Testing

“Ignite Your Fiction”
Session Four: Narration Fundamentals & Techniques
by Sally J. Walker

Narration is meant to summarize or hurry the trivial and bridge to the next significant event. The summarizing words and phrasing condense time and event, providing a logical connection in the reader’s mind from one part of the story to the next.

NARRATION’S FUNDAMENTALS
1. Full scenes need to be experienced thus are created with descriptive detail and Action-Dialogue. However, sequel’s bridges link or transition from one character experience to the next without boring exposition or micro-choreography that would bog down the story.
2. The transitions are achieved with a minimum of words which in turn picks up the pace.
3. Narration keeps a story’s forward momentum with awareness that every moment of time cannot be described.
4. Even in full scenes, if description, action or dialogue seems to drag, NARRATE it as succinctly as possible. (“The two terrified children huddled on the other side of the door as their parents argued the entire night over each step of the divorce.”)
5. Unbelievable action could be credible narration, especially if the writer is not expert in a particular physical arena, say hand-to-hand combat or horseback riding. Detailed action could come off as uncharacteristic, illogical or (horror!) display the author’s ignorance. The more inaccurate details you render, the greater the risk of losing your reader’s sense of illusion.
6. Heighten the tension by alluding to a greater consequence without explaining in detail what that could be.
7. Remember the purpose of narration is to condense the insignificant or boring:

TECHNIQUES OF NARRATION
Keep in mind story happenings you do not want to give in deep detail. I can give you the techniques the most efficiently with examples:

1. Passage of time phrases (Six months after the fight . . .)
2. Intensifying time (Night after night the memories surfaced.)
3. Event phrases (Boot camp lasted an eternity of six weeks.)
4. Character action (She tried on every dress on the rack.)
5. Characterization (Lee drove himself to learn Spanish that month.)
6. Succinct flashback (That kiss haunted him at awkward moments.)
7. Logical consequences (A year later Billie couldn’t wear the shoes she had worked so hard to buy.)
8. Characterizing groups (The restless crowd grew as the wait went past thirty minutes.)

Here is an example of one of the best narration passages I have ever read from Chapter Seven of Barbara Bretton’s novel One and Only :

“Back in New York, he threw himself into his work with renewed enthusiasm. The Kyoto millionaire faxed him the specs for a planned community that combined the best of both cultures, and Daniel was off and running. He barely noticed when winter melted into spring. Meetings. Midnight brainstorming sessions. Endless talks with government officials over the advisability of the deal.

Spring slid into summer, one of those hot, muggy New York summers that made the concept of hell a little easier to understand. Daniel returned from a preliminary trip to Japan where he met with Toshiro Umeki and Umeki’s partners in the speculative venture. He’d taken a crash course on Japanese sensibilities and had managed to get through seven days of excruciatingly polite business meetings without embarrassing himself. One of the businessmen had suggested taking a mountain hike, and Daniel had blanched at the thought. There wasn’t much in life that scared him at ground level. Raise the altitude, and it was a different story entirely.”

Bretton condensed months of activity and learning and thinking into two paragraphs, all significant to the story to come. You find credible detail that characterizes the man and yet depicts his “normal” life. Yes, it is TELLING, but the point is to narrate or condense the time and experiences to get the reader to the next significant point in his life when he is brought face-to-face with the woman he had confronted in Chapter Six of the book.

A writer DOES NOT have to “report” every moment of time, every action to move a reader from one era or event to the next significant scene. The purpose of narration is to transition over and through the mundane as succinctly as possible.

And do not confuse “transition” with narration. They are not all one and the same. Some "transition" phrases will narrate or condense an interval of time or series of events, but their purpose is to slightly different. They are meant to get the reader to switch gears. A "drop down" of additional space or insertion of asterisks is also a form of transition, a blatant literary contrivance notifying the reader to shift scene or Point-of-View. A transition is not always the same as narration's summary. YOU just need to be cognizant of how to logically best get your reader over the hump of boring yadda-yadda-yadda to the next important point.

Here is another important point about interrupting the flow of one scene to get to events unfolding in another plot. A vital tool for keying into a reader's logic is maintaining an awareness of each scene-and-sequel's elements. If a writer is maintaining a chronological flow where events are unfolding simultaneously, the trick is to cut away then back at points the reader can logically deduce what transpired while reading/living the other subplot's events. It is easiest to understand this process if one tracks or analyzes an episodic TV series and how they juggle three different plot lines back and forth throughout the hour-long episode. Most shows DO NOT deliver every minute of action, but cut away then back at a later point with the audience left to connect the logical dots of what transpired while "living" the other events.

If one studies episodic TV and practices writing the prose of the story, the technique of narration becomes a natural habit and not a struggle. Again, micro-analysis to discover what works and what doesn't, to define what is the difference between mere transition and narration.

* * * * *
Exercise for IGNITE Session Four.
Brainstorm a list of at least 30 transition words that NARRATE and hurry a sentence or a scene.

If you are stymied, student Laura Ann Dunks provided this list that blew me away:

1. After (e.g. after an eternity, after a lot of consideration)
2. Later (e.g. six months later, moments later)
3. Arrived (e.g. June had arrived, hot and humid. Spring arrived with the ducklings...)
4. Passed (e.g. seasons passed, as winter passed, months passed, years passed...)
5. Became (e.g. months became years. Spring became summer.)
6. Faded (Spring faded into summer.)
7. Merged (The hours merged together. The seasons merged into one.)
8. Blurred (The days blurred into one.)
9. That (e.g. that afternoon, that spring, that year...)
10. Afterwards (e.g. for years afterwards...)
11. Came (when spring came, when New Year Eve came)
12. The next/the following (The next day, the next morning. When he opened his eyes...)
13. Went (by) (As the years went by, spring came and went, when the dinner was served...)
14. Spent (He spent the year leading up to.... He spent the morning before...)
15. For (For the last few hours, for the remaining weeks of June)
16. During (During the summer months, during the day...)
17. The rest/remainder (The rest of the year, the remainder of the day was spent...)
18. Advanced (As summer advanced, as the hours advanced...)
19. Wore on (As the day wore on, as the years wore on)
20. Since (since daylight came, since he left...)
21. All (He slept poorly all night, he kept a lookout all summer.)
22. By (the time) (By summer, By the time spring came...)
23. While (While they ate, while the people slept...)
24. Now (It was now summer, it is now dark.)
25. Soon (it would be dark soon, i would soon be spring.)
26. Then (Then it was spring, then summer came...)
27. As (As spring became summer, as she waited for the bread to rise...)
28. On (On the first day of spring, on the journey home...)
29. Until (He did not return to Paris until spring, it was not light until lunch time)
30. Over (over the summer, over the course of the day, over coffee)
31. In (Sometime in May...In the light of day...In 2010)
32. One (One hot summer day, one morning in June.)
33. By (By the time spring came, by the time the bread had cooked...)
34. Last (the last week of the year, the last se
35. Final (the final seconds of daylight)
36. Shortly (Night came shortly)
37. Continued (Night continued....Spring continued)
38. Again (It was dark again, I was summer again.
39. Finally/eventually (Finally he arrived, finally spring came...., eventually the day dragged into night.)
40. As a result/after all/in conclusion/accordingly/consequently/hence/therefore (As a result, the first buds of spring appeared...As a result, he left...In conclusion it was a busy day....Accordingly the meeting went ahead)
41. Was/were (It was a busy day, it was a long week...The final hours were long...)
42. Went ahead (the play went ahead...the years went ahead...)
43. Still (still the summer was hot, still he looked at me with those sad eyes...)
44. Dragged (the day dragged, summer dragged on)

NOTE: The only one I took exception to was #41 with this comment “Wow, I AM impressed, Laura. Except for the "was/were," IMHO. The "to be" forms tell a state of being but do not MOVE a state of being anywhere. Does that make sense to you? They state but do not SHOW. Don't confuse NARRATE/summarize with passive writing. Look again at the example from Bretton's book as well as most of your other narration examples. They vividly infer movement forward in the summation of that activity. I also want the writer to notice that these are all directly related to narrating/summarizing and NOT to exact English grammar usage for sentence variety sake ( I had THAT discussion with a college English professor).

Rules for life also good for writers

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short not to enjoy it.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for things that matter.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye… But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words, ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose Life.
28. Forgive but don’t forget.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give Time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you think you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.
(Source: reginabrett.com)

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2Pxc3...written-by-a-90-year-old?sthash.1J93Madi.tupo

RJ has added the lesson here and we've also attached the full text below. Apologies for the issues.
Leslie

joan koster submitted a new resource:

Autocrit - Revision editor

I would like to recommend the www.Autocrit.com editing wizard. It is a very handy revision tool because it really gets you to focus on specific issues in your prose. Some of the features could be done using the word find feature in your processor, such as looking for specific overused words, but there are certain things it does that are very handy. Finding cliches is one. Another is finding passive construction, repeated phrases, and sentence starters....

Click to expand...

Read more about this resource...

Hi All,

Lesson Seven is perhaps my favorite because I love all things myth related, and JKR does LOADS with it. This is a fairly long post because there is so much to cover.

Likewise, in working with myths and archetypes in our stories, there is so much we can analyze. So I'm going to break it down into a few options for you, just choose one (unless, of course, you're a glutton for punishment!):

1) using the hero's journey, break down your story according to the steps
or 2) if you've incorporated any myths into your story, analyze the conflict of that myth and how you re-used it
or 3) pick out 2-3 storyline or personality archetypes that you have used and how you have used them

Thanks!
Susan