CREATIVE WRITING

Prof. Victor Rey Fumar

LET Competencies
 Apply the theories and principles in creative writing.
 Identify the methods, approaches, techniques, and strategies in teaching creative
writing.
 Evaluate and analyze the creative process involved in public literary works.
 Exhibit a better understanding of literary genres,, their nature, elements and forms.

Part 1 - Content Update

I. Fiction Writing

A. Definition of Fiction

Fiction - Fiction tells an untrue story in prose. Fiction is “untrue” in the sense that it is
at least partly made up. It is an artistic creation that stands on its own no matter how
much it makes use of characters, events, and settings from life.

Simple Versus Sophisticated Fiction

 Simple fiction not only reduces the complexity of the plot, but it usually avoids
originality as well. Simple plots tend to be based on well-used conventions known as
“formulas.” - Traditional

 Sophisticated fiction tends to avoid the hackneyed and the bizarre. The setting is
used as a way of increasing credibility and placing the reader in the center of the
story regardless of whether it is based on the actual place or upon the dreamscape of
the author. - That goes beyond what is conventional.

B. Forms of Fiction

Short Story - The short story usually refers to a work that is from 2000 to 6000 words
from eight to 24 pages. The short story limits the author’s ability to develop character
interrelationships between characters, setting, and plot.

Novella - The Novella is halfway between a story and a novel. It is often thought of as
between 50 and 150 manuscript pages.

Novel - The novel form is really more than just a story that has been expanded beyond
250 pages - or it should be. The writer can introduce many more characters than in the
story or novella, and some of them can change and develop over the course of time.

Sudden Fiction

- A woman is sitting in her old, shuttered house. She knows that she is alone in the world;
every other thing is dead.
- The doorbell rings
Thomas Bailey Aldrich

C. Sources of Fiction

(Debra Spark, 1999)

 Finding the trigger- “benign plagiarism”
 Triggers give rise to questions
 Freedom from reality
 Selecting from the clutter
 Trusting the unknown
 Experience and invention
D. Elements of Fiction

1. Setting - ( Richard Russo, 1999)

 Discovering your place - the place is character.

 Interior Place - interior setting has come to mean, basically, an indoor place.
Good writers understand that the objects people own comment on them at times
even define them.

 Exterior Place - the relationship between character and exterior setting is more
mysterious. The things we own can own us in return.

 Destiny in Place - in the end, the only compelling reason to pay more attention
to place, to exterior setting, is the belief or the faith, that place and its people are
intertwined, that place is character, and to know the rhythms, the textures, the
feel of a place is to know more deeply and truly its people.

 ADVICE
1. Describe selectively (1)
2. See clearly from the start (2)
3. Create distance (3)
4. Use research selectively (4)

2. Character and Characterization (Kim Edwards, 1999)

 The Iceberg Theory - The idea being that what’s unstated must nonetheless
exist clearly in the author’s mind for a character to have sufficient depth. Much
what readers know about any given character is never stated explicitly but is
rather submerged in a way the character speaks and moves and thinks and all of
this, in turn is shaped by the author’s knowledge of each character.

 The Importance of Truth - Good fiction reveals worlds previously unknown,

or sheds new light on the familiar. Perhaps the most important truth begin with is
the authentic transfer or emotion from author to character.

 Historical Inspiration - Sometimes authors take the idea of using a true fact or
a true line one step further, and use an actual historical character as an
inspiration for a fictional one.

 Following Voice - The choice of voice is crucial to establishing character. Voice

reveals perspective and personality traits. The effect of voice is easiest to see in
first-person narration, where word choice, syntax, pacing, and emphasis all
establish the speaker’s character.

 Letting Characters Surprise - a-like their real life counterparts, fictional

characters have habits, personality traits, and framework of beliefs, all of which
determine their reactions to situations. Yet, there is no single way for each
character to behave. Just as we sometimes astonish ourselves, our characters,
too. Must have the capacity to take us by surprise.

 Living in the World - Fictionist and their characters both don’t live in a
vacuum. Our interactions with the events of the world keep us in a continual
state of discovery about our own hidden selves, so, too, our characters reveal
themselves through their exchanges with others.

 Breaking through the Ice - Characters are the beating heart of any story. Who
people are defines what they do, how they respond to a given situation they must
step out of the icy region between the unknown and the imagined, melt through
barriers and emerge into the world, vibrant, radiant and alive.

3. Point of View ( Valerie Miner, 1999 )

  First Person - employs the “I” voice and sometimes the “we” voice. This point
of view implies intimacy and makes a dramatic story even more immediate. A
first-person protagonist narrator often heightens reader’s sympathy with certain
characters because the storytelling appears more personal.

 Second Person - affords a different kind of intimacy, whether we imagine “you”

as a listener, as the narrator’s alter ego, as a particular third party or as an
anonymous character tracing his or her way through the story. The most familiar
literary use of the second person is in romantic poetry, when a loved one is
addressed directly.

My son, when you asked me this evening how many Japanese had I killed during the war,
and I answered you in the negative, I saw disappointment cross your facee and smirk
play on your lips.
” To kill the Enemy,’ Roman A. Dela Cruz

 Third Person - the two most common forms of contemporary fiction are third-
person limited and third-person narrative.

- In third limited narrative, the story is told from the point of view of a participant
in the action, although that character is not directly speaking. It does allow more
latitude than first person for physical and emotional description.

- In third person omniscient narrative, the omniscient speaker often knows more
(bout tomorrow, for instance, or about the motives of minor character) than can be
expressed in third-person limited.

 Shifting, Multiple-Person Point of View - Can reach beyond catharsis to

illustrate the multiplicity of truth. Such complex narrative strategy requires a lot
of the reader, much in the way multimedia art stimulates audience members to
use various physical senses and understanding of temporality.
.
 Persona - Person is born of persona. Successful fiction requires the writer’s
understanding about the standpoint, character, and tone of the narrative persona (
the speaker, the actual teller of the story ). It is the personality assumed by the
narrator.

4. Plot, Structure and Narrative (John Barth, 1999)

 Dramaturgy means the management of plot and action; the architecture of a

story, as distinct from such other aspects as language, character, and theme.

 Curve of dramatic action - dramatic action is conventionally described as

rising to some sort of climatic peak or turning point and then falling to some sort
of resolution or denouement.

5. Voice (Sylvia Watanabe, 1999)

 Author’s Voice - writers have to find their voice either by imitation or by

expressive writing. In contrast to the imitative approach which attempts to
reproduce the surface features of a style, expressive writing focuses inward - on
an author’s deepest thoughts and emotions.

 The Habit of Art - a writer’s style is a cumulative phenomenon that accrues

over a body of work. “Art is the habit of the artist,” says Flannery O’Connor.

 Elements of a Story’s Voice

 Voice and Genre

- Different genres emphasize different aspects of voice; conversely, a writer’s choice
regarding voice can completely transform a genre.

 Voice and Point of View

- Classical poetics distinguishes between three kinds of voices; the ego-poetic, the
narrative, and the dramatic, each with a corresponding point of view and appropriate
range of subjects. The first is somewhat analogous to first-person or internal narration;
the second, to omniscient or external narration; the third, to limited omniscient or
external narration with limited filter.

 Voice and Use of Detail

- The voice of piece of fiction varies greatly according to the author’s handling of detail.
Detail can be sparse and unstated or meticulously graphic Realist fiction presents detail
as a seamless surface; postmodernist fiction, a fragmented, discontinuous surface.

 Voice Still Mystified - don’t go looking for your voice; write a story.

6. Style ( Karen Salyer McElmurray, 1999)

Style is how you say what you say. Style is the way words take on an identity on the
page. It is a kind of ownership agreement, in which any given writer lays claim, with his
or her identity, to an arrangement of words turned into self revealing lines, turned into a
‘work’ of fiction, nonfiction, poetry.

 Minimalism is characterized by flatness of narrative tone, sparseness of a story,

a striking restraint in prose style. Sparseness in place, descriptive detail, and
characterization is balanced by emphasis on dialogue and seemingly
dispassionate narrators who experience disconcerting distance from even the
most consequential of events.Ex. Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, Ernest
Hermingway

- The micro level begins with a sentence or smaller than that with a word. The first
task is to eliminate redundancy. Make the story, on its own minimal level, have a
purpose. Apply its specificity.

 Maximalism is characterized by profusion, is about vastness - of space, time and

vision. Narratives may occur on more than one level of time, in more than one
place. Maximalist work is vision, and vision made literal. The interior world is
not implied; it is present in the profusion of language or a page. History becomes
a palpable presence, a ghost of memory visible. Time becomes fluid, not a
question of length, but of depth and density. Example Cormac McCarthy, Toni
Morrison

- The macro approach implies attention to the larger question of story intent, or the
“heart” of the story. Follow, as Socrates said, where the question leads. Your story is
about what? And then what? And then?

- The boundaries between minimalism and maximalism are permeable. One kind of
style enhances another, and just as there are no hard-and-fast rule for when to use a
particular point of view or a particular plot structure, style itself is a mystery that
evolves, as the skills and voice of writers evolve, with practice and experimentation.

E. Varieties of Plot Patterns

1. Flashback - The flashback is a simple method of inserting an episode that occurred

previous to the main flow (or base time) of the plot.

2. Multiple Flashback - The multiple flashback are sometimes used when the author
wants to suggest a complicated set of clues leading to a symbolic or a literal trial.

3. Flash-forward - The flash-forward or prolepsis gives the reader a sudden, clear-eyed

glimpse into the future.

4. Frame Story - The frame story traditionally refers to a tale told by a character
appearing in a larger work, such as the separate narrations within the A thousand and
One Nights, Decameron and Canterbury Tales.
5. Figure Eight - The figure eight loops time around a central moment or keeps returning
to the same image or central event. A story begins at one point in time, then leaps
backward, returning gradually, in scenes, to the story’s opening, then continues forward
to show more scenes that follow the events of the opening and have been irrevocably
affected by it.

6. Reverse Order - The reverse order marches the characters into the past. The technique
depends on the power of the stories behind a story. Examples are Charles Baxter’s First
Light and Martin Amis’ Time’s Arrow.

7. Out of Sequence - The out of sequence works best when the information is scrambled,
or given out of sequence. An example is William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” which
relies in part upon the suspense created as information is slowly given to the reader.

8. Chronological Order - The chronological order is a narrative device used in our

oldest stories. The innovative writer Gilbert Sorrentino favors chronological order “
because then the reader doesn’t know what is going to happen next”.

F. Characterization

 Characterization is an illusion based on three elements:

 Consistency refers to patterns of behaviour, outlook, dress, and the like.

Consistency of character is one of the basic assumptions we make about
people in real life, and it is also the fundamental assumption upon which
fictional characterization is built.

 Complexity develops more than one aspect of a character. You can do this
by establishing a pattern, countering it in some way and then showing how
both elements are a part of the whole character. Complexity, then involves
adding at least one other aspect to the character’s original pattern.

 Individuality is simply a function of complexity. A many-sided character

who remains credible is apt to seem individual or unique. Often it is the
unlikely occupation, the usual commitment, the striking disability that
serves to make a character vivid and memorable.

 Techniques of developing characterization:

 Direct analysis of a character

 The use of significant action
 The use of dialogue and thoughts
 Physical descriptions
 Blending the various techniques

G. Narrative Tension

Tension is the recurring force that maintains the sense of forward motion throughout a
story or novel.

Techniques in creating tension;

 Dramatic Conflict is the mainspring of simple fiction and drama. Sophisticated

fiction often combines some type of visible, external conflict with inner conflict.

 Arousing curiosity can be done by means of dramatic question (also called the
hook) and by suspense and shock. The element that arouses curiosity is the
dramatic question. Suspense is simply a heightened form of curiosity. Shock
is also used to create a tension, but it cannot be sustained; it’s generally a single
flash.

 Irony and Satire. Verbal Irony occurs when characters make statements that
are knowingly different or even opposite of what they really mean. In casual
 conversation we sometimes call it sarcasm. Dramatic Irony is similar except
that the character making the statement does not understand that it is ironic. It is
also called unconscious irony.

H. Theme, Tone, Symbol, and Style

 Theme, also called the central concern, serves as a reminder we are not dealing
with something as logically specific as a thesis or as ethically concerned as a
moral.

 Tone is a variable regardless of the subject matter. It is the coloring of the

emotion.

 Symbol is any detail that takes on a range of meaning beyond and larger than
itself.

 Style is determine by four factors;

1. Diction - word choice

2. Syntax - (sentence structure)
3. The balance of narrative modes - dialogue, thoughts, action,
description, and exposition and;
4. Tense - (present or past tense)

I. The Source of (Bad) Fiction (Stephen Minot, 1999)

 The High-tech Melodrama - a melodrama is any piece of fiction or drama that

is overloaded with dramatic suspense. Unlike true drama, it is overdone. The
competitive nature of television keeps many scriptwriters hovering on the border
between drama and melodrama.

 The Adolescent Tragedy - The adolescent period is an excellent one for

sophisticated fiction as long as you keep your material genuine and fresh in
detail. But there are three dangerous pitfalls; lack of perspective, unconventional
borrowing from slick and conventionalized fiction, and sentimentality.

 The Poe Gimmick - Edgar Allan Poe was a master of the strange, the bizarre,
and the surprise ending. His stories remain popular, but they provide poor
models for contemporary writers.

 Mock Faulkner - Imitation deprives writers their own voice at best and
sometimes results in unintended satire. Hemingway's sparse style can be a
problem, but Faulkner's opaque scenes of the southern decadence and
occasional violence simply self-destruct when imitated in short stories.

 The Yuppie Gone Wrong - This is done of the most common patterns in
collage writing courses. The protagonist is a young, upwardly mobile individual
who has put career and love of material object ahead of personal relationships
and spiritual values.

 The Trials and Tribulations of an Incorruptible Writer - The protagonist

walks up and down a beach, planning a great novel. The protagonist resists the
invitations of fun-loving friends and spurns an offer to join a major advertising
firm. In the end, he sticks to his principles.

 The Free-Flying fantasy - This technique of aimless composition is not to be

confused with stream of consciousness writing.
J. Six Critical Question

1. Are the primary characters convincing or, in the case of satire, effective? 2. Is the story
constructed successfully?
3. Does the story contain the type of tensions that keep fiction alive and interesting?
4. What is the theme? Is it sophisticated enough to be fresh and evocative?
5. Is the setting vivid, and does it contribute to the theme?
6. Is the tone effective?

II. Poetry Writing

A. What is a Poem?

• Four Characteristics of Poetry ( Stephen Minot, 1988)

1. Line Graph — Poets determine the length of each verse they write; it is part of the art
form itself. Meter is based on a specific number of stressed and unstressed syllables in
each line, so the length of the line is determined in advance by the metrical scheme the
poet adopts.

2. The Heightened Use of Sound — Rhyme is a device that ends two lines with the
same sound; it can be muted to keep it from becoming obtrusive. There are other ways to
link words by sound: alliteration (matching the initial consonant sounds of words),
alliteration (internal syllables which echo each other.)

3. Use of Rhythm — Rhythm is a systematic variation in flow of sound. Some poets use
a recurring pattern based on the number of syllables per line. Others arrange long and
short lines on the page in such a way as to highlight certain phrases or even trip the
reader.

4. Compression — Poems usually say a lot in a few words. This is done through the use
of language which suggests much more than the immediate, surface meaning.

The Language of Poetry ( Stephen Minot, 1998)

Levels of usage

 Poetry often deals with personal and insights, so it frequently uses a vocabulary
that is more varied and phrasing that is denser in implication than what we might
use in a casual letter to a friend.

 The poet's task is to find the appropriate words and phrases, not fancy ones.
What is appropriate for one poem may not be for another.

 Effective language is that which is appropriate to the tone of the poem and to
the persona.

Four Primary Dangers in Poetic Diction

 Cliché is a dying metaphor; an expression that was once fresh enough to create a
clear picture in the reader's mind but has now lost its vitality through constant use.
Examples are — nip in the bud, busy as a bee, packed like sardines, clean as a
whistle.
Dealing with a cliché; (1) work hard to find a fresh simile or metaphor (2) drop the
comparison completely and deal with the subject directly, and (3) twist the cliché around
so that it is reborn in some slightly altered form.

 Hackneyed language includes not only the cliche but the far broader areas or
phrases that have simply been overused. It also includes description that has been
seen in print too long to provide impact. Examples are — golden resplendent,
magnificent, or richly scarlet to describe the sunset; radiant, infectious, or glowing to
describe smiles.

 Abstraction and sweeping generalities — it is equally dangerous to allow a poem

that was originally inspired by some genuine experience or personal reaction to slide
into generalities.
▪ Try to deal with the details as precisely as possible.
▪ Find a set of images that will make the familiar abstraction fresh and convincing.
 Archaic diction -- takes the form of time-honored dated contractions such as "o"ed'
and "oft" as substitution for "over" and "often". It also includes the use of words like
"10!" "hark" "ere" and even "O!"

 Achieving Vitality in Language

▪ Look for phrasing that will catch the attention of readers. Give the fresh insights and
new ways of looking at the familiar.
▪ Find nouns that are solid, specific and visual. Take a second look at every adjective in
your draft and see if selecting a different noun will do the job. Examples — big hills
(mountains), howling wind(gale)
▪ Find verbs that are specific. The right verb rarely needs to be modified.
▪ Use the language of your own age, and adapt it to your persona. Compress. Compress.
Compress.

B. Images (Stephen Minot, 1988)

- An image is any significant piece of sense data. It includes objects seen, sounds
heard, texture felt, odors smelled, and objects tasted. An image refers to an object seen or
perceived by the other senses regardless of whether that word is used literally or
figuratively. Images tend to be concrete nouns.

• Using five senses

Images

The song you sang you will not sing again,

Floating in the spring to all your local places,
Lured by archaic sense to the wood
To watch the frog jump from the mossy rock
To listen to the stream's small talk at dark,
Or feel the springy pine-floor where you walk —
If your green secrecies were such as these,
The mystery is now in other trees.
"Local Places" — Howard Moss

 Images as figures of speech — images also serve as the concrete element in almost
any figure of speech. Figurative language usually takes the form of the simile and
metaphor.

 Tenor— describes the poet's actual subject of concern. o Vehicle — the image
associatedwith it o Mixed metaphor— is one with two contradictory vehicles

 Building image clusters — images may also appear as a series of related details or
interlocking images

 The image as symbol — a symbol is a metaphor in which the meaning (tenor) is

implied rather than stated. Public symbols are widely known and are often
hackneyed from overused. Poets construct their own, private symbols.

C. The Sound of Words

Poetry has its roots in the oral tradition

 Rhyme - a device which consists of two or more words linked by an identity in

sound which begins with an accented vowel and continues to the end of each word.
 Nonrhyming devices
 Alliteration — is the repetition of consonants, particularly those at the
beginning of words.
 Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds regardless of where
they are located in the word.
 Consonance — is the repetition of consonant sounds; usually refers to
sounds within the words.
  Onomatopoeia —a word that sounds like the object or action it
describes.

Muting sound devices —

 o run-on line — is one in which the grammatical construction or the meaning
continues to the next line.

 A more radical method of muting rhyme is simply to separate the rhyming lines.
The rhyme is muted still further if you have certain lines unrhymed (abcd).

 Slant rhyme (also called off rhymes) are similar but not identical in sound.
Examples: barnacles-snails, stone-gone

D. Rhythms of Stress

Rhythm is a systematic variation in the flow of sound.

Meter — a system of stressed and unstressed syllable

Meter Example
Iamb (Iambic) Unstressed, stressed Accept
Trochee (trochaic) Stressed, unstressed Widow
Anapest (anapestic) 2 unstressed, stressed Disappoint
Dactyl (dactylic) Stressed, 2 unstressed Happily
Spondee ( spondaic) 2 stressed Heartbreak
Phyrric (phyrric) 2 unstressed In the

 Feet- the conventionalized units of stressed and unstressed syllables

Two feet to each line (rare and usually comic) dimeter

Three feet to each line (fairly common) trimeter
Four feet ( sometimes combined with trimeter) tetrameter
Five feet ( most common in English) pentameter
Six feet (less used in this century) hexameter
Seven feet (rare) heptameter
Eight feet (heavy, very rare in line) octameter

Free verse — verse written without meter.

 Typography — the technique of arranging words, phrases, and lines on the printed
page to create a rhythmical effect.

 Syntactical rhythms — is achieved by repeating or balancing a particular

grammatical element such as a question, phrase, or clause.

 Syllabics involve counting of syllables (like the haiku) Breath units are the loosest
form of rhythm in poetry today. Essentially, the line is broken at the point where the
reader might be expected to take a breath.

E. Poetry Starting from Scratch ( Michael A. Carey, 1989)

 Basic Tools
• Create a festive atmosphere
• Show, don't tell
• Do more with less: Say the most you can in the fewest words.
• Start with the basics, not rhyme
• Match sounds with meaning
• Sounds

 • If you want to say something tender and loving, you might want to use liquid
consonants like l, f, s, w, h, or y or long vowels like é, ö or maybe a(hs) or o(ooos).
 • ii. If you want to say something wit conviction or emphasis; if you want to be
didactic, or use a lot of energy, then perhaps you should use short vowels like i in pit
and harsh consonants like z, k, t, ch, p, and b.

 Rhythm and line breaks

The silence between words is also important in a poem.

 Comparisons
Simile — like, as, —stated, direct
Metaphor — (lie) (is) — implied, indirect

 Sideways thinking
i. "rational" or "straight thinking" — teaching students to funnel or channel and
departmentalize their thoughts ii.
ii. "irrational" or sideways thinking — you are expanding though instead of
funnelling it.

2. Extending the Metaphor

You can extend a metaphor or simile by simply asking, “What if it were true?"

3. Dramatic Irony — the audience knows more than the characters involved in the
poem.
 Organizing principle — every good poem has its own prosody
 Imagery —we dream in images not in written words.

4. Intimate Conversation
 Talking to friends you haven't met
 What would you say to your future partner, future children, your in-laws, your pet,
your sunglasses
 Be specific: your audience must taste, touch, feel, smell, hear, and see

5. The Senses and Memory

 Synaesthesia is the describing of something through one of your five senses that
is usually described through another one of the five senses.

Synaesthesia
I feel blue
The light exploded into the room
I can almost thumb his grief
She was pink with happiness

• Memory — writing is physical memory

Ask students to remember the first line that they did something, then ask them to make it
come to life.

6.Vivid Imagery
 Poems from pictures

7.Poems from Music

 The students are made to realize that anything and everything can trigger a poem

8.Student Reading
 A poem should always be read out loud

9.Formal Verse
The villanelle is an old French form, the lines may be of any length, there are 19 lines
divided into six stanzas (fie triplets and one quatrain), turning on two rhymes and built on
two refrains. The refrains consist of lines one and three. Line one reappears as lines 6, 12,
and 18; line 3 reappears as line 19, 15, and 19.

Villanelle
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night 1. refrain 1 -------a
Old age should burn and rave at close of the days. 2.--------------------b
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 3 refrain 2---------a
Though wise men at their end know dark is right. 4.--------------------a
Because their words had forked no lightning they 5.--------------------b
Do not go gentle into that good night. 6. refrain 1 -------a
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright. 7.--------------------a
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,. 8.--------------------b
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 9. refrain 2-------a
Wild men who caught and sang the sun flight 10. -------------------a
And learn, too, late they grieved it on its way 11.-------------------b

Do not go gentle into that good night. 12. refrain 1-------a

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight, 13----------—-------a
Bind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gray, 14 -------------------b
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 15. refrain 2 -------a
And you, my father, there on the sad height,. 16-------------------a
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray 17-------------------b
Do not go gentle into that good night 18. refrain 1-------a
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 19 refrain 2------b

-Dylan Thomas

10. Catalog PVers

 Things — to —do poem

11. Editing Tips

• Is there any word I can take out without ruining the poem?
• Did I say the most I could in the fewest amount of words?
• Is there anything that should be in the poem that is missing
• Did I use the right word?
• Am I really getting across what I want to say?
• Does the sound of my words reflect the feeling I want to instill in my audience?
• Do the lines flow from one to another?
• Does the opening catch one's attention?
• Does the ending have an air of finality about it?
• How does the poem look on the page?

PLAYWRITING

A. Definition of a Play

A play is a structured and unified story, comic or dramatic, complete in itself with a
beginning, middle, and end, that expresses the playwright's passion and vision of life,
shows unfolding conflict that builds a climax, and deals with dimensional lifelike humans
who have strong emotions, needs, and objectives that motivate them to take action. It is
constructed with a plausible and probable series of events, written to be performed and
therefore told with speeches and actions plus silences and inactions, projected by actors
from a stage to an audience that is made to believe the events are happening as they
watch.

Types of Plays

1. Monodrama
 A one- character play, also known as a theatrical monologue, a oneperson show, or
(in an evocation of vaudeville) a solo turn.
 Can be a powerful theatrical work, often using elevated language and powerful
images to create poetic enlargement of the character or subject. Playing time can
vary from ten minutes to several hours.
 Although only one character is onstage, others can be implied offstage. May or may
not have a conflict but often conclude with a snap, a piercing insight.
 Examples: Talking With... (Jane Martin), Mark Twain Tonight! (Hal Holbrook),
Drinking in America ( Eric Bogosian)

2. One-Act Play
 A theatrical version of the short story
 A compressed dramatization of a single incident or sequence of action. Playing time
is from 30 minutes to over an hour; most are around 40 minutes long.
 John Millington Synge's Riders to the Sea is often considered the formal beginning
of the modern form.
 The number of characters may be two or four.
 Maintains unity of action, focused on one particular conflict; unity of place, within a
single physical location; and unity of time, without changes of time
 Examples: Hopscotch (Israel Horovitz), Minnesota Moon (John Olive), The Zoo
Story (Edward Albee), Pvt. Wars ( James McLure), The Dance and the Railroad
( David Henry Hwang)

3. Full-length Play
 Requires a number of actions or incidents to show the play's theme and conflicts, the
development of an involved story, complex character evolution and change, and
possibly movement in time and space,
 Usually two to two and a half hours of playing time (exemption: Morning Becomes
Electra (Eugene O'Neill), The Life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby ( David
Edgar)
 Has two or three acts; the five-act form, once standard, is out of style. An act is the
largest division of the play consisting of a unified group of activities and containing
smaller divisions such as beats, segments, and scenes.
 Has one major through-lien conflict, typically involving a protagonist fighting to
achieve a goal against determined opposition.
 The conflict starts early at the point of attack, is continually refreshed and refocused
at the climax with complications, and finally reaches its peak
 Uses secondary conflict or subplot directly related to the single basic struggle
 Examples: A Soldier's Play (Charles Fuller), Crimes of the Heart ( Beth Henley), A
Raisin in the Sun ( Lorraine Hansberry)

B. Special Attributes of Drama

1. Drama is by definition a dramatic art. It is generally has an emotional impact or

force, and (in the case of comedy) vitality.

2. Drama is a visual art. Action on the stage is usually a significant and organic part of
the whole production. Other parts include the set, the lighting boards, projected images,
and experiments in mixed media.

3. Drama is an auditory art. Except for stage directions, every word is dialogue and
Intended to be spoken out loud. In theatre, silence can have as much

4. Drama is physically produced art. Playwrights have an Intense, almost personal

contact With theatre audience which is entirely different from the indirect connection
fiction writers have with their readers.

5. Drama is a continuous art. The audience must receive the play at whatever pace the
playwright sets.

6. Drama is a spectator art. Playwrights often revise when theatre work is in rehearsal
and after the opening-night reviews and even later if changes seem necessary.
What Makes a Play?

 A play is not a novel.

▪ A play is a blueprint for actors and directors.

▪ A play speaks to a group consciousness.
▪ Plays communicate with dialog and action.
▪ Plays are set in the present, moving to a future.
▪ Play's movement in time and plays.
▪ Plays show, not tell.
▪ The play's objective and collective point of view
▪ Plays are written for actors to communicate to the audience's eye and ear.
▪ A play faces added revisions.

 Plays require conflict.

▪ Conflict is force against force.

▪ Opposing forces have equal strength.
▪ Conflict expresses the play's meaning.
▪ Conflict and abstract forces
▪ Conflict creates dimensional characters.
▪ Conflict provides the structure of a play.
• Drama is an interpretation of life, not real life.
• Plays are complete in themselves.
• Plays have beginning, middle and end.
• Dramatic action must be possible, plausible, and probable
• Plays are entertainment
• Plays communicate with emotions
• Plays communicate with imagination
• Unities of time, place and action
▪ Unity of action is most important to the playwright
▪ Scenery shifts for time or place are distracting
• The fourth (and most important) unity: playwrights' purpose

E. Creating Characters

Characters and plot work together. Plays that involve characters in conflict are more
effective than plays that do not.

Clues to character:
• What the character does; action
• What the character will do; action through inaction
• What the character says
• What the character does not say: communication through silence
• The characters emotional range
• What the characters wants: goals
• Why the character acts, speaks, or seeks a goal; motivation
• How the character responds to stimuli
• Self-description
• Description by others
• Stage directions, descriptions
• The play's environment

External qualities the actor's "outside-in" technique

• Age
• Physical mannerism
• Vocal mannerism
• Overall appearance
• Names

Play's environment: an "inside-out" method

• Environments: time, physical, educational, economic, social, political, religious
• Action
• Biography
• Description by other characters
• Character's self definition

F. The Dramatic Plot

 • A good dramatic plot starts with a concept. A concept includes a basic situation, some
type of conflict or struggle, and an outcome.

• In full-length plays, the word scene is generally used to describe subdivisions of acts.
Often they are written into the program notes and may involve a lapse of time or even a
change of setting.

• For dramatists, scene also refers to each unit of action that begins with an entrance or
an exit and ends with the next shift of characters on the stage. To avoid confusion,
think of these as secondary scenes.

• A secondary scene may have a strong dramatic unity. It may build to a climax that is
dramatically punctuated by the departure of one or more characters.

• Dramatic questions are provided to hold the interest of the audience.

1. Will he come?
2. Who did it?
3. WII he or she succeed?
4. Will he or she discover what we know?
5. Will a compromise be found?
6. Will this episode and in violence?
7. What's happening?

• The opening dramatic question is the hook. It arouses interest from the start.

• Most plays move from one dramatic question to the next so that the audience is kept
wondering about immediate outcomes as well as what the ultimate resolution will be.

• Pace is all-important in a play.

1. Traditional plays. Risinq action accurately describes the mounting complication with
which many plays from all historical periods are begun. In full-length dramas problems
may be compounded with subplots involving secondary characters acting as foils to
highlight or set off the major characters. The crisis is not the very end but the turning
point at which the protagonist's fortunes begin to fail. From there on we have falling
action, which in tragedies results in a catastrophe — often the death of the hero.

2. The onion approach focuses on characterization. A series of scenes exposes the inner
life of a character or a couple like peeling the layers Of an onion. Ex. Eugene O'Neil's
The Icemen Cometh and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?

3. The Grand Hotel pattern or the episodic plot. This approach weaves together many
parallel plots and lends itself to longer plays. The pace in the plays like this is
controlled not by the rise and fall of a protagonist, but by a series of dramatic questions
based on the problems faced y a number of different characters.

4. Some plays control the pace without following any classifiable plan. In Edward
Albee's The Sandbox, the pace is controlled by the unusual tonal shift than by action.

• Comedy also has a plot. Three closely related and frequently overlapping types are
used: humor, wit, and satire.

1. Humor tends to be warm and appreciative and usually focuses on character. The
playwright adopts a fond tone and the audience in a sense laugh with the characters rather
than at them.

2. Satire is a form of wit. It involves two basic elements: exaggeration and ridicule.

 Comic relief is the use of light touches here and there, or in longer plays, comic
characters used as contrast with the protagonist. Such comic elements are one of the
best ways to counter the risk of melodrama in a highly dramatic plot.
G. Conflict

 Simple conflicts are used in simple dramas. They erode characterization and
reduce the work to a fight between good and evil.
 Multiple conflicts may be dramatized through one or more subplots involving
secondary characters who echo, amplify, or contrast the conflicts of the main plot.
 Inner conflicts are another effective method at achieving subtlety. The very phrases
with which we describe such indecision suggest dramatic tension: a character is "of
two minds," "struggling with himself," or even "at war with herself." Triangular
conflicts provide an additional dimension. Examples are love triangles or a couple
threatened by a third party. Sometimes the malevolent agent is not another lover but
simply an evil force, as in Othello.
 The individual against society -- conflict between individuals is often given greater
resonance when it is played against a larger struggle with society.

H. The Beginning, the Middle and the End

1. Beginning — introductory materials

• Inciting incident is the major event that happened before your play began. It can provide
the point of attack.

Inciting incident
In Hamlet, the combination of hamlet's father's death and his mother's remarriage to
Claudius form the inciting Incident. Hamlet discovers the importance of that incident
when the ghost appears.

• Exposition gives the audience background information regarding situation, characters,

relationships, time and place of action, and the like. Foreshadowing is a classic device
that creates suspense by warning the audience to expect certain events such as a conflict,
crisis, complication, entrance of a major character, or an emergency. A companion to
foreshadowing, a plant refers to a physical object that will be important later.

• A sense of equilibrium — a play starts with a certain balance. Forces may be aligned
equally or might be unbalanced but at rest.

3. Middle struggles and actions

• Point of attack begins the play's action, stimulates the protagonist to drive for a goal,
introduces the play's major dramatic question (MDQ), and shifts the play from neutral to
forward gear.

• The protagonist's goal — in the uneasy balance before the point of attack, the
protagonist is static, with no reason to take action. The point of attack gives the
protagonist a goal, which provides the action of the rest of the play.

• Major dramatic question is a central force that unifies all action and refers to the basic
reason you write the play. The MDQ is answered at the climax, ending the action.

3.Ending — a sense of finality

Denouement is the final knitting together of loose ends. Denouement in modern drama
tends to be brief, some using analogies or implications.

Denouement
ESTRAGON; well, shall we go?
VLADIMIR: Yes, let's go
They do not move.

'Waiting for Godot" — Samuel Beckett

 Catharsis may be better understood as the conclusion of the emotional aspects of the
action and characters.
I. Visual Impact
 Three types of stage sets; (1) realistic, (2) symbolic, and (3) bare.
 Lightning is used for emphasis and symbolic suggestions.
 Costumes in non-realistic plays take on a symbolic significance.

 Action — most plays are divided into a number of secondary scenes. Those units are
begun and ended by entrances and exits. "Stage business" is a mirror activity added
by good directors to enliven a static scene.

IV.WRITING CREATIVE NONFICTION

A. Definition of Creative Nonfiction

- Creative nonfiction is nonfiction prose which utilizes the techniques and

strategies of fiction. Creative nonfiction requires the skill of a story teller and the research
ability of a reporter (Rees Cheney, 1991).
- Creative nonfiction combines the authority of literature and the authority of fact.
- It demands spontaneity and an imaginative approach, while remaining true to the
validity and integrity of the information it contains. Creative nonfiction differs from
fiction because it is necessarily and scrupulously accurate in the presentation of
information; a teaching element to the readers is paramount. Creative nonfiction differs
from traditional reportage, however, because balance is unnecessary and subjectivity is
not only permitted but encouraged (Gutkind, 1997).
- The key word is "personal." The writer of creative nonfiction presents the world
— or that slice of it that he/she wishes to focus on -e through the prism of his/her own
personality. (Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo

C. Types of Creative Nonfiction

It covers a large field that ranges from the literary journalism or new journalism —
writing in a personal way about facts in a news event -- to the literary memoir.

• the magazine feature article

• the newspaper column as cultural commentary the review
• the interview story
• the character sketch
• the biographical sketch or profile
• the personal or familiar essay
• the autobiographical sketch

Stephen Minot in Literary Nonfiction identifies six basic forms of literary nonfiction.

1. Personal experience
2. Biographical sketch
3. Personal opinions
4. Reflections
5. A slice of history
a. ceremonies
b. role reversals
c. moments of sudden growth
d. moments of high emotions
e. reversal of expectations

C. The Essay and the Feature Distinguished

 The essay is generally used to refer to a prose piece that is more personal than
objective or verifiable than a feature article.
 A feature refers to an article in a magazine or newspaper or e-zine. It tends to address
a specific type of reader (the particular market or audience of the periodical or
website) which it appears.

D. Strategies in Creative Nonfiction

Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo (2003) identified ten strategies in her Creative Nonfiction
Manual for Filipino Writers.

1. Approach and Point-of-view

Approach has to do with how a writer handles the subject, the angle used. It may be
objective and subjective.

2. Tone and Voice

• Tone has to do with the writer's attitude towards the subject. It includes one's choice of
words.
• Voice is related to tone. It is also related to style. Voice, like tone, is obviously a
metaphor from the human voice.

4. Structure
Organization may be suggested by the subject, such as:
• Chronological
• Explanation-of-a-process
• Flashback
• Parallel structure
• Collage or mosaic structure
• Diary or log book structure
• Question- and-Answer structure
• Frame or story-within-a-story

4. A Strong Dynamic Beginning

• Action
• Listing or cataloguing
• Striking statement
• In medias res
• Context

5. Rhetorical Techniques
• Definition
• Comparison and Contrast
• Illustration or example
• Classification
• Enumeration

6. Character
• Character in action
• Description of physical appearance
• Reconstruction of the subjects special setting or ambiance
• Presenting characters through the eyes of other people
• Dialogue or monologue
• Idiosyncratic behaviour

7. Concrete and Evocative Details

• Details should be accurate and informative first. They must be suggestive or evocative.

8. Scene
• The chief distinction between traditional reportage and creative nonfiction is the use of
scenes or dramatic writing.

9.A Convincing Ending

• Thesis
• Dramatic denouement
• Joke
• Moral or lesson
• Anecdote
• Reiteration of a point made at the beginning
10. Revision
• Edit for grammar and syntax
• Edit for clarity
• Edit for conciseness
• Edit for style

E. Elements of Creative Nonfiction

In their book The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (1999),
Robert, Jr and Michael Steinberg listed down some elements of creative nonfiction

• Personal presence — whether the subject is the writer's self or an objective, observed
reality outside the self, the reader is taken on a journey ito the mind and personality of the
writer.

• Self-discovery and Self-exploration — in much of the best creative nonfiction, writers

use self-disclosure as a way of opening their writing to a more expansive exploration.

• Flexibility of form — contemporary writers "stretch the limits of the form" and "are
developing a nonfiction prose that lives along the borders of fiction and poetry." Creative
nonfiction writers are likely to innovate and experiment with structure.

• Veracity- because it sometimes draw on the material of autobiography, history,

journalism, biology, ecology, travel writing, medicine, and any number Of subjects,
creative nonfiction is reliable factual, firmly anchored in real experience, whether the
author has lived it or observed and recorded it.

• Literary Approaches to Language - the language of creative nonfiction is s literary, as

imaginative, as that of other literary genres and is similarly used for lyrical, narrative, and
dramatic effects.

F. One Writer's Secrets (Donald M. Murray, 1999)

• Attitudes That Allow Writing
 No publication is the final theological word on a subject.
 There is no need to be consistent. Learning does not stop with publication.
 Ask your own questions and find your own answers. o Use the mail. Submit.
 Start at the top. Maybe the best journals will not publish your stuff, but at least
they've had their chance.
 Remember what Al Pacino said, "Forget the career and do the work." The doing is
far more satisfying than the done. o If it isn't fun, don't do it.

Some Tricks of the Academic Trade

 Keep a planning notebook with you to play with at the office, at home, in the car, on
the airplane, etc.
 Write daily: never a day without a line.
 Pick the best time for your writing and try to protect that tie. Be selfish. Read widely
as well as deeply: read writing as well as writing about writing.
 Keep a list of questions to which you want to seek answers, answers for which you
wish to for questions, territories of fascinating ignorance you wish to explore.
 Put yourself on the spot. Be working member of the profession. Respect your own
judgment. o Write for yourself.
 Write early to find out what you know and what you need to know. Yet be patient. It
takes time for ideas to be planted and cultivated. o Write to discover what you have
to say.
 Write without notes.
 Lower your standards.
 Write easily. If it doesn't come, don't force it.
 Write with your ear. Voice is the magic ingredient in writing.
 Write writing.
 Reach out to colleagues.

F. CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISES (Checkoway, 1999)

First Lines (Kyle Torke)
Steal the first sentence of a published story you haven't read. Write the first page or so.

Writing What You Know (R.A. Sasaki)

Recall a moment in your childhood when you discovered a secret or realized something
momentous about yourself or an important figure in your life. Describe the event that
day. What triggered the discovery.

Writing the Recurring Dream (Susan Hubbard)

Recall a recurring dream. (If you can't remember any. start keeping a notebook and pen
by your bed, and record dreams when you waken) Try to write the recurring dream
making details as vjvjd and precise as possible.

Sketches and Portraits (LIZ Rosenberg)

Do three portraits and seven sketches of people you know well, or barely at all. The
difference between a portrait and a sketch IS mostly one of Intensity and speed

Borrowing Characters (James Reed)

Take a favourite TV or movie character and place him or her in a context completely
outside that of the television how or movie. Use what you know about the character to be
consistent with the original context and also to develop the character within this new
situation.

Inventing a Life (James Plath)

Select one of the personal ads from a local newspaper or magazine and construct a life for
that person: background, family, personality traits, hobbies, phobias, etc. although you
may choose to write it out, you may also do this in a bulleted list, rather than paragraphs.

Disaster Scene ( Susan Hubbard)

This one is just for fun. Write a disaster scene set at a restaurant. Any sort of disaster will
do, but those of a personal / psychological nature tend to be more intriguing — or at least
more subtle — than the Pulp Fiction type.

Sudden Fiction ( Lance Olsen)

Write a sudden fiction of an event that in real time would take five or ten seconds to
occur — a death, a fall, a dazzling realization — that takes five pages in your fictive slo-
mo.

Short-Shorts (Robin Sterns)

Take a "finished" piece of more than 1,500 words and cut it to 250 words. Don't just cut
sentences and paragraphs: weight each phrase, image, and word with a view to creating
the tightest kernel of a story you can. The point? To find and polish the central point
while cutting the unnecessary, the verbose, the carelessly expressed.

The Unexpected Point of View (Ewing Campbell)

Take a story you might be tempted to write — say, the experience of suffering at the
hands of a buiiy and the way that conflict was resolved, or any other commonplace story
— and invert it, presenting the story from the unexpected point of view (in my example,
the bully's).

Binary Vision (Cynn Chadwick)

Write a story — in the first person — from the point of view of the victim and the from
the viewpoint of the perpetrator of a crime.

Questioning Your Character (Lucy Ferris)

Interview your narrator or protagonist. If you ask the right questions, these people will
have a plenty to say to you.

World Choice (Julie Schumacher)

Choose an eclectic batch of nouns, verbs, and adjectives from the dictionary or from
memory; then dream up a minor character who would use all the words (not necessarily
Correctly) in a single short paragraph. Write the paragraph.

Now and Then ( David Baker)

Write a four-page story in which the plot proceeds in chronological order. Now, rewrite it
so that it moves backward in time, from the most recent to the most distant moment.
Rewrite it a final time, in which the sequence is out of order entirely, making connections
by association and memory rather than by the clock.

Making Simple Actions Symbolic ( Michael Martone)

Attempt to narrate or describe simple actions (the turning on of a light switch, say) to
find, in the difficulty of such simple rendering, the possibilities in the things we take for
granted.