, your reading or something else, get into the habit of writing
something, however short, in your notebook every day.

Looking back over your notes, either:

Find three possible stories that you might be able to draw out of your notes (the ideas can
be as sketchy as you like at this point) and research at least one element for each idea.
Then develop your journal notes on these ideas, including this research and any relevant
sensory details.
or:

Find one possible story that you might be able to draw out of your notes (similarly, the idea
can be as sketchy as you like at this point) and research at least three elements for this
idea. Then develop your journal notes on this idea, including this research and any
relevant sensory details.
If you don’t want to go with any of the ideas in your notebook, you can try using the Prompt
Cloud PDF below.

These ideas may be developed into stories, or they may not. You may not wish to follow
them up now, but might suddenly be inspired by them in years to come, and use them as
the basis for a story then. It doesn’t matter whether you ever use them. Keeping ideas
‘floating’ is what’s important.

What is plot?

How do you get from making notes for a story in your journal to thinking up a suitable plot
line? The novelist E.M. Forster (1927) explains this very clearly.

He describes a story as ‘a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence’ and a plot

as ‘also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.’ (Forster, E. (1927)
Aspects of the Novel, Harmondsworth: Pelican. p. 87.)

For example, ‘The king died, and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died and then
the queen died of grief’ is a plot.

This is because there is a reason given for the queen dying. In a story, someone dying is
not in itself interesting. It is the reason for the death that fascinates the reader, especially if
the reason is connected with something that has happened to, or been done by, another
character.

Readers are well tuned to guessing and imagining causes just from the details they
perceive in the story. With this in mind, even the smallest recorded observations can be
relevant.

For example: ‘A woman on a bus today carried her Pekinese dog inside her handbag. It
had a red bow on its head that matched her sweater.’

This short description of a real person could be the starting point for a fictional character.
Imagine:

• Who might she have been?

• Where was she going?
• What did her appearance suggest about her mood or state of mind?
• How old was she?
• How did she live?
In answering these questions you are starting to build a concrete sense of character. You
are starting to get a story.

Developing your plot line

Developing the detail of your character will help you arrive at your story. And discovering
causality – what causes your character to do things or to be the way they are – will give
you plot. But how do you develop that plot?

Returning to the example:

‘A woman on the bus today carried her Pekinese dog inside her handbag. It had a red bow
on its head that matched her sweater.’

Now consider:

• Why was she on the bus?

• Why did she have the dog and where was she taking it?
• Why did she look the way she did?
• Why did the dog have a red bow?

These are not scientific questions: if you wanted to know the correct answer to them, you
would have asked her. They are matters for your imagination. Answering them will give
you a plot.

For example:

Perhaps she is taking the dog to be put down at the vet’s, and is so upset about having to
do so that she decides not to drive, and is taking the bus for the first time in ten years
Perhaps she’s travelling through a dangerous neighbourhood and is now afraid to get off,
so stays on the bus until it takes her back to where she lives, which also means that her
beloved dog has a reprieve, and when she gets it home she feeds it the prime cut of rib-
eye steak she’d intended for herself … and so on.

What if?

In the example possibilities of how and why the woman happened to be on the bus with
her dog, we are asking a question which is essential for writing fiction. This question is –
‘What if?’

Asking ‘What if?’ can help you to get from having an idea about a character you want to
write about to developing a plot. For example, you might ask:

What if at one time the straight-laced schoolteacher worked in the circus?

What if that charming woman in the sweetshop poisoned her neighbour’s cat?
What if tomorrow I inherited a million pounds, and then what if the next day I lost it?
What if the characters are not as they first seem?
This ability to ask ‘What if?’ is a habit that can easily be learned. It adds causality and
richness to your characters as well as helping you to form a plot.

Writing character

Regularly reviewing past work and any ideas or observations listed in your notebook can
help you generate new ideas.

Look back at the possible story idea or ideas that you arrived at in The notebook habit, and
review all other story and character ideas you have noted or started so far.

You may or may not have got very far with these but consider whether asking the ‘What if?’
question might help you to further develop any of them.

Choose one character and develop it by:

• imagining more detail

• making sure you've done any necessary research
• asking some ‘What if?’ questions
• imagining some of the reasons surrounding the character’s dress, behaviour,
speech or actions.

Write a paragraph or two about this character in your notebook, on your blog or in a Word
document. There’s no need to post it here.

Hooked by lines and images

‘One sentence inspires great novel’: it could be a headline. Often the motivating force
behind the writing of a story can be an odd line or image that somehow sticks with the
writer.

Have you ever found inspiration to write from a single sentence?

What about images? It could be an awe-inspiring sunset, a work of art or simply an

imagined scene that just won’t leave you.

Sometimes your subject will suggest itself to you through a line

that simply emerges in your consciousness as being in some
way significant.
Raymond Carver described how the single sentence: ‘He was
running the vacuum cleaner when the telephone rang.’ gave
him the idea for a story:
‘I knew a story was there and that it wanted telling. I felt it in
my bones, that a story belonged with that beginning …’
Or perhaps a particular image, more than a line, presents itself
to you in this way, as the key to a story.
Novelist John Fowles described how he came to write The
French Lieutenant’s Woman:
‘It started four or five months ago as a visual image. A
woman stands at the end of a deserted quay and stares out
to sea. That was all. … These mythopoeic ‘stills’ (they seem
almost always static) float into my mind very often.’
The more you immerse yourself in your subject and in what you
want to write about, the more you will encounter these sorts of
lines and images.

Hunches that matter

The starting points for stories can come from many different directions. As an ongoing
exercise in your journal, keep a note of any lines or images that present themselves to you
in this way.

Also, note down a ‘menu’ of what you consider to be your overall ‘concerns’. This exercise
aims to help you build up a self-portrait of who you are as a writer, and to help you to
become clearer about the kinds of things that matter to you, that are likely to be your
overall subject matter or material when you write. Remember, your list will (and should) be
highly personal.

For example, it might include:

• my children’s safety
• fear of ageing
• love of animals
• passion for travel
• interest in local politics
• hatred of liars
• fascination for the movies.

Over time, your list should extend to include much more detailed descriptions of your
concerns.

Writing about personal concerns

Now read the extract from a novel by Fred D’Aguiar, considering what you learn about the
characters, the story and what you speculate to be Fred D’Aguiar’s concerns.

… Again I stood riveted to the spot as the crowd around my son drifted to the center of the
yard where punishments meant to dissuade onlookers from similar activities were staged.
My son called his mother. I heard this above the clatter of 250 plantation slaves.
I grabbed the arm of the strongest kin to me, a man close to my son’s age, third
grandchild of the tenth of my twelve daughters. I told him to run the five miles to the
deputy’s house since only he could save my son from this public display of savagery. He
looked alarmed. I’d forgotten. A slave discovered off the plantation at night was liable to be
killed. I told him I would go myself to save my son. He touched my arm, nodded at me and
darted into the shadows of the dusk skulking beneath the trees. I watched his back blend
with the shadows then melt into them. My son shouted again for his mother. I parted the
crowd to get to him.
‘She can’t come to you my son. I am here for you.’
He saw me and fell silent and dejected. I put myself before Mr Sanders who frowned. ‘My
son is all I have, sir. Spare him. Let me take his place.’
Mr Sanders laughed aloud, brushed the air in front of his face as if to rid it of a pest
and ordered that I be restrained for as long as it took to administer 200 lashes to my son.
When he said the number of lashes an astonished cry rose from the crowd and filled
the early evening air. I began to struggle against the grip of two men who simply tightened
their hold on me and forced me to my knees. Fires were lit. Each flame conspired with the
remaining scraps of light to drive away the ensuing darkness but to no avail. The first lash
ripped a hole in my head and I screamed for my son, who fell as silent as the grass and
trees. My two remaining daughters cried with their children and grandchildren and begged
Mr Sanders for leniency. They begged and cried. The night was torn to ribbons by their
grief.

Fred D’Aguiar (1995) The Longest Memory, London: Chatto & Windus, pp. 24–26.

Reflecting on concerns and ideas

Reflecting on who you are and what sort of material you want to write about is an
important and ongoing part of the writing process, not least because you will be more
motivated by characters and storylines which embody topics that are important to you.

Review some of the ideas in your notebook and your menu of concerns. Are there any
characters or story ideas that match up with any of the concerns listed on your menu?
Discuss any of these ideas with your fellow writers.

Don’t worry if there seems to be an incongruity between your menu of concerns and the
type of characters and story ideas that you are coming up with. In many ways, this can be
very interesting.

In some cases, you may be the last to recognise that a story and characters you have
created relates to a key personal concern. Discuss with your fellow writers how this might
be so.

Extraordinary versus ordinary

Fiction does not have to be about extraordinary circumstances. In fact, the best fiction is
often the fiction that presents familiar concerns in a new and surprising way. Fiction will
always be new and surprising if it is truthfully observed.

Raymond Carver writes:

‘It’s possible, in a poem or short story, to write about common-place things and objects
using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things – a chair, a window
curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring – with immense, even startling power. It is
possible to write a line of seemingly innocuous dialogue and have it send a chill along the
reader’s spine – the source of artistic delight, as Nabokov would have it.’

(Carver, R. (1981) ‘A Storyteller’s Shoptalk’, New York Times, 15 February [online])

Sometimes stories are about extraordinary situations, of course. When tackling an

extraordinary or huge theme, don’t try to say everything about everything. Sometimes a
single focus on one or a few characters placed in extraordinary circumstances, will give a
much larger sense of the whole. No matter how extraordinary the scenario, the reader’s
primary interest will always be the characters. If you, the writer, don’t develop the
characters well enough then the reader will lose interest.

Summary of Week 4

Have you developed a ‘notebook habit’ yet? What notes have you made that could
become a story? A notebook is an important tool for a writer and should be a place you
can record interesting uses of language or new ideas.

This week you’ve thought about where to find stories, and heard from other writers about
using subjects personal to them.

Next week you’ll discover how to make characters rounded and more interesting. You’ll
also get the opportunity to test out these character skills by writing a character sketch. If
you want to get a head start, mark this step complete and move on to Week 5.

Advice from a writer

You’ve already done some work on character and story, and we’re now going to develop
that work with the help of a writer – Josip Novakovich. Like many novelists nowadays he
teaches creative writing and he’s also written books on how to write fiction.

Novakovich says this of himself when he started writing:

‘I avoided letting anybody cramp my style. However, I think that I avoided advice and
workshops a little too long: some lessons that I learned on my own, I could have learned
faster from some good advice.’

This sums up what you stand to gain from studying creative writing.

With the help of Novakovich we will be looking at further ways to find and create
characters, and at the importance of conflict in your writing.

You’ve already done some work on character and story, and we’re now going to develop
that work with the help of a writer. Josip Novakovich is a Croatian-born novelist and short-
story writer. He has won a number of awards, and was on the shortlist for The Man Booker
International Prize in 2013. Like many novelists nowadays he teaches creative writing and
he’s also written books on how to write fiction. This week we’ll look at what Novakovich
says about finding and creating characters and the importance of conflict in your writing.

You’ll hear how some authors - including Alex Garland and Monique Roffey - use
themselves as starting points. And you’ll learn how to go about turning stereotypes into
more rounded characters. You’ll also exchange feedback with your fellow writers on
characters that you’ve created.

Reading Novakovich

Considering exactly what is meant by character in the context of novels and stories can
help you to identify methods for portraying them.

Read the section on character by Josip Novakovich in the PDF below.

As you read, consider these questions:

• How important is change to characterisation?

• Do all characters need to change in stories?
• What does Novakovich say about character flaws?

Take note of the stories and novels that Novakovich mentions. If you get the
chance, take a look at some of these for your future research into the ways that writers use
and depict character flaws and conflict.

Extract used in ‘Reading Novakovich’

Josip Novakovich – Fiction Writer’s Workshop

Character

Most people read fiction not so much for plot as for company. In a good piece of
fiction you can meet someone and get to know her in depth, or you can meet
yourself, in disguise, and imaginatively live out and understand your passions. The
writer William Sloan thinks it boils down to this: ‘Tell me about me. I want to be more
alive. Give me me.’
If character matters so much to the reader, it matters even more to the writer. Once
you create convincing characters, everything else should easily follow. F. Scott
Fitzgerald said, ‘Character is plot, plot is character.’ But, as fiction writer and teacher
Peter LaSalle has noted, out of character, plot easily grows, but out of plot, a
character does not necessarily follow. To show what makes a character, you must
come to a crucial choice that almost breaks and then makes the character. The
make-or-break decision gives you plot. Think of Saul on the way to Damascus: While
persecuting Christians, he is blinded by a vision; after that, he changes, becomes St.
Paul, the greatest proselyte. Something stays the same, however; he is equally
zealous, before and after. No matter what you think of the story of Paul’s conversion,
keep it in mind as a paradigm for making a character.
Of course, not all characters undergo a crucial change. With some characters, their
unchangeability and constancy makes a story. In ‘Rust’, my story about the
sculptor#turned-tombstone-maker, everything (the country, family, town) changes, except
the character. Even his body collapses, but his spirit stays bellicose and steadfast. Here
he is, at work:
He refused to answer any more of my questions. His hands – with thick cracked
skin and purple nails from hammer misses – picked up a hammer. Veins twisted
around his stringy tendons so that his tendons looked like the emblem for
medicine. He hit the broadened head of the chisel, bluish steel cutting into gray
stone, dust flying up in a sneezing cloud. With his gray hair and blue stubbly
cheeks he blended into the grain of the stone – a stone with a pair of horned
eyebrows. Chiseling into the stone, he wrestled with time, to mark and catch it.
But time evaded him like a canny boxer. Letting him cut into rocks, the bones of
the earth, Time would let him exhaust himself.
Seven years later I saw him. His face sunken. His body had grown weaker.
Time had chiseled into his face so steadily that you could tell how many years
had passed just by looking at the grooves cutting across his forehead. But the
stubbornness in his eyes had grown stronger. They were larger, and although
ringed with milky-gray cataracts, glaringly fierce.
Whether or not there’s a change in you, character is not the part of you that
conforms, but rather, that sticks out. So a caricaturist seeks out oddities in a face; big
jaws, slanted foreheads, strong creases. The part of the character that does not
conform builds a conflict, and the conflict makes the story. Find something conflicting
in a character, some trait sticking out of the plane, creating dimension and
complexity. Make the conflict all-consuming, so that your character fights for life.
Stanley Elkin, author of The Dick Gibson Show, emphasized the need for struggle
this way: ‘I would never write about someone who is not at the end of his rope.’
Think of the basic character conflicts in successful stories. ‘The Necklace’ by Guy de
Maupassant: Mme. Loisel, unreconciled to her lower-class standing, strives to
appear upper class, at all costs. Out of that internal conflict ensues the tragedy of her
working most of her adult life to pay for a fake necklace.
‘The Girls in Their Summer Dresses’ by Irwin Shaw: Though married and in love
with his wife, a young man is still attracted to other women.
In Henry James’ ‘The Beast in the Jungle’: John Marcher waits for some
extraordinary passion to take hold of him; he dreams of it so much that he does not
notice he is in love with May Bertram, who is at his side all along. Only when she
dies, of neglect, does he realize it.
In ‘The Blue Hotel’ by Stephen Crane: The Swede, visiting a small town in rural
Nebraska, imagines that he is in the wild west and consequently sets himself against
a bar of ordinary people whom he imagines as gamblers and murderers.
In all these stories, characters suffer from a conflicting flaw. Aristotle called these
character flaws hamartia – usually interpreted as ‘tragic flaw’ (most often hubris or
arrogance) when we talk about tragedies. Sometimes, however, a flaw may not lead
to disaster, but to a struggle with a subsequent enlightenment. (St. Paul’s zeal, for
example, leads him to an epiphany.)
A flaw could result also from an excessive virtue. Look at the opening of Michael
Kohlhaas by the early nineteenth-century German writer Heinrich von Kleist:
Michael Kohlhaas ... owned a farm on which he quietly earned a living by his
trade; his children were brought up in the fear of God to be industrious and
honest; there was not one of his neighbors who had not benefited from his
goodness and fair-mindedness – the world would have had every reason to
bless his memory, if he had not carried one virtue to excess. But his sense of
justice turned him into a robber and a murderer.
 Since his horses were abused at a border crossing between two principalities, and
he could not get a just compensation in courts, Kohlhaas takes justice into his hands
and burns down the castle where the horses suffered. In addition, he burns the city
of Dresden, which protected the offenders. His sense of justice provokes a war. His
uncompromising virtue may amount to vice – certainly it’s a flaw, the plot-generating
flaw.

Novakovich, J. (1995) Fiction Writer’s Workshop, Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press, pp.
48–50.

Character and plot

The dictum that ‘character is plot, plot is character’, attributed, by Novakovich, to F. Scott
Fitzgerald, is a familiar one, similar to Shakespeare’s ‘Character is destiny’ (from King
Lear).

We have already begun to think about how to turn ideas about character into ideas for a
plot. Novakovich further develops these thoughts.

This is not to say that what happens to characters is inevitable or predetermined. It’s
simply that particular characters seek or attract certain events or encounters.

If you start by building a strong sense of your main character or characters, then add a
dilemma, challenge or conflict, you will automatically be generating your plot. Starting the
other way around, with a chain of events into which you then fit characters, can often be
more difficult and less convincing.

Character + conflict = plot

Apply this formula when building stories. See if it works for you.

Round and flat characters

Stereotypes can be helpful when we start thinking about creating characters. But
developing characters, giving them unexpected contradictions and conflicts, helps to
create characters that are living people, not just types or caricatures.

But what about minor characters? How deeply do peripheral characters have to be
imagined? Do all characters have to be rounded?

Read Novakovich’s section on ‘Round and flat characters’ below (also supplied in a PDF).
The ‘above examples’ in the opening sentence refer to the characters discussed in the
previous section on characters that you looked at in Reading Novakovich.

What does Novakovich say that most round characters possess?

What are typical features of flat characters?
Are flat characters okay in some circumstances?
Are all stereotypes necessarily bad?

Round and flat characters

Most of the characters in the above examples could be called round characters
because they have three dimensions, like a ball. These characters are complex,
possessing conflicting traits. Mme. Loisel is both frivolous and responsible. The Swede is
paranoid yet insightful. John Marcher is sensitive yet callous. In writing, you must not
oversimplify –that is, create flat characters. (It’s all right to have flat characters as part of a
setting but not as part of an interactive community, the cast of your story.)

Flat characters have few traits, all of them predictable, none creating genuine conflicts.
Flat characters often boil down to stereotypes: fat, doughnut-eating cop; forgetful
professor; lecherous truck driver; … shifty-eyed thief; anorexic model.

Using these prefab characters can give your prose a semblance of humor and quickness,
but your story featuring them will have about as much chance of winning a contest as a
prefab apartment in a competition of architects. Even more damaging, you will sound like a
bigot. As a writer you ought to aspire toward understanding the varieties of human
experiences, and bigotry simply means shutting out and insulting a segment of population
(and their experiences) by reducing them to flat types.

But can you have a character without types? What would literature be without gamblers or
misers? The answer, I believe, is simple: Draw portraits of misers, but not as misers – as
people who happen to be miserly. And if while you draw misers as people you feel that you
fail to make characters but do make people, all the better. Ernest Hemingway said, ‘When
writing a novel a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a
caricature.’ So, give us people (‘Give me me.’). Let the miser in me come to life – and
blush – reading your story.

Novakovich, J. (1995) Fiction Writer’s Workshop, Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press, p. 51.

Enriching stereotypes

Recalling the real life characters in our video Keeping track of useful details do any of
these suggest a stereotype to you?

If so, can you think of a way in which you might develop such characters beyond
stereotype?

Novakovich suggests that showing the contradictions in characters is one way of making
them ‘round’. Taking a stereotype and portraying it in a way that goes against the usual
expectations is an effective way of making them more complex.

For example:

• the bullying headmaster with a tender sentimental side

• the meticulous manager who lives in a messy house
• the shy librarian who goes bungee-jumping
 • the habitual flirt who avoids relationships.

Talking more than types

Discussing how stereotypes or flat characters might be made more round can be
interesting, not least because it can open your eyes to how stereotypes are commonly
perceived and how perceptions can be subtly altered.

Think up some examples of stereotypes that might be made less stereotypical – less flat
and more round – by adding an aspect which is contradictory.

Post for discussion with your fellow writers.

Considering characters

Gauging your characters in terms of stereotypes and considering ways to make them more
complex, and offering more nuanced detail about them, will help make your characters
more life-like.

Post your thoughts on the character scene you have just written, in Challenging
expectations.

Some things to consider about characters in discussion with your fellow writers:

• What sorts of stereotypes did you use?

• What sorts of methods did you and other writers use to make the character go
against expectations?
• Do you, and other writers, think all of these methods were successful or did some
characters remain typical?
• What were the most and least successful methods?
• Which stereotypes were used most commonly as starting points?

Using yourself
21 commentsAbdulrazak Gurnah, Michèle Roberts, Monique Roffey and Alex Garland

Explore various sources for new fictional characters – where do they come from and how
are they developed?

You’ve already done some work on how and where to find and research your characters.
Here novelists talk about how they have used themselves in their fiction, often as a starting
point for the creation of someone very different.
As you’re listening to Abdulrazak Gurnah, Michèle Roberts, Monique Roffey and Alex
Garland, make a note of any approaches to finding characters that:

are similar to your own

seem quite different but which you might like to try

We’ve already done some work on how and where to find and research
your characters. Here novelists talk about how they’ve used themselves
in their fiction (‘the autobiographical method’ in Novakovich’s terms),
often as a starting point for the creation of someone different. As you’re
listening to Abdulrazak Gurnah, Michèle Roberts, Monique Roffey and
Alex Garland, make a note of any approaches that are similar to your
own and approaches that seem quite different but which you might like to
try.

ABDULRAZAK GURNAH:
I don’t in any case expect that you can evade this, you know, that you,
that you can escape writing about your experiences, or if you do then in
itself that becomes a kind of project. You can say well I’m going to write
about everything but I’m going to keep myself out of it. Now what would
be interesting then if you were a reader is to see where that suppressed
self actually comes into the writing however hard you suppress.
But, you know, I don’t feel like that at all and I know a lot of writers don’t.
There are a lot of writers who in fact quite happily write about
themselves, Saul Bellow being one, Phillip Roth being another, who
quite happily write about themselves. They make themselves the subject
of their fiction. Vies Naipaul is another one in recent times. But I still
believe that in fact it is actually harder to keep the writer out of the writing
than people imagine, at least the kind of fiction that I write and like to
read.

MICHÈLE ROBERTS:
I think every novel has its root in the real world in that it presents me with
a problem that I then try and solve. It might pose a question that the
novel tries to solve. The Mistressclass was inspired by, I can’t remember
what now, it’s so long ago, it’s vanished into the unconscious. I think it
was inspired by a real situation in my life in that I have sisters, I’m very
interested in the relationships between sisters – it’s a theme I return to. I
am a twin sister. I’m fascinated by twins, by doubleness, by ‘the other’,
the mirror image who’s not the same as you.
So there’s an autobiographical element there. But I’ve found over and
over again, every time, if you just write about yourself, you’re too close to
yourself, to your own stuff, you can’t see it properly. So normally you end
up repressing, writing quite clumpily and clumsily, and you need to open
up to the world and throw your own stuff out into the world and find what
T S Elliot called in this grandiose term ‘an objective correlative’.
For this new novel I knew I wanted to write about sisters again,
particularly sisters who were rivals. I found a pair of sisters, Emily Bronte
and Charlotte Bronte, and I suddenly remembered that I’d had wanted to
write about passionate obsessive unrequited love – ha ha – Charlotte
had exactly that experience with her tutor M. Heger in Brussels, so I was
off. I’d found a subject in the world. But I think actually I’m writing a lot
about my feelings about being a twin when I was little. It’s not directly
autobiographical, but there’s an energy there.

MONIQUE ROFFEY:
Well to be honest, August isn’t that different in terms of his cultural
background and his age. He’s a sort of middle class man of similar age
to me when I was writing it. I think if he was a young boy who lived in
China then I would have had to have made a much bigger creative leap.
And again I mean, it’s a book of internals and internally I understood
where August was coming from and what I was writing about and that
men and women do share the same emotional territory in many ways
and so it wasn’t a big leap in terms of craft – I didn’t have to sort of think
of any clever techniques in which to sort of put trousers on, August
internally, I knew what he was, I knew what he was about really so it was
very easy to make the switch.

ALEX GARLAND:
In the case of The Beach, the protagonist, and I think there’s, it’s
something that young writers or, maybe young is the wrong word but first
time writers often do is that what they end up doing is they draw a lot on
themselves to flesh out the character. So I did that a lot I think with, the
narrator of that book because you could do it and then you could drop in
a few things that he would do that you wouldn’t do, and suddenly you’ve
got a fictional character who will take you in different directions.

Finding and developing fictional characters

The methods of creating characters suggested by Gurnah, Roberts and Roffey may be
familiar to you. Novakovich calls this method the ‘autobiographical method’. But, according
to him, it isn’t the only method of finding characters.

Read Novakovich’s section ‘Sources of characters’ in the PDF below. Here he outlines
methods of finding and developing fictional characters.

Compare his approaches to the approaches you’ve adopted so far.

What are his four main methods?

Sources of characters

Where do you find fictional people?

You can completely make them up, using psychology textbooks, astrology charts,
mythology, the Bible or, simply, your imagination. This is the ideal method – ideal in
a sense that you work from a purely intellectual creation, an idea about a character
whom you have not observed and who is not you. Although by using this method you
don’t draw from people you know to make your characters, you must speak of real
passions, and each character must appear like a real person. Real person is a bit of
a contradiction in terms because persona, the Latin root for person, means ‘mask’.
We usually take a mask to be the ‘unreal’, phony part of a person. But wearing a
mask at a carnival can help you live out your true passions that otherwise, due to
social pressures, you keep in check. Fiction is a carnival. So give us real passions
with good masks, and everybody will be fair game! Make up character masks,
release dramatic conflicts beneath them, and you will create startling people, such as
you would like, or fear, to meet.
The mother of all methods – though not necessarily the one you should use most –
is the autobiographical method, for it is through your own experience that you grasp
what it is to be a person. Because of this, you are bound, at least to some extent, to
project yourself into the fictional characters you render by any other method. Many
writers project themselves into all the characters they portray. This is, metaphorically
speaking, the fission approach: an atom may be split into several, during which an
enormous amount of energy is released. Fyodor Dostoyevski split his personality into
many fictional ones, all of them as temperamental as he. Mel Brooks, the comedy
writer and movie director, thinks this is the primary way to write: ‘Every human being
has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his
ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities, and have them
relate to other characters living with him.’

In the biographical method, you use people you have observed (or researched) as
the starting points for your fictional character. This seems to be the most popular
method. Despite legal limitations on the biographical method, don’t shut down this
basic source of fictional characters. Hemingway said that if he explained the process
of turning a real-life character into a fictional one, it would be a handbook for libel
lawyers. The notion that writers work this way will keep some people quiet around
you lest you broadcast their secrets. For a long while it irritated me that my older
brother would not believe that I was becoming a writer; and now that he does, it
irritates me even more because he does not tell me anything about himself. To find
out about him, I talk to our middle brother, and as soon as my older brother finds out
that that’s how it works, he probably won’t talk to him either.

Most fictional characters are directly or at least indirectly drawn from life. E.M.
Forster, author of A Passage to India, said: ‘We all like to pretend we don’t use real
people, but one does actually. I used some of my family ... This puts me among the
large body of authors who are not really novelists, and who have to get on as best
they can.’ (By the way, most novelists are not really novelists, and they must get on
as best they can. Nobody is born with this stuff, and hardly anybody becomes quite
secure in the craft. I think that’s comforting: Novelists are regular people, like you
and me.)

Using the biographical method, writers often compose their characters from the
traits of several people. To express it with another term from nuclear physics, this is the
fusion approach: You fuse character traits the way you fuse atoms. Lillian Hellman,
author of Pentimento, supports this view of making fictional characters: ‘I don’t think
you start with a person. I think you start with parts of many people. Drama has to do
with conflict in people, with denials.’ She looks for conflicts in real people and gives
these conflicts to her fictional characters, whose traits she gets from other people.
The fourth way to create fictional characters is the mixed method. Writers frequently
combine the biographical and the ideal methods since there’s a limit to relying on
direct knowledge of characters. In part, this stems from our inability to know people
in depth. Somerset Maugham, author of Of Human Bondage, said: ‘People are hard
to know. It is a slow business to induce them to tell you the particular thing about
themselves that can be of use to you.’ Unless you are a psychiatrist or a priest, you
probably will not find out the deep problems of the people around you. That does not
mean you can’t use some aspects of the people you know. But soon you must fill in
the gaps, and let’s hope that then you will create a character independent from the
real-life model. You may use ideas and imagination, or it may happen
spontaneously, as it apparently did to Graham Greene, author of The Human Factor,
who said: ‘One gets started and then, suddenly, one cannot remember what
toothpaste they use ... The moment comes when a character does or says
something you hadn’t thought about. At that moment he’s alive and you leave it to
him.’ If your character begins to do something different from what the real-life
precedent would do, encourage this change, and forget about the real-life model.
Soon you should have someone answering to the necessities of your plot and
conflicts, not to the memory of the person you started with.

The ideal to strive for is a character who will come to life seemingly on his own. It
will no longer be the person from life outside the novel that served as a starting point, but
a fictional one, who not only is there to be written about, but who, in an optimal case,
writes for you. Erskine Caldwell expressed this blessed autonomy of fictional
characters: ‘I have no influence over them. I’m only an observer, recording. The story
is always being told by the characters themselves.’

Not all writers give their characters autonomy and allow them to dictate what to
write down. John Cheever said: ‘The legend that characters run away from their authors –
taking up drugs, having sex operations, and becoming president – implies that the
writer is a fool with no knowledge or mastery of his craft. This is absurd.’ Of course,
Cheever believed in his method and distrusted the methods of other authors. I think
it’s silly when a writer assumes that his method is the method for all writers.
However, it is good to learn what approaches exist, to try them all, and to see which
works best for you.
But one principle about constructing characters can be stated unequivocally.
Whether your characters attain autonomy or not, whether they come from you or
from Greek myths, the more you get to know them, the better you will work with
them.

Novakovich, J. (1995) Fiction Writer’s Workshop, Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press, pp.
51–54.

Character sketch
‘Write what you know’ is a familiar piece of advice often given to writers. But ‘what you
know’ can expand through imagination and sympathetic identification with others who are
not like you at all.

This is similar to what actors do – they are not confined to ‘playing themselves’ –
and neither are writers. But, as Novakovich says, there are other methods for creating your
characters besides the autobiographical approach.

Choose one of the methods below, one which is least familiar to you, one you have never
tried before:

• Imagine a character very like you but give them a dramatic external alteration. You
might change the character’s gender, for example, or make them significantly older
or younger. You choose.
 • Imagine a character very like someone you have observed – but give them a
dramatic external alteration.You might change the character’s gender, for example,
or make them significantly older or younger. You choose.
• Create a character purely on the basis of your imagination or intellectual conception
(as described by Novakovich as the ‘ideal method’). Remember, don’t be misled by
the term ‘ideal’ – this character won’t necessarily be morally good or well behaved.
• Create a character using any of the above methods in combination, as in what
Novakovich calls the ‘mixed method’.

Now write a brief character sketch, around 300–500 words, in which you reveal
certain aspects of the character. Use a third-person narrator (‘he’ or ‘she’). Here are some
things you might like to include in your sketch but this is not an exclusive list – you may not
include all of these aspects; you may include other aspects:

• appearance
• feelings
• current circumstances
• occupation
• voice
• attitudes
• hopes and fears.

Write your sketch in a document, save it, then copy and paste it below for review and
feedback from your fellow writers.

Remember: if your writing contains graphic material, you must put a warning in
brackets after your title, for example, ‘(explicit content)’ or ‘(strong language)’. (For more
information, see Before you start….

Assignment Guidelines
The reviewers will be asked to give you feedback on the following aspects of your
assignment, so you should consider these when writing:

Which method of character creation was being used?

Were you able to see the character clearly? Did you want to know more about the
character?
What approaches to portrayal, such as depicting appearance, occupation, voice, and so
forth, did the writer successfully use?

Introducing and meeting characters

Look at the character sketches posted by your fellow writers.

Assignment Guidelines
You’re going to be asked to give feedback on the following aspects of the author’s
assignment:

Which method of character creation was being used?

Were you able to see the character clearly? Did you want to know more about the
character?
What approaches to portrayal, such as depicting appearance, occupation, voice, and so
forth, did the writer successfully use?
Please keep this window open and do not navigate away before submitting your feedback.
If you close the window or navigate to a different page, you will be given a new assignment
to review when you return.

Reflect on feedback

A reader has an intimate relationship with the characters in a story or novel. The reader’s
reaction to your character matters.

Think about the comments you received about your character sketch and ask these
questions:

Has more than one person made the same point about an aspect of the writing?
Has anyone said something about it that has surprised you?
Is there something you thought worked well that someone else has found less successful?
Is there anything that people think worked better than you did?
Reflect on these comments and decide what you agree with and what you are not sure
about. Do any of the comments help you to think about how you could change the writing
for the better?

Remember: the point of exchanging feedback on work, and discussing work with fellow
writers, is to help you to think about how to improve your writing.

Summary of Week 5

Character plus conflict equals plot. Novakovich suggests that character must come first
and that it is a character’s contradictions and flaws that naturally bring out plot.

This week you will have written a character sketch and may have already received
feedback on it from your fellow writers. This process will help you to hone convincing
characters who will matter to the reader.

In Week 6, you’ll discover how to develop your characters, look at great examples from
other writers and you’ll write the first draft of your final story.

Revealing characters
There are different approaches to both developing and portraying your characters. By
trying these various methods, you the writer can discover more about them.

We’ve now gathered a raft of methods for finding and creating characters, and seen
how conflict can help these characters become great story material. Just as there are
different ways of finding and creating characters - we’re now going to look at ways of
developing those characters. How do you get to know them better - and then reveal the
subtle nuances of that knowledge? This week you’ll be reading more from Novakovich on
character development, how to portray characters and reveal their secrets to your reader.
You’ll read a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald and also hear Monique Roffey, Alex Garland and
Louis de Bernieres talking about how they build characters.

And you’ll experiment with various methods for presenting characters, as well as
learning about layout and formatting dialogue. Lastly, you’ll be writing a first draft of your
final story.

Next steps in characterisations

You have now gathered a raft of methods for finding and creating characters, and seen
how conflict can help these characters become great story material. And, just as there are
different ways of finding and creating characters, you’re now going to look at ways of
developing those characters.

How do you get to know them better – and then reveal the subtle nuances of that
knowledge to your reader?

This week you’ll be reading more from Novakovich on character development, and how to
portray characters and reveal their secrets to your reader.

Ways of developing characters

Tim Pears, Monique Roffey, Alex Garland and Louis de Bernières

You’ve already discovered that learning about the approaches other writers take can be
helpful.

Here novelists discuss how they develop their fictional characters using a mixture of
methodical research, accident and empathy.

As you’re listening to Tim Pears, Monique Roffey, Alex Garland and Louis de Bernières,
make a note how you might develop main characters and how much work goes into
differentiating between relatively minor characters.

As we’ve already discovered, learning about the approaches other

writers take can be helpful.
Here novelists discuss how they develop their fictional characters using
a mixture of methodical research, accident and empathy. As you’re
listening to Tim Pears, Monique Roffey, Alex Garland and Louis de
Bernières make a note how you might develop main characters and how
much work goes into differentiating between relatively minor characters.

TIM PEARS:
My first book was written from the point of view of a 13 year old girl, and I
never felt when I was writing it that I had to make some kind of special
effort, you know, to get into the mind of a female, or a young person
whatever. I think I just thought how I would think about things, and with a
little bit of sympathy, empathy towards somebody else and that was it.

MONIQUE ROFFEY:
I think it’s very much a mixture of accident and design. I think your
characters find you in the same way that your ideas find you. I think they
settle on you – snatches of people you’ve seen in the street sometimes
or snatches of someone you might have met, someone you might have,
you know, have had a brief encounter with, and they tend to kind of
morph, they tend to kind of mix. You’ll have somebody’s hairstyle with
somebody’s height and somebody’s vanity with somebody’s nose, you
know, so you kind of have a mixture come to you, but once that’s
happened I then absolutely treat him, treat it in a research like, a sort of
scholarly way – I use a character outline and I, I work on, on that and
develop and, so that I’ve got sometimes 7, 8, 9, 10, 15 pages, so that I
know everything about that character, I know what his, what the
character’s grandmother’s maiden name was, whether they’re good at
dancing, whether they like Marmite, you know, I know everything about
that character by the time I’ve worked on it. So I use both, I use
conscious and the unconscious to sort of, to make someone.

ALEX GARLAND:
Characters came from all sorts of different places. There’s this gangster
in The Tesseract called Don Pepe who was sort of based on a guy I ran
into in a very remote part of the Philippines who came from Spanish
ancestry and had never been to Spain but was obsessed with Spain and
he’d lost all his money, he didn’t have a hacienda or anything, but he still
somehow clung on to that colonial past even though it was a long, long
time ago. And there was something about that that just interested me
and I kind of lifted him out and dropped him in there and some you just
invent.

LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES:
There seem to be two different types of character. There’s the type that
just turns up at your shoulder like a ghost and insists on being written,
it’s rather spooky, it’s a bit like being a medium. The other kind of
character is the sort that you, you invent more or less from scratch or
create as a composite of various people that you’ve noticed or come
across. And the one thing that does happen though is that as soon as
the character begins to become real, is, he or she starts misbehaving,
and they don’t do what you tell them to do. You often find yourself
altering the story to accommodate your characters. Your plans always
go wrong. It’s partly good old fashioned empathy, with a certain amount
of effort you can imagine what it’s like being somebody else.
If these characters are conveniently nearby you can always go and ask
them and listen to them talking. And quite often with a character, all
you’ve got to do is start them talking, like yakking in your head – it’s a bit
like being a paranoid schizophrenic but it’s under control, you know,
you’ve got all of these voices going on in your mind – you just let them
talk. And, and they develop quite happily on their own.
ALEX GARLAND:
I did have a problem with some of the minor characters of losing track of
them. I remember when I was copy editing the book, finding that people
switched nationalities half way through and having to sort of make a little
list, you know, this guy’s from New Zealand, this one’s from Israel. But I
think in the case of The Beach, often what I did was a kind of cheap trick
in a way which was, you pin a particular characteristic on a character so
there’s this guy, Bugs, who is the boyfriend of the woman who runs the
Camp and his thing was that he’s stoical but he’s also a bit of a
bullshitter, that stoicism is his thing that he gives out an impression of
being a terrific stoic but actually he’s not, and then everything just follows
from that. Yeah, you find a little peg to hang them on and leave them on
it.

Talking about characters

Discuss with your fellow writers some of the salient points made by Pears, Roffey, Garland
and de Bernières:

Which ways of working on characters seem most familiar to you?

Which seem very different or most difficult?

Try this different or difficult method with a character in your notebook.

Is there a type of character who would present difficulties for you to work on?

Building a new character

Learning as much as you can about your characters is important, even if all that you learn
doesn’t make it into the eventual story.

Monique Roffey is not alone in collecting information for character outlines. This is what
Novakovich says about writers working with a character:

To work with a character, you might need to sketch it in several ways. You could start with
this questionnaire (or make one up for yourself):
Name? Age? Place of birth? Residence? Occupation? Appearance? Dress?
Strengths? Weakness? Obsessions? Ambition? Work habits? Hobbies? Illness? Family?
Parents? Kids? Siblings? Friends? Pets? Politics? Tics? Diet? Drugs? Favorite kinds of
coffee, cigarettes, alcohol? Erotic history? Favorite books, movies, music? Desires?
Fears? Most traumatic event? Most wonderful experience? The major struggle, past and
present?

If you give quick, spontaneous answers, you might surprise yourself with the
character that emerges. Don’t worry if this works like a Rorschach blot, if it reveals
something about you. You might do it in a silly way, have fun, and still get an idea for a
character. And you might do it quite thoughtfully, in relation to your plot, if you’ve chosen
one. (Let’s say, your plot involves a son who gambles away his patrimony, until he
becomes a father, and then works so hard to leave his son with a patrimony that he
doesn’t spend any time with him, and his son disowns him. You must devise character
traits that would make him plausible.) If you don’t have a plot yet, some of the answers to
these questions, particularly the last one – the character’s major struggle – might give you
ideas.

Once you know almost enough – you hardly ever know enough – about the
character, test her out. Portray her.

Novakovich, J. (1995) Fiction Writer’s Workshop, Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press, pp.54–55.

In your notebook, try Roffey’s and Novakovich’s methods of building character

outlines to flesh out your character. See how much you can discover about them.

Use headings such as these, or Novakovich’s, for your character outline – or, as he
suggests, make up your own:

Physical/biological: age, height, size, state of health, assets, flaws, sexuality, gait, voice.
Psychological: intelligence, temperament, happiness/unhappiness, attitudes, self-
knowledge, unconscious aspects.
Interpersonal/cultural: family, friends, colleagues, birthplace, education, hobbies, beliefs,
values, lifestyle.
Personal history: major events in their life, including the best and the most traumatic times.

Don’t write any more than outline notes for the moment. You will use this character profile
later so make sure you know where to find it.

You can use this as an ongoing method – creating a profile with headings such as these –
and it will help you to research and build your characters.

Revealing characters

Finding sources for your characters, methods of developing them and getting to know
them better, is all very well. But you then have to find ways of portraying your characters
for your reader.

Read what Novakovich has to say about portraying a character. This outlines some
prominent approaches.

As you read the ‘Portraying a character’ PDF below, note down:

the main methods of portraying character

any methods that you haven’t tried.
Try out some of those methods in your notebook.

Extract used in ‘Revealing characters’

Josip Novakovich – Fiction Writer’s Workshop
Portraying a character
The way you present a character is at least as important as where you get the
character. Fleshing out your characters in various ways may take up most of the
story. So if you learn how to make your characters act on a stage, in your setting,
you’ll certainly be able to write stories. In this section you’ll find a variety of ways to
portray a character.

Summary
You can tell us outright what your fictional characters are like and what they do. If
you answered the questionnaire at the end of the previous section, you have a rough
character summary. Link the character traits that strike you as the most important
ones, and you’ll have a complete character summary. Here’s a classic summary
from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes:
This gentleman, in the times when he had nothing to do – as was the case for
most of the year – gave himself up to the reading of books of knight errantry;
which he loved and enjoyed so much that he almost entirely forgot his hunting,
and even the care of his estate.
He so buried himself in his books that the spent the nights reading from
twilight till daybreak and the days from dawn till dark; and so from little sleep
and much reading, his brain dried up and he lost his wits.
Cervantes goes on with the summary for several pages, but I think this excerpt
gives you an idea of how summary works. We find out Don Quixote’s work and leisure
habits, hobbies and passions, and the consequences of pursuing these – his
obsession with books results in his illness, madness.
The advantage of this method is its simplicity and readability: The writer quickly
focuses on the main character’s conflict and supplies the background we need to
know. You clearly set up expectations for what follows if you use this method in or
near the beginning of your story. Unless you botch the summary, your reader will
easily understand what the main character traits and conflicts are about.
The disadvantage to this method is that you are bound to tell rather then show what
your character is like – this method makes it hard to see and hear the character.
While the summary goes on, no dramatic action, no dialogue, takes place. We are
waiting. Still, the character summary is often worth risking; after you orient the reader
clearly and quickly, you will not need to stall the dramatic action (in order to supply
the background) once it begins to take place.
Here’s another example of how summary works, from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest
Hemingway. See how quickly we learn the character’s main concerns:
Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not
think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot
to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it
painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he
had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton. There was a certain inner
comfort in knowing he could knock down anybody who was snooty to him,
although, being very shy and a thoroughly nice boy, he never fought except in
the gym.
This is the opening of the novel. There’s no scene for us to visualize, but we receive
the basic outline of the character’s psychology and motivation. Later, we’ll hear the
character speak, see him act, but for now, we have some guiding ideas about him
(and the novel), which will help us understand what follows.
If this approach strikes you as too much ‘telling,’ try to show all the information in a
dramatic scene, and you’ll realize that you’ll need at least several pages to do it.
Since the action Hemingway is concerned with is not in the past but in the dramatic
present (which will follow), to go back into the past dramatically would dissipate the
novel’s focus. The summary gives us the relevant aspects of the past, so we can
stick with the dramatic present. While it’s not the most graceful method, it’s certainly
useful.

Repeated action or habit

This is the most common notion of character – the expectation of how a person will
behave in a given situation, based on the observation that she has behaved like that
many times, that she has the habit. This may be an effective way of describing a
person when you don’t have the time to go into the scenes to show us how she
behaves. Here’s an example from ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’
by Joyce Carol Oates:
She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck
to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own
was all right.
Now we know that in many situations the girl behaves this way. It would take an
awful lot of time to show this habit dramatically. If the sole point of the scenes were
to show her habit, the scenes would be a strain on the reader. Describing it in a
summary will save you time. That’s the advantage. The disadvantage is that doing
this will delay your entry into your main dramatic scenes, where the story takes
place.

Self-portrait
The writer may let the character introduce himself to us. Again, this usually will be a
summary of the basic concerns, at least in the beginning. Notice that a self-portrait
can be achieved indirectly, as Hemingway’s narrator does in the example of
character summary from The Sun Also Rises. The narrator says, ‘Do not think that I
am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.’ In this
sentence we notice a certain sense of superiority, perhaps arrogance, on the part of
the narrator. When he characterizes Robert Cohn as ‘very shy and a thoroughly nice
boy,’ we hear the narrator’s voice. Who would speak of a twenty-year old as a
‘thoroughly nice boy’? We begin to surmise inferences about the narrator. The
narrator’s summary gives us an explicit portrait of Robert Cohn and an implied and
indirect self-portrait. Good economy.
Here’s a direct self-portrait by the narrator of Notes From Underground by Fyodor
Dostoyevsky:
I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man. I am an ugly man. I believe my liver is
diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know
for certain what ails me. I don’t consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I
have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious,
sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to
be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from
spite ... My liver is bad, well – let it get worse!
Here, the advantage over the third-person summary is that the way sentences are
put together, the way of thought, is our picture of the character just as much as the
content of the thoughts. The Underground Man thinks in paradoxes, spitefully, in
intentional self-contradictions. He certainly prepares us for the humorous and self–
destructive acts to follow, so the disadvantages of this method, that it is not dramatic
and that it does not create pictures, are not significant.

Appearance
 Image is not everything, but it does account for a lot. Through how a person looks,
you may try to infer what the person is like – but appearances may be deceptive.
Still, to suggest the person’s character, you may select and interpret details, to guide
the reader’s expectations.
George Eliot uses this approach in the following paragraph from Middlemarch:
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by
poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear
sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the blessed Virgin appeared
to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to
gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial
fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible – or from
one of our elder poets – in a paragraph of today’s newspaper.
Eliot draws a portrait of a Victorian lady who drives the modesty of her dress to such
an extreme that we are alerted by it. Immediately after this, Eliot gives us an inkling
of how to interpret the appearance. ‘She was usually spoken of as being remarkably
clever, but with the addition that her sister Celia had more common sense.’ Miss
Brooke is so ascetic that she creates problems for herself; she imprisons herself in a
sterile marriage to a priestly scholar. Her appearance points in the direction of the
key conflict of the novel.
Eliot’s description works like a painting, in which the surface details suggest
character and mood. Sometimes the appearance of a character can indeed attain
the quality of a good drawing, a cameo, as in the following example from ‘Patriotism,’
by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima:
For the beauty of the bride in her white over-robe no comparisons were
adequate. In the eyes, round beneath soft brows, the slender, finely shaped
nose, and in the full lips, there was both sensuousness and refinement. One
hand, emerging shyly from a sleeve of the over-robe, held a fan, and the tips of
the fingers, clustering delicately, were like the bud of a moonflower.
Notice how, in the two above examples, the authors draw the hands more
successfully than the faces. While hands are often more difficult than faces to render
in paintings, in writing it’s the reverse, because writing can capture motion and
activity better than painting can. Hands can do more than faces can – unless we are
mimes, and even with mimes, hands are at least as active as faces. In describing
faces, it’s easy to resort to smiles and frowns, and difficult to strike a fresh image.
With hands, you can play with a large array of possibilities.
You can characterize someone even by his feet or his walk, as does Thomas Hardy
in The Mayor of Casterbridge:
His measured, springless walk was the walk of the skilled countryman as
distinct from the desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn
and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical indifference
personal to himself.
No matter how you describe a character’s appearance, your reader must be able to
see it. If you rely on an adjective and give us little besides, you will probably fail to
make us visualize anything. In his novel The Citadel, British author A.J. Cronin
makes this mistake and gives us an example of what not to do:
Late one October afternoon in the year 1921, a shabby young man gazed with
fixed intensity through the window of a third-class compartment in the almost
empty train labouring up the Penowell valley from Swansea.
This is the opening line from the novel. It accomplishes a lot in terms of setting, but
the adjective shabby adds nothing. Judging from our being in a third-class
compartment, we would get the notion of shabbiness anyhow, and shabby does not
in any way give us the look of the man. The Citadel is an excellent novel, and it’s
good to see that not everything needs to be perfect for a novel to succeed. If you
don’t want to describe appearance, perhaps you can get away with it — but then
don’t pretend that you are depicting. Scratch out the shabby.

Scene
In a scene you set your character in motion. Especially if she’s speaking, you can
show us the character in action, without needing to summarize and generalize,
although you may supplement the scene with a summary.
Christopher Isherwood in ‘Sally Bowles’ draws a character portrait in a scene with
dialogue:
‘Am I terribly late, Fritz darling?’
‘Only half or an hour, I suppose,’ Fritz drawled beaming with proprietary
pleasure. ‘May I introduce Mr. Isherwood – Miss Bowles? Mr. Isherwood is
commonly known as Chris.’
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘Fritz is about the only person who’s ever called me Chris
in my life.’
Sally laughed. She was dressed in black silk, with a small cape over her
shoulders and a little cap like a page-boy’s stuck jauntily on one side of her
head:
‘Do you mind if I use your telephone, sweet?’
‘Sure. Go right ahead.’ Fritz caught my eye. ‘Come into the other room,
Chris.’
‘For heaven’s sake, don’t leave me alone with this man!’ she exclaimed.
‘Or he’ll seduce me down the telephone. He’s most terribly passionate.’
As she dialed the number, I noticed that her fingernails were painted
emerald green, a colour unfortunately chosen, for it called attention to her
hands, which were much stained by cigarette-smoking and as dirty as a little
girl’s.
Here we meet the character through her voice, appearance, action, as though in a
theater, and certainly, she is theatrical. She says, ‘He’s most terribly passionate.’
This string of three adjectives is a kind of sophisticated excess that achieves a
theatrical sound, as though we were listening to an ironic actor. Isherwood guides us
to interpret the details, to see the little girl behind the sophisticated guise. The hands
are as dirty as a little girl’s. Emerald green for fingernail paint seems gaudy and
excessive; in her attempt to appear sophisticated, she fails, but achieves a charm,
especially through her flirtatious talk: ‘He’ll seduce me down the telephone.’ The
advantage of introducing a character in a scene is that we hear the character’s voice
and diction, and we see the person. So when the narrator analyzes this character, he
does not do it abstractly, but in conjunction with what we have seen and
experienced. The scene combines appearance, action and dialogue; it’s a highly
versatile approach. The drawback is that you can’t supply the background easily
without stalling a scene. Sometimes you can introduce a character through action, so
we begin to see her without needing much dialogue, as does Bobbie Ann Mason in
‘Shiloh’:
Leroy Moffitt’s wife, Norma Jean, is working on her pectorals. She lifts three#pound
dumbbells to warm up, then progresses to a twenty-pound barbell.
Standing with her legs apart, she reminds Leroy of Wonder Woman. ‘I’d give
anything if I could just get these muscles to where they’re real hard,’ says
Norma Jean. ‘Feel this arm. It’s not as hard as the other one.’
The advantage of this method is that the reader is immediately with you, visualizing,
experiencing a scene. You can show and suggest what you could have told us about
– such as that Norma Jean is a fitness nut, a bodybuilder, a self-obsessed person.
The scene implies all this information without completely committing such a blatant
interpretation, so it’s less judgmental than a summary to this effect would be. (This is
most lifelike. We watch how people behave, we never see abstract qualities such as
self-obsession – we merely see the signs, symptoms, which we interpret.) The
author leaves the opportunity of judgment to the reader. Whenever you can, show
character traits acted out in scenes. If you are interested in directly judging your
characters, of course, rely on summaries and interpretations. (Judgment does have
its virtues – it’s abstract, possibly philosophical.) The disadvantage to the scenic
characterization method is that it’s awkward to construct scenes that are outside of
the main time frame of the story, unless you do flashbacks and memories. There’s a
limit to how many flashbacks you can handle without destroying the flow of the story.
And there’s a limit to how many things you can show, anyhow. Thus, although
scenes are probably the most attractive method of characterization, you probably
need to resort to summaries of relevant character deeds and inclinations outside of
the story’s time frame.

Combining techniques
Most developed character descriptions combine two or more approaches. During
the course of a novel, we see a character in the ways the author chooses for us. That,
too is lifelike – you hardly ever experience all the aspects of a friend right away. It
takes time – different situations, communications, perceptions, and thoughts.
In Flannery O’Connor’s [story], we see three approaches: habit, summary and
appearance.
The alarm on the clock did not work but he was not dependent on any
mechanical means to awaken him. Sixty years had not dulled his responses;
his physical reactions, like his moral ones, were guided by his will and strong
character, and these could be seen plainly in his features. He had a long tube#like face
with a long rounded open jaw and a long depressed nose. His eyes
were alert but quiet, and in the miraculous moonlight they had a look of
composure and of ancient wisdom as if they belonged to one of the great
guides of men.
‘Strong character’ is an abstract summary. ‘A long tube-like face’ is a caricature,
appearance. ‘He was not dependent on any mechanical means to awaken him’ is a
habit summary. These traits give us a quick synopsis of this man, which lead us into
a scene, where we observe him in action.
Mr. Head went to the stove and brought the meat to the table in the skillet. ‘It’s
no hurry,’ he said. ‘You’ll get there soon enough and it’s no guarantee you’ll like
it when you do neither.’
Now we hear him talk. Later we’ll see him talk and act at greater length, each time
getting to know him better. O’Connor’s approach is incremental.
Here’s a portrait of a paranoid schizophrenic, drawn by summary of habits,
appearance and psychology. In ‘Ward VI,’ Anton Chekhov portrays the character so
gently that he undermines our trust in the diagnosis of madness; later in the story we
begin to perceive Russian psychiatry as mad, so that the character is quite justified
in feeling persecuted.
Ivan Dmitrich Gromov ... is always in a state of agitation and excitement,
always under the strain of some vague undefined expectation. The slightest
rustle in the entry or shout in the yard is enough to make him raise his head
and listen: are they coming for him? Is it him they are looking for?
I like his broad pale face with its high cheekbones ... His grimaces are queer
and morbid, but the fine lines drawn on his face by deep and genuine suffering
denote sensibility and culture, and there is a warm lucid gleam in his eyes. I like
the man himself, always courteous, obliging, and extremely considerate in his
treatment of everyone except Nikita. When anyone drops a button or a spoon,
he leaps from his bed and picks it up.
I think this is an excellent pattern not only combining summary and scene, but also
sympathy. Chekhov treats a type, a paranoid schizophrenic, with enough sympathy
that the type no longer threatens to reduce the human qualities and complexities of
Ivan’s character. Ivan has become a person for us.
Gustave Flaubert portrays Madame Bovary in a succession of different approaches.
Each time we meet her, we see a different aspect of her, in a new light, and in a new
approach:
[Brief Silent Scene] She made no comment. But as she sewed she pricked her
fingers and then put them into her mouth to suck them ...
[Silent Scene, Habit, Appearance] As the room was chilly, she shivered a little
while eating. This caused her full lips to part slightly. She had a habit of biting
them when she wasn’t talking ...
[Psychological Summary] Accustomed to the calm life, she turned away from it
toward excitement. She loved the sea only for its storms, and greenery only
when it was scattered among ruins. She needed to derive immediate
gratification from things and rejected as useless everything that did not supply
this satisfaction. Her temperament was more sentimental than artistic. She
sought emotions and not landscapes.
And later, of course, Flaubert stages Madame Bovary, just as Isherwood does Sally
Bowles. I recommend this pattern of multiple approaches particularly for your main
characters in a novel. If your character is complex enough, you might try all the
approaches you can think of to understand who you are creating. Your readers will
probably get involved, too, trying to understand with you. The trick is to be genuinely
curious about the people populating your fiction.

Novakovich, J. (1995) Fiction Writer’s Workshop, Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press,

pp.55–66.

'Three Hours Between Planes'

Novakovich’s suggested methods of portraying characters might be seen in the writing of

established writers – or variations on those methods.

Read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story ‘Three Hours Between Planes’ (1941) in the PDF
below.

Notice the ways in which he has approached building and presenting his characters.

Does he use any of the methods described by Novakovich – in combination or on their

own?
Can you find examples of the characters’ physical/biological aspects?
Can you find examples of the characters’ psychological aspects?
Can you find examples of the characters’ interpersonal/cultural aspects?
Can you find examples of the characters’ personal histories?
Extracts used in ‘Three hours between planes’
F. Scott Fitzgerald – ‘Three hours between planes’

It was a wild chance but Donald was in the mood, healthy and bored, with a sense
of tiresome duty done. He was now rewarding himself. Maybe.
When the plane landed he stepped out into a mid-western summer night and
headed for the isolated pueblo airport, conventionalized as an old red ‘railway depot’.
He did not know whether she was alive, or living in this town, or what was her
present name. With mounting excitement he looked through the phone book for her
father who might be dead too, somewhere in these twenty years.
No. Judge Harmon Holmes – Hillside 3194.

A woman’s amused voice answered his inquiry for Miss Nancy Holmes.
‘Nancy is Mrs Walter Gifford now. Who is this?’
But Donald hung up without answering. He had found out what he wanted to
know and had only three hours. He did not remember any Walter Gifford and there
was another suspended moment while he scanned the phone book. She might have
married out of town.
No. Walter Gifford – Hillside 1191. Blood flowed back into his fingertips.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello. Is Mrs Gifford there – this is an old friend of hers.’
‘This is Mrs Gifford.’
He remembered, or thought he remembered, the funny magic in the voice.
‘This is Donald Plant. I haven’t seen you since I was twelve years old.’
‘Oh-h-h!’ The note was utterly surprised, very polite, but he could distinguish
in it neither joy nor certain recognition.
‘– Donald!’ added the voice. This time there was something more in it than
struggling memory.
‘... when did you come back to town?’ Then cordially, ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m out at the airport – for just a few hours.’
‘Well, come up and see me.’
‘Sure you’re not just going to bed?’
‘Heavens, no!’ she exclaimed. ‘I was sitting here – having a highball by
myself. Just tell your taxi man ...’
On his way Donald analysed the conversation. His words ‘at the airport’
established that he had retained his position in the upper bourgeoisie. Nancy’s
aloneness might indicate that she had matured into an unattractive woman without
friends. Her husband might be either away or in bed. And – because she was always
ten years old in his dreams – the highball shocked him. But he adjusted himself with
a smile – she was very close to thirty.
At the end of a curved drive he saw a dark-haired little beauty standing
against the lighted door, a glass in her hand. Startled by her final materialization.
Donald got out of the cab, saying:
‘Mrs Gifford?’
She turned on the porch light and stared at him, wide-eyed and tentative. A
smile broke through the puzzled expression.
‘Donald – it is you – we all change so. Oh, this is remarkable!’
As they walked inside, their voices jingled the words ‘all these years’, and
Donald felt a sinking in his stomach. This derived in part from a vision of their last
meeting – when she rode past him on a bicycle, cutting him dead – and in part from
fear lest they have nothing to say. It was like a college reunion – but there the failure
to find the past was disguised by the hurried boisterous occasion. Aghast, he
realized that this might be a long and empty hour. He plunged in desperately.
‘You always were a lovely person. But I’m a little shocked to find you as
beautiful as you are.’
It worked. The immediate recognition of their changed state, the bold
compliment, made them interesting strangers instead of fumbling childhood friends.
‘Have a highball?’ she asked. ‘No? Please don’t think I’ve become a secret
drinker, but this was a blue night. I expected my husband but he wired he’d be two
days longer. He’s very nice, Donald, and very attractive. Rather your type and
colouring.’ She hesitated, ‘– and I think he’s interested in someone in New York –
and I don’t know.’
‘After seeing you it sounds impossible,’ he assured her. ‘I was married for six
years, and there was a time I tortured myself that way. Then one day I just put
jealousy out of my life forever. After my wife died I was very glad of that. It left a very
rich memory – nothing marred or spoiled or hard to think over.’
She looked at him attentively, then sympathetically as he spoke.
‘I’m very sorry,’ she said. And after a proper moment, ‘You’ve changed a lot.
Turn your head. I remember father saying, “That boy has a brain.”’
‘You probably argued against it.’
‘I was impressed. Up to then I thought everybody had a brain. That’s why it
sticks in my mind.’
‘What else sticks in your mind?’ he asked smiling.

Suddenly Nancy got up and walked quickly a little away.

‘Ah, now,’ she reproached him. ‘That isn’t fair! I suppose I was a naughty girl.’
‘You were not,’ he said stoutly. ‘And I will have a drink now.’
As she poured it, her face still turned from him, he continued:
‘Do you think you were the only little girl who was ever kissed?’
‘Do you like the subject?’ she demanded. Her momentary irritation melted and
she said: ‘What the hell! We did have fun. Like in the song.’
‘On the sleigh ride.’
‘Yes – and somebody’s picnic – Trudy James’s. And at Frontenac that – those
summers.’
It was the sleigh ride he remembered most and kissing her cool cheeks in the
straw in one corner while she laughed up at the cold white stars. The couple next to
them had their backs turned and he kissed her little neck and her ears and never her
lips.
‘And the Macks’ party where they played post office and I couldn’t go because
I had the mumps,’ he said.
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘Oh, you were there. And you were kissed and I was crazy with jealousy like I
never have been since.’
‘Funny I don’t remember. Maybe I wanted to forget.’
‘But why?’ he asked in amusement. ‘We were two perfectly innocent kids.
Nancy, whenever I talked to my wife about the past, I told her you were the girl I
loved almost as much as I loved her. But I think I really loved you just as much.
When we moved out of town I carried you like a cannon ball in my insides.’
‘Were you that much – stirred up?’
‘My God, yes! I –’ He suddenly realized that they were standing just two feet
from each other, that he was talking as if he loved her in the present, that she was
looking up at him with her lips half-parted and a clouded look in her eyes.
‘Go on,’ she said, ‘I’m ashamed to say – I like it. I didn’t know you were so
upset then. I thought it was me who was upset.’
 ‘You!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t you remember throwing me over at the drugstore.’
He laughed. ‘You stuck out your tongue at me.’
‘I don’t remember at all. It seemed to me you did the throwing over.’ Her hand
fell lightly, almost consolingly on his arm. ‘I’ve got a photograph book upstairs I
haven’t looked at for years. I’ll dig it out.’
Donald sat for five minutes with two thoughts – first the hopeless impossibility
of reconciling what different people remembered about the same event – and
secondly that in a frightening way Nancy moved him as a woman as she had moved
him as a child. Half an hour had developed an emotion that he had not known since
the death of his wife – that he had never hoped to know again.
Side by side on a couch they opened the book between them. Nancy looked
at him, smiling and very happy.
‘Oh, this is such fun,’ she said. ‘Such fun that you’re so nice, that you
remember me so – beautifully. Let me tell you – I wish I’d known it then! After you’d
gone I hated you.’
‘What a pity,’ he said gently.
‘But not now,’ she reassured him, and then impulsively, ‘Kiss and make up –’
‘... that isn’t being a good wife,’ she said after a minute. ‘I really don’t think I’ve
kissed two men since I was married.’
He was excited – but most of all confused. Had he kissed Nancy? or a
memory? or this lovely trembly stranger who looked away from him quickly and
turned a page of the book?
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘I don’t think I could see a picture for a few seconds.’
‘We won’t do it again. I don’t feel so very calm myself.’
Donald said one of those trivial things that cover so much ground.
‘Wouldn’t it be awful if we fell in love again!’
‘Stop it!’ She laughed, but very breathlessly. ‘It’s all over. It was a moment. A
moment I’ll have to forget.’
‘Don’t tell your husband.’
‘Why not? Usually I tell him everything.’
‘It’ll hurt him. Don’t ever tell a man such things.’
‘All right I won’t.’
‘Kiss me once more,’ he said inconsistently, but Nancy had turned a page and
was pointing eagerly at a picture.
‘Here’s you,’ she cried. ‘Right away!’
He looked. It was a little boy in shorts standing on a pier with a sailboat in the
background.
‘I remember –’ she laughed triumphantly, ‘– the very day it was taken. Kitty
took it and I stole it from her.’
For a moment Donald failed to recognize himself in the photo – then, bending
closer – he failed utterly to recognize himself.
‘That’s not me,’ he said.
‘Oh yes. It was at Frontenac – the summer we – we used to go to the cave.’
‘What cave? I was only three days in Frontenac.’ Again he strained his eyes
at the slightly yellowed picture. ‘And that isn’t me. That’s Donald Bowers. We did
look rather alike.’
Now she was staring at him – leaning back, seeming to lift away from him.
‘But you’re Donald Bowers!’ she exclaimed; her voice rose a little. ‘No, you’re
not. You’re Donald Plant.’
‘I told you on the phone.’
She was on her feet – her face faintly horrified.
‘Plant! Bowers! I must be crazy. Or it was that drink? I was mixed up a little
when I first saw you. Look here! What have I told you?’
He tried for a monkish calm as he turned a page of the book.
‘Nothing at all,’ he said. Pictures that did not include him formed and re#formed before his
eyes – Frontenac – a cave – Donald Bowers – ‘You threw me
over!’
Nancy spoke from the other side of the room.
‘You’ll never tell this story,’ she said. ‘Stories have a way of getting around.’
‘There isn’t any story,’ he hesitated. But he thought: So she was a bad little
girl.
And now suddenly he was filled with wild raging jealousy of little Donald
Bowers – he who had banished jealousy from his life forever. In the five steps he
took across the room he crushed out twenty years and the existence of Walter
Gifford with his stride.
‘Kiss me again, Nancy,’ he said, sinking to one knee beside her chair, putting
his hand upon her shoulder. But Nancy strained away.
‘You said you had to catch a plane.’
‘It’s nothing. I can miss it. It’s of no importance.’
‘Please go,’ she said in a cool voice. ‘And please try to imagine how I feel.’
‘But you act as if you don’t remember me,’ he cried, ‘– as if you don’t
remember Donald Plant!’
‘I do. I remember you too ... But it was all so long ago.’ Her voice grew hard
again. ‘The taxi number is Crestwood 8484.’
On his way to the airport Donald shook his head from side to side. He was
completely himself now but he could not digest the experience. Only as the plane
roared up into the dark sky and its passengers became a different entity from the
corporate world below did he draw a parallel from the fact of its flight. For five
blinding minutes he had lived like a madman in two worlds at once. He had been a
boy of twelve and a man of thirty-two, indissolubly and helplessly commingled.
Donald had lost a good deal, too, in those hours between the planes – but
since the second half of life is a long process of getting rid of things, that part of the
experience probably didn’t matter.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (2000) The Collected Stories, London: Penguin, pp. 573–578.

Can't stop talking about characters

Discuss your ideas about the Fitzgerald story with your fellow writers.

You may have noted that Fitzgerald makes some use of summary; is this effective?
There is little or no use of physical description – is this a deficit?
There is a considerable use of dialogue, so we see the characters in action in a scene; is
the dialogue effective in revealing what characters are like and the sorts of
misunderstanding that arises between them?
In many narratives there might be a preponderance of one particular method over another
at any one time – is there a dominant method of portrayal in this story?
Portraying your character

Experiment with different ways of portraying your character, in line with the suggestions
made by Novakovich.

Writing in the third person (using ‘he’ or ‘she’), try each of the four different ways outlined
below, either in one or two continuous pages, or in four separate paragraphs:

Make a summary of what the character is like.

Show them through appearance.
Show them through a habitual or repeated action.
Finally, show them through a speech in a scene.
Start writing this character in your notebook, on your blog or in a Word document. There’s
no need to post it here.

Even if you used the methods in separate paragraphs, reflect on what you have written to
see if there is any combination of techniques at work in any of the paragraphs.

Self-portrait

There are different kinds of self-portrait characterisations, as identified by Novakovich.

You will recognise, in the first part of Novakovich’s description of the self-portrait method
and the example he gives of Hemingway’s story, a mode very similar to the one you have
already seen in Heller’s Notes on a Scandal, which you looked at in Reading characters.
This involves a direct exposition of a ‘seen’ character accompanied by an indirect
exposition of another character (the narrator).

Novakovich also details a more direct sort of self-portrait with the Dostoyevsky extract.

Now try either of these approaches with your ‘new’ character:

have them either as an explicit first person (‘I’) character narrating themselves
or have them as a narrator who talks about the other character and in doing so reveals
something of themselves.
Write about 250 words or so in your notebook, on your blog or in a Word document.
There’s no need to post it here.

This time you should also make your character desire something, and make the desire
their driving force. It will work best if you make whatever the character desires desirable in
the reader’s eyes too. Think about why they can never have what they want. ‘Three Hours
Between Planes’ is a good example of this.

By giving your character desires and disappointments you will see how this quickly
develops potential stories.

Extract used in ‘Revealing characters’

Josip Novakovich – Fiction Writer’s Workshop

Portraying a character
The way you present a character is at least as important as where you get the
character. Fleshing out your characters in various ways may take up most of the
story. So if you learn how to make your characters act on a stage, in your setting,
you’ll certainly be able to write stories. In this section you’ll find a variety of ways to
portray a character.
Summary
You can tell us outright what your fictional characters are like and what they do. If
you answered the questionnaire at the end of the previous section, you have a rough
character summary. Link the character traits that strike you as the most important
ones, and you’ll have a complete character summary. Here’s a classic summary
from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes:
This gentleman, in the times when he had nothing to do – as was the case for
most of the year – gave himself up to the reading of books of knight errantry;
which he loved and enjoyed so much that he almost entirely forgot his hunting,
and even the care of his estate.
He so buried himself in his books that the spent the nights reading from
twilight till daybreak and the days from dawn till dark; and so from little sleep
and much reading, his brain dried up and he lost his wits.
Cervantes goes on with the summary for several pages, but I think this excerpt
gives you an idea of how summary works. We find out Don Quixote’s work and leisure
habits, hobbies and passions, and the consequences of pursuing these – his
obsession with books results in his illness, madness.
The advantage of this method is its simplicity and readability: The writer quickly
focuses on the main character’s conflict and supplies the background we need to
know. You clearly set up expectations for what follows if you use this method in or
near the beginning of your story. Unless you botch the summary, your reader will
easily understand what the main character traits and conflicts are about.
The disadvantage to this method is that you are bound to tell rather then show what
your character is like – this method makes it hard to see and hear the character.
While the summary goes on, no dramatic action, no dialogue, takes place. We are
waiting. Still, the character summary is often worth risking; after you orient the reader
clearly and quickly, you will not need to stall the dramatic action (in order to supply
the background) once it begins to take place.
Here’s another example of how summary works, from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest
Hemingway. See how quickly we learn the character’s main concerns:
Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not
think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot
to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it
painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he
had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton. There was a certain inner
comfort in knowing he could knock down anybody who was snooty to him,
although, being very shy and a thoroughly nice boy, he never fought except in
the gym.
This is the opening of the novel. There’s no scene for us to visualize, but we receive
the basic outline of the character’s psychology and motivation. Later, we’ll hear the
character speak, see him act, but for now, we have some guiding ideas about him
(and the novel), which will help us understand what follows.
If this approach strikes you as too much ‘telling,’ try to show all the information in a
dramatic scene, and you’ll realize that you’ll need at least several pages to do it.
Since the action Hemingway is concerned with is not in the past but in the dramatic
present (which will follow), to go back into the past dramatically would dissipate the
novel’s focus. The summary gives us the relevant aspects of the past, so we can
stick with the dramatic present. While it’s not the most graceful method, it’s certainly
useful.

Repeated action or habit

This is the most common notion of character – the expectation of how a person will
behave in a given situation, based on the observation that she has behaved like that
many times, that she has the habit. This may be an effective way of describing a
person when you don’t have the time to go into the scenes to show us how she
behaves. Here’s an example from ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’
by Joyce Carol Oates:
She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck
to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own
was all right.
Now we know that in many situations the girl behaves this way. It would take an
awful lot of time to show this habit dramatically. If the sole point of the scenes were
to show her habit, the scenes would be a strain on the reader. Describing it in a
summary will save you time. That’s the advantage. The disadvantage is that doing
this will delay your entry into your main dramatic scenes, where the story takes
place.

Self-portrait
The writer may let the character introduce himself to us. Again, this usually will be a
summary of the basic concerns, at least in the beginning. Notice that a self-portrait
can be achieved indirectly, as Hemingway’s narrator does in the example of
character summary from The Sun Also Rises. The narrator says, ‘Do not think that I
am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.’ In this
sentence we notice a certain sense of superiority, perhaps arrogance, on the part of
the narrator. When he characterizes Robert Cohn as ‘very shy and a thoroughly nice
boy,’ we hear the narrator’s voice. Who would speak of a twenty-year old as a
‘thoroughly nice boy’? We begin to surmise inferences about the narrator. The
narrator’s summary gives us an explicit portrait of Robert Cohn and an implied and
indirect self-portrait. Good economy.

Here’s a direct self-portrait by the narrator of Notes From Underground by Fyodor

Dostoyevsky:
I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man. I am an ugly man. I believe my liver is
diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know
for certain what ails me. I don’t consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I
have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious,
sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to
be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from
spite ... My liver is bad, well – let it get worse!

Here, the advantage over the third-person summary is that the way sentences are
put together, the way of thought, is our picture of the character just as much as the
content of the thoughts. The Underground Man thinks in paradoxes, spitefully, in
intentional self-contradictions. He certainly prepares us for the humorous and self–
destructive acts to follow, so the disadvantages of this method, that it is not dramatic
and that it does not create pictures, are not significant.
Appearance
Image is not everything, but it does account for a lot. Through how a person looks,
you may try to infer what the person is like – but appearances may be deceptive.
Still, to suggest the person’s character, you may select and interpret details, to guide
the reader’s expectations.
George Eliot uses this approach in the following paragraph from Middlemarch:
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by
poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear
sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the blessed Virgin appeared
to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to
gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial
fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible – or from
one of our elder poets – in a paragraph of today’s newspaper.
Eliot draws a portrait of a Victorian lady who drives the modesty of her dress to such
an extreme that we are alerted by it. Immediately after this, Eliot gives us an inkling
of how to interpret the appearance. ‘She was usually spoken of as being remarkably
clever, but with the addition that her sister Celia had more common sense.’ Miss
Brooke is so ascetic that she creates problems for herself; she imprisons herself in a
sterile marriage to a priestly scholar. Her appearance points in the direction of the
key conflict of the novel.
Eliot’s description works like a painting, in which the surface details suggest
character and mood. Sometimes the appearance of a character can indeed attain
the quality of a good drawing, a cameo, as in the following example from ‘Patriotism,’
by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima:
For the beauty of the bride in her white over-robe no comparisons were
adequate. In the eyes, round beneath soft brows, the slender, finely shaped
nose, and in the full lips, there was both sensuousness and refinement. One
hand, emerging shyly from a sleeve of the over-robe, held a fan, and the tips of
the fingers, clustering delicately, were like the bud of a moonflower.
Notice how, in the two above examples, the authors draw the hands more
successfully than the faces. While hands are often more difficult than faces to render
in paintings, in writing it’s the reverse, because writing can capture motion and
activity better than painting can. Hands can do more than faces can – unless we are
mimes, and even with mimes, hands are at least as active as faces. In describing
faces, it’s easy to resort to smiles and frowns, and difficult to strike a fresh image.
With hands, you can play with a large array of possibilities.
You can characterize someone even by his feet or his walk, as does Thomas Hardy
in The Mayor of Casterbridge:
His measured, springless walk was the walk of the skilled countryman as
distinct from the desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn
and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical indifference
personal to himself.
No matter how you describe a character’s appearance, your reader must be able to
see it. If you rely on an adjective and give us little besides, you will probably fail to
make us visualize anything. In his novel The Citadel, British author A.J. Cronin
makes this mistake and gives us an example of what not to do:
Late one October afternoon in the year 1921, a shabby young man gazed with
fixed intensity through the window of a third-class compartment in the almost
empty train labouring up the Penowell valley from Swansea.
This is the opening line from the novel. It accomplishes a lot in terms of setting, but
the adjective shabby adds nothing. Judging from our being in a third-class
compartment, we would get the notion of shabbiness anyhow, and shabby does not
in any way give us the look of the man. The Citadel is an excellent novel, and it’s
good to see that not everything needs to be perfect for a novel to succeed. If you
don’t want to describe appearance, perhaps you can get away with it — but then
don’t pretend that you are depicting. Scratch out the shabby.
Scene
In a scene you set your character in motion. Especially if she’s speaking, you can
show us the character in action, without needing to summarize and generalize,
although you may supplement the scene with a summary.
Christopher Isherwood in ‘Sally Bowles’ draws a character portrait in a scene with
dialogue:
‘Am I terribly late, Fritz darling?’
‘Only half or an hour, I suppose,’ Fritz drawled beaming with proprietary
pleasure. ‘May I introduce Mr. Isherwood – Miss Bowles? Mr. Isherwood is
commonly known as Chris.’
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘Fritz is about the only person who’s ever called me Chris
in my life.’
Sally laughed. She was dressed in black silk, with a small cape over her
shoulders and a little cap like a page-boy’s stuck jauntily on one side of her
head:
‘Do you mind if I use your telephone, sweet?’
‘Sure. Go right ahead.’ Fritz caught my eye. ‘Come into the other room,
Chris.’
‘For heaven’s sake, don’t leave me alone with this man!’ she exclaimed.
‘Or he’ll seduce me down the telephone. He’s most terribly passionate.’
As she dialed the number, I noticed that her fingernails were painted
emerald green, a colour unfortunately chosen, for it called attention to her
hands, which were much stained by cigarette-smoking and as dirty as a little
girl’s.

Here we meet the character through her voice, appearance, action, as though in a
theater, and certainly, she is theatrical. She says, ‘He’s most terribly passionate.’
This string of three adjectives is a kind of sophisticated excess that achieves a
theatrical sound, as though we were listening to an ironic actor. Isherwood guides us
to interpret the details, to see the little girl behind the sophisticated guise. The hands
are as dirty as a little girl’s. Emerald green for fingernail paint seems gaudy and
excessive; in her attempt to appear sophisticated, she fails, but achieves a charm,
especially through her flirtatious talk: ‘He’ll seduce me down the telephone.’ The
advantage of introducing a character in a scene is that we hear the character’s voice
and diction, and we see the person. So when the narrator analyzes this character, he
does not do it abstractly, but in conjunction with what we have seen and
experienced. The scene combines appearance, action and dialogue; it’s a highly
versatile approach. The drawback is that you can’t supply the background easily
without stalling a scene. Sometimes you can introduce a character through action, so
we begin to see her without needing much dialogue, as does Bobbie Ann Mason in
‘Shiloh’:
Leroy Moffitt’s wife, Norma Jean, is working on her pectorals. She lifts three#pound
dumbbells to warm up, then progresses to a twenty-pound barbell.
Standing with her legs apart, she reminds Leroy of Wonder Woman. ‘I’d give
anything if I could just get these muscles to where they’re real hard,’ says
Norma Jean. ‘Feel this arm. It’s not as hard as the other one.’
The advantage of this method is that the reader is immediately with you, visualizing,
experiencing a scene. You can show and suggest what you could have told us about
– such as that Norma Jean is a fitness nut, a bodybuilder, a self-obsessed person.
The scene implies all this information without completely committing such a blatant
interpretation, so it’s less judgmental than a summary to this effect would be. (This is
most lifelike. We watch how people behave, we never see abstract qualities such as
self-obsession – we merely see the signs, symptoms, which we interpret.) The
author leaves the opportunity of judgment to the reader. Whenever you can, show
character traits acted out in scenes. If you are interested in directly judging your
characters, of course, rely on summaries and interpretations. (Judgment does have
its virtues – it’s abstract, possibly philosophical.) The disadvantage to the scenic
characterization method is that it’s awkward to construct scenes that are outside of
the main time frame of the story, unless you do flashbacks and memories. There’s a
limit to how many flashbacks you can handle without destroying the flow of the story.
And there’s a limit to how many things you can show, anyhow. Thus, although
scenes are probably the most attractive method of characterization, you probably
need to resort to summaries of relevant character deeds and inclinations outside of
the story’s time frame.

Combining techniques
Most developed character descriptions combine two or more approaches. During
the course of a novel, we see a character in the ways the author chooses for us. That,
too is lifelike – you hardly ever experience all the aspects of a friend right away. It
takes time – different situations, communications, perceptions, and thoughts.
In Flannery O’Connor’s [story], we see three approaches: habit, summary and
appearance.
The alarm on the clock did not work but he was not dependent on any
mechanical means to awaken him. Sixty years had not dulled his responses;
his physical reactions, like his moral ones, were guided by his will and strong
character, and these could be seen plainly in his features. He had a long tube#like face
with a long rounded open jaw and a long depressed nose. His eyes
were alert but quiet, and in the miraculous moonlight they had a look of
composure and of ancient wisdom as if they belonged to one of the great
guides of men.
‘Strong character’ is an abstract summary. ‘A long tube-like face’ is a caricature,
appearance. ‘He was not dependent on any mechanical means to awaken him’ is a
habit summary. These traits give us a quick synopsis of this man, which lead us into
a scene, where we observe him in action.
Mr. Head went to the stove and brought the meat to the table in the skillet. ‘It’s
no hurry,’ he said. ‘You’ll get there soon enough and it’s no guarantee you’ll like
it when you do neither.’

Now we hear him talk. Later we’ll see him talk and act at greater length, each time
getting to know him better. O’Connor’s approach is incremental.
Here’s a portrait of a paranoid schizophrenic, drawn by summary of habits,
appearance and psychology. In ‘Ward VI,’ Anton Chekhov portrays the character so
gently that he undermines our trust in the diagnosis of madness; later in the story we
begin to perceive Russian psychiatry as mad, so that the character is quite justified
in feeling persecuted.
Ivan Dmitrich Gromov ... is always in a state of agitation and excitement,
always under the strain of some vague undefined expectation. The slightest
rustle in the entry or shout in the yard is enough to make him raise his head
and listen: are they coming for him? Is it him they are looking for?

I like his broad pale face with its high cheekbones ... His grimaces are queer
and morbid, but the fine lines drawn on his face by deep and genuine suffering
denote sensibility and culture, and there is a warm lucid gleam in his eyes. I like
the man himself, always courteous, obliging, and extremely considerate in his
treatment of everyone except Nikita. When anyone drops a button or a spoon,
he leaps from his bed and picks it up.

I think this is an excellent pattern not only combining summary and scene, but also
sympathy. Chekhov treats a type, a paranoid schizophrenic, with enough sympathy
that the type no longer threatens to reduce the human qualities and complexities of
Ivan’s character. Ivan has become a person for us.
Gustave Flaubert portrays Madame Bovary in a succession of different approaches.
Each time we meet her, we see a different aspect of her, in a new light, and in a new
approach:
[Brief Silent Scene] She made no comment. But as she sewed she pricked her
fingers and then put them into her mouth to suck them ...
[Silent Scene, Habit, Appearance] As the room was chilly, she shivered a little
while eating. This caused her full lips to part slightly. She had a habit of biting
them when she wasn’t talking ...
[Psychological Summary] Accustomed to the calm life, she turned away from it
toward excitement. She loved the sea only for its storms, and greenery only
when it was scattered among ruins. She needed to derive immediate
gratification from things and rejected as useless everything that did not supply
this satisfaction. Her temperament was more sentimental than artistic. She
sought emotions and not landscapes.

And later, of course, Flaubert stages Madame Bovary, just as Isherwood does Sally
Bowles. I recommend this pattern of multiple approaches particularly for your main
characters in a novel. If your character is complex enough, you might try all the
approaches you can think of to understand who you are creating. Your readers will
probably get involved, too, trying to understand with you. The trick is to be genuinely
curious about the people populating your fiction.

Novakovich, J. (1995) Fiction Writer’s Workshop, Cincinnati, Ohio: Story Press,

pp.55–66.

Planning your short story

You will now plan a story based on a central character and use techniques and methods
learned so far. You will be able to put these into practice as you write.

Your final short story for this course should be between 750 and 1000 words in length, and
based on a central character. You may want to introduce other characters, but as this is a
very short story it will probably work best if you only have one or two other characters
alongside the main one.

Whatever you choose, the reader should see the story from the main character’s
perspective. You can use first or third person.
Plan what your story will be about. You may already have a clear idea but if not, you can:

look back through your notebook to see whether any of your ideas or observations could
form the basis of this story
look at the exercises you have written so far – even if you didn’t get very far with them,
they might still form a good basis for a story
use one of the ideas we have discussed for characters or ideas for stories, for example,
turn on the radio, or look at newspaper headlines
use the Prompt cloud PDF, available at the bottom of this page, if you need to (often the
marriage of disparate ideas can be very profitable).
Make a note of your plan in your notebook or in a Word document. You are not required to
post your plan.

Starting to write your story

Now’s the time to begin writing your final story that you’ll share in Week 8. Try to write a
draft of 600–750 words initially. Remember you are not aiming to write the perfect version
immediately – you will need to edit and augment, to cut back and make additions as you
develop the piece. The upper word limit will be 1000 words and it is important to bear this
in mind.

Everyone reads over what they’ve written as they go and makes necessary alterations and
adjustments, but try to get to the end of the draft before you move on to do any serious
editing. We will get to more detailed editing advice shortly.

Summary of Week 6

This week you’ve learned how to develop characters using research, accident and
empathy, and had the opportunity to test this out.

You have also discussed different types of character with your fellow writers. You will have
now planned and started writing your short story, putting all you have learned about
developing character into practice.

In Week 7, you’ll explore the benefits of reading as a writer and learn how to give
feedback, while you continue to write and edit your short story.

Learning from reading

Writing without reading is to write in the dark: it might work, but it’s an unnecessary
handicap. Reading should be an important part of your writing career. Find out how to read
as a writer, and learn from what you read.
You’re nearly there! Welcome to Week 7 of Start Writing Fiction. As we’ve seen, reading is
an all-important way of feeding your own work. What you’ve started to do is read as a
writer. Seeing how other people do things is invaluable.

Writing without reading is to write in the dark: it might work, but it’s a handicap.
Being well-read isn’t just about quantity but more a question of immersion, and
familiarising yourself with how books feel. Reading is another way of developing the ‘habit’
of writing.

Books are a great comfort to any writer: you can see how others have faced the
same problems you face. When you’re reading as a writer, even people’s ‘mistakes’ are
invaluable. If you think a book doesn’t work, just articulating why will be useful. This week
we’ll hear from authors Louis de Bernieres, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland talking
about the importance of reading. You’ll get to write a review of a book or story you’ve
enjoyed, as well as reading an extract from Toni Morrison’s novel Jazz. You’ll hone your
critical and editing skills. And you’ll start editing and redrafting your final story.

The value of reading novels and short stories

Throughout this course you have read stories and extracts from established writers.
Reading is an important way to expand your own work.

A writer has permanent access to the best teaching: in novels and short stories. In terms of
technique, nothing is or can be hidden: it’s all there on the page. It’s up to the person
reading as a writer to ‘unpack’ how a novel has been made.

Starting out, and throughout a writer’s career, seeing how other people do things is
invaluable. Writing without reading is to write in the dark: it might work, but it’s an
unnecessary handicap.

Enrichment from reading

Louis de Bernières, Patricia Duncker, Tim Pears and Alex Garland

Here novelists talk about the importance of reading and how it enriches their work, but also
about the influence of film.

As you’re listening to Louis de Bernières, Patricia Duncker, Tim Pears and Alex Garland,
make a note of:

what reading – or viewing – appears to be important for them

how you think reading influences their writing
how cinematic storytelling influences the way a novelist tells and structures a story.
LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES:
I think that if you don’t read, you don’t get anything out. You don’t get
any writing done. It’s pointless wanting to be a writer if you’re not a
reader. I read every day in the bath til the water goes cold; that’s just
novels, fiction and stuff, and for research I do with my feet up on the
kitchen table, you know, that sort of thing. And I do, I do a lot of reading.
Through my life I’ve had crazes for various writers, so an awful long list
now. My longest craze was for various Latin American writers which I
think is very obvious from my style. But other, otherwise I’ve had my
Tolstoy craze and my Henry James craze and my Steinbeck craze and
my Hermann Hesse craze you know, when I was a student and
everyone was looking for the meaning of life. I had a little Jane Austen
craze a couple of years ago and an Iris Murdoch one, well I read a lot of
them and then, and then stop and go on to something else.

PATRICIA DUNCKER:
Read everything, read all the time. Read in as catholic a way as possible.
Read fiction if you’re a prose fiction writer, read widely in fiction, read a lot
of non-fiction, go to the theatre, read everything you can get your hands on.
Because, the more you read and the more you absorb, the denser, the
richer your own texts will become.

TIM PEARS:
Literature is a huge world, and if you can get inside it through writing,
somehow you’re into the driving seat of something very special, and
reading is going to be a far richer experience, and it’s something that you’re
doing as a sort of, as a co-conspirator almost.

ALEX GARLAND:
I’m a big film fan, I love watching films. The film I wish I’d written, the one
I’d loved to have written more than any other would probably be Taxi
Driver, I’d have thought. But yeah, they’re big influences and, I think,
because I come from a background of comic strips, the way the films
work and the way comic strips work are very, very similar and in terms of
setting scenes, and stuff. In novels I always used to think in comic strip
terms, almost like you’d have an establishing shot, so you’d set the
scene, and then you’d zoom in on a character, and you’d look at these,
so, you’d have set the scene so now you can really just deal with these
two characters talking and maybe pull away at one point, there’s a bit in
The Beach where some people are sitting on a beach and they’re
chatting and, and then you sort of cut away to kid who’s knocking a ball
around on a beach and then you cut back to them and that’s very like
comic strip but it’s also very like a film.

Reviewing your story

You will now have left the story you wrote in Starting to write your story for a short while –
hopefully for at least a few days. Return to it and read it through.
Consider your story in light of discussions around published novels in Formulating and
sharing technical opinion.

Are there any aspects in your own work that tally with elements you enjoyed reading in the
published novels?
Are there any aspects that you noticed about published novels where the writing was seen
to be ‘working’ that are relevant to your writing?

Editing your story

Remember that your short story has to be ready soon, so you should continue to review it,
and start rewriting and editing it as necessary.

Editing your writing is very important – some would say the most important aspect of
writing. It’s often said that anyone can write but only writers can edit. Now that you have
written your first draft and left it to settle for a while, you will need to go back and reflect on
what you have written, and make changes accordingly.

Don’t be afraid to cut large parts of it if necessary.

As we have already discussed, you might find that when you have got into the story you
can go back and cut out the opening sentences. Remember the ‘Emma said’ exercises in
Finding a voice. Some openings may well have been used as a way to get into writing the
story, or a particular passage, but the story might be more vibrant and enticing without
them.
Remember that you are aiming to develop a character who is complex and not too
predictable.
Remember that you are aiming to make the story as interesting and intriguing for the
reader as you can.
Reflect on all your reading and any tricks or techniques that you see in the novels and
stories that might help you.
Also reflect on the reading you’ve done that displays techniques and approaches that don’t
seem, to you, to be working.

Ongoing book reviews

Noticing details about the construction of language, plot and story in what you read will
help form your own writing taste and style.

As you’ve done in Formulating and sharing technical opinion, note in your journal the
books you read, and what you think of them. Note why you like or dislike them; what you
think works or doesn’t work. This ongoing engagement with your reading will feed into your
writing practice.

At the time, these notes might seem very slight – perhaps just a jotting down of the
impression a novel left you with. But with hindsight, such notes will help you to ‘place’
yourself, to form your own taste and style, to act as reminders of what you have been
thinking, and of what you might have hoped for about your own writing.
These notes might also very easily suggest an idea for a piece of writing of your own.
Even the simplest observations might be valuable. For example:

• How long is the short story or novel?

• Are there chapters? Sections? Parts?
• If it’s a short story, how is it structured?
• When and where is it set, do/how do these things appear to matter, and how are
they conveyed?
• From whose point of view is the story being told? Is it the story of one, or more than
one of the characters?
• Is there dialogue? If so, what does it contribute to the story? What does it tell you of
the characters?
• Is the language modern, plain, elaborate, colloquial?
• Are there short or long sentences?
• Are the sentences ‘properly formed’, or broken down? For example, ‘Get this.
Bravery. That wasn’t even in it. Heroism? Maybe that was nearer the mark.’
• Would you say that the story was a ‘page-turner’?
• Is it full of ‘researched facts’?
• Is there much ‘internal’ psychological or emotional detail, or is most of the novel or
story taken up with ‘external’ events or description?
• How do you learn of the main characters?
• Are the minor characters sufficiently clear or too flat?
• In your opinion, is it clearly aimed at a certain type of reader?

Jazz

Read the extract from the opening pages of Toni Morrison’s novel, Jazz from the PDF.
Consider its overall impact, and whether you think it works.

Is it a page turner? Also, think about the following:

setting
point of view
type of language
sentence structure.
Identifying the techniques and methods of other writers will influence and help your own
style.

Extracts used in ‘Jazz’

Toni Morrison – Jazz
Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue.
Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those
deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep
the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see
the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church.
She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she
took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly,
including the parrot that said, ‘I love you.’
 The snow she ran through was so windswept she left no footprints in it, so for
a time nobody knew exactly where on Lenox Avenue she lived. But, like me, they
knew who she was, who she had to be, because they knew that her husband, Joe
Trace, was the one who shot the girl. There was never anyone to prosecute him
because nobody actually saw him do it, and the dead girl’s aunt didn’t want to throw
money to helpless lawyers or laughing cops when she knew the expense wouldn’t
improve anything. Besides, she found out that the man who killed her niece cried all
day and for him and for Violet that is as bad as jail.
Regardless of the grief Violet caused, her name was brought up at the
January meeting of the Salem Women’s Club as someone needing assistance, but it
was voted down because only prayer – not money – could help her now, because
she had a more or less able husband (who needed to stop feeling sorry for himself),
and because a man and his family on 134th Street had lost everything in a fire. The
Club mobilized itself to come to the burnt-out family’s aid and left Violet to figure out
on her own what the matter was and how to fix it.
She is awfully skinny, Violet; fifty, but still good looking when she broke up the
funeral. You’d think that being thrown out the church would be the end of it – the
shame and all – but it wasn’t. Violet is mean enough and good looking enough to
think that even without hips or youth she could punish Joe by getting herself a
boyfriend and letting him visit in her own house. She thought it would dry his tears up
and give her some satisfaction as well. It could have worked, I suppose, but the
children of suicides are hard to please and quick to believe no one loves them
because they are not really here.
Anyway, Joe didn’t pay Violet or her friend any notice. Whether she sent the
boyfriend away or whether he quit her, I can’t say. He may have come to feel that
Violet’s gifts were poor measured against his sympathy for the brokenhearted man in
the next room. But I do know that mess didn’t last two weeks. Violet’s next plan – to
fall back in love with her husband – whipped her before it got on a good footing.
Washing his handkerchiefs and putting food on the table before him was the most
she could manage. A poisoned silence floated through the rooms like a big fishnet
that Violet alone slashed through with loud recriminations. Joe’s daytime listlessness
and both their worrying nights must have wore her down. So she decided to love –
well, find out about – the eighteen-year-old whose creamy little face she tried to cut
open even though nothing would have come out but straw.
Violet didn’t know anything about the girl at first except her name, her age,
and that she was very well thought of in the legally licensed beauty parlor. So she
commenced to gather the rest of the information. Maybe she thought she could solve
the mystery of love that way. Good luck and let me know.
She questioned everybody, starting with Malvonne, an upstairs neighbor – the
one who told her about Joe’s dirt in the first place and whose apartment he and the
girl used as a love nest. From Malvonne she learned the girl’s address and whose
child she was. From the legally licensed beauticians she found out what kind of lip
rouge the girl wore; the marcelling iron they used on her (though I suspect that girl
didn’t need to straighten her hair); the band the girl liked best (Slim Bates’ Ebony
Keys which is pretty good except for his vocalist who must be his woman since why
else would he let her insult his band). And when she was shown how, Violet did the
dance steps the dead girl used to do. All that. When she had the steps down pat –
her knees just so – everybody, including the ex-boyfriend, got disgusted with her and
I can see why. It was like watching an old street pigeon pecking the crust of a
sardine sandwich the cats left behind. But Violet was nothing but persistent and no
wisecrack or ugly look stopped her. She haunted PS-89 to talk to teachers who knew
the girl. JHS-139 too because the girl went there before fooling around in vocational
classes, since there were no high schools in that district a colored girl could attend.
And for a long time she pestered the girl’s aunt, a dignified lady who did fine work off
and on in the garment district, until the aunt broke down and began to look forward to
Violet’s visits for a chat about youth and misbehavior. The aunt showed all the dead
girl’s things to Violet and it became clear to her (as it was to me) that this niece had
been hardheaded as well as sly.
One particular thing the aunt showed her, and eventually let Violet keep for a
few weeks, was a picture of the girl’s face. Not smiling, but alive at least and very
bold. Violet had the nerve to put it on the fireplace mantel in her own parlor and both
she and Joe looked at it in bewilderment.
It promised to be a mighty bleak household, what with the birds gone and the
two of them wiping their cheeks all day, but when spring came to the City Violet saw,
coming into the building with an Okeh record under her arm and carrying some
stewmeat wrapped in butcher paper, another girl with four marcelled waves on each
side of her head. Violet invited her in to examine the record and that’s how that
scandalizing threesome on Lenox Avenue began. What turned out different was who
shot whom.

Morrison, T. (1992) Jazz, London: Chatto & Windus, p. 6.

Editing revisited

Continue editing your short story, and consider the points we’ve just explored:

• setting
• point of view
• type of language
• sentence structure.

Summary of Week 7

Reading the work of other writers is a valuable learning tool for every writer. This week you
learned the skills necessary to assess writing in an analytical way.

You have also reviewed and edited your story and learned how to give and receive
feedback.

Week 8 is the final week of the course. You’ll submit your short story for review, receive
feedback and explore where to take your writing next.

Sharing and reflecting on writing

Submit your story then take time to learn from your fellow writers. Read and comment on
the final stories of your fellow writers and make notes in your journal.
Sharing your story
You should be coming to the end of the editing of your short story. It may not be exactly as
you want it to be, and you may still have some time to continue to work on it.

For now, though, bring it to a point where you are relatively happy with it. Then submit it for
your fellow writers to review. Do not exceed the 1000 words. Length limits are important
and can help instil discipline in your writing and in many circumstances they are there for a
reason (as with story competitions).

Remember: if your writing contains graphic material, you must put a warning in brackets
after your title, for example, ‘(explicit content)’ or ‘(strong language)’. (For more
information, see Before you start

Assignment Guidelines
The reviewers will be asked to give you feedback on the following aspects of your
assignment, so you should consider these when writing:

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the character portrayals?

Were there any very clear, or any confusing, elements of the story which related to
approaches taught on Start Writing Fiction?
Did the story have a plot, causality and conflict? How did it engage you?

Being your own critic

Before reading any comments on your story or posting comments on stories by your fellow
writers, write a short reflection passage in your journal on what you think of your work.

This should be 200–300 words; analyse what you feel is working well and less well in the
story:

• Are the main characters consistent and clear?

• Have they enough conflict and interest?
• Is the setting established?
• Have you done enough research?
• What would you like to develop further?
• Do the language, style and voice fit the characters and content?
•

Benefits of group work

Often, you can learn as much, if not more, from making commentaries about the work of
your peers, as you can from the feedback on your own work.
In courses on creative writing, such as those offered at The Open University, writers get to
read and contemplate the feedback that other writers provide, not only on their own work
but on the work of other students.

This course has given you a glimpse of the sort of work undertaken in the writing process,
along with the sort of collaborative workshops and critiquing that typify further creative
writing study.

Obviously, you will be particularly interested in the feedback on your story, but in the first
instance try to be patient and study the work of your fellow writers. This will help you to
better gauge the feedback on your own story.

Learning from others’ successes and failures is one of the great benefits of studying
creative writing in a group – it accelerates your development as a writer. There are
tremendous benefits to be gained from commenting on each other’s work and working with
fellow writers who have a mutual interest in giving feedback.

Editing again

Work on editing your story on the basis of the comments you have received. This may take
you some time. That is quite normal.

Remember what was said about receiving feedback:

In assessing comments you receive from others on your work you may wish to rewrite your
story. You may wish to tweak it a little or just leave it as it is. You may choose to accept
some comments and reject others.
It’s important to keep a balanced attitude when receiving comments about your work.
Always remember that some of it will be useful, but some of it won’t. You are the final
arbiter of what you take on board and what you reject.
Remember that receiving comments from others just helps speed up the editing process.

Reflecting again

It pays dividends to not only pause when receiving comments on work but also to write
about it.

Think about these questions:

• How did you go about the rewrite and why?

• What editorial criticisms did you reject and why?
• Did you agree with all of the recommendations? Sometimes the most difficult thing
to do is to cut an apparently successful aspect of a story because it jars with the
rest of the story. It might be good but doesn’t fit.
• What do you consider to be working well in the story?
• What in the story still needs work?
 • How did the editorial comments compare to your own earlier reflection on the story
– the one you wrote in Being your own critic?

Write a reflection in your notebook of 200–300 words on your responses to the editorial
comments and your subsequent decisions. You don’t need to post this reflection.

Next, you’ll reflect in a different way, in a quiz summarising your journey on this course.

Well done! You’ve nearly completed Start Writing Fiction. You will hopefully now know
more than you did about what creative writing is. You’ll have picked up on the importance
of character, and be aware of the importance of reading, using a notebook and editing.
This course is designed to give you tools that help with your writing. But eight weeks is
such a very short time, and it can’t be more than a starting point. Writing is an ongoing
activity, and the only way to develop as a writer is to keep doing it. We hope you feel
inspired by the work you have done so far, and that you’ll use the ideas we have explored
here to take your writing further.

The next steps

Now you’ve started writing fiction, where will it take you? The only way to develop as a
writer is to keep doing it.

Start Writing Fiction is designed to give you tools that help with your writing. But eight
weeks is a very short time, and it cannot be more than a starting point. Writing is an
ongoing activity, and the only way to develop as a writer is to keep doing it.

We hope that you feel inspired by the work you have done during the course, and that
you’ll use the ideas we have explored here to take your writing further. Find out how
Creative Writing is taught at The Open University. You can find out more and register your
interest on the next step.