Free Open University Creative Writing!

Block 2 Character, setting and genre
5 Fiction Writer’s Workshop
Josip Novakovich
Source: Novakovich, J. (1995) Fiction Writer’s Workshop, Cincinnati,
Ohio: Story Press, ‘Character’, pp.48–66; ‘Setting’, pp.25–42.
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.
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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.
15

Screenplay Writing. Open university!

Hello,

I have just looked at the free course

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=2748

and will tell you more about it!

Does anyone know of any good screenplay books? What are the best?

Cheers,

Ben.

As promised - My first creative writing!

This work is not finished. This was just a exercise to get my creative juices flowing!!

Here it is:

Shop assistant – Campus finance office – Man you were meeting hasn’t turned up.

George is a second year student at Harvard University studying for a MBA. George is a very smart looking student wanting to impress his peers and his tutors, he dresses well, smells good, looks healthy and is very precise with people and work.

He is currently in the finance office searching for information about third year scholarships whilst waiting for his mentor. Bill his mentor, is never late for any meetings. The office that George is waiting in is an 18th century building that has a historic smell of oldness which is right for such a prestigious university such as Harvard should.

Whilst waiting, George asks Bills’ assistant “Has Bill ever been late for meetings?”
The assistant reply “I am ever so sorry about the delay, this is embarrassing. I can not get through to his cell or home number. I keep trying for you”. “Thank you” George says “I am in a hurry as I have got a presentation to give in one hour and I need to talk to Bill about my scholarship”.

George wasn’t keens on giving presentations but this one is going to be assessed by one of the professors he didn’t see eye to eye with on most business issues. The presentation was on the current economic down turn and the relationships that co-exist between the great depression (Black Tuesday) and credit crunch.

George knew that Professor Jim Heskett would not agree with the theories he had mustered up in the past week, even if he did work 37 hours on this presentation. Just as he finished this thought the assistant said “The phones down?” Confused she tried again and again. Then she tried her cell. Nothing. “What on earth? Why are the phones not working” she exclaimed! “I’ll try mine” George pulled out his Nokia N97 and there is no signal. ‘That’s strange’ he thought.

At that point George had a tingling sensation down his back. ‘Something isn’t right here’ he thought. “I am going to the next office to see if the phones are down” said the assistant. “ok” George said. As she got up and walked her shoes click clopped out of the office and into the next office “ahhhhhhhhhh” a horrified scream comes from the next office.

George feels a sudden rush of adrenalin and runs to the assistant. As he enters the room bodies are slumped over the desks. “what the fuck?” George says. He tries the phones as the assistant is crying and in shock and unable to do anything. The phone is dead.

In this office the large windows look over the campus ground. Bodies and birds are laying on the ground. George has a sick feeling and knew that instinctively there is trouble

“We got to get out of here – we might be in danager” George says to the assistant.
“ok, but where should we go?” she says confused.

As they leave the room George’s cell rings “Hello, who is this? Can you help?” George says. There is nothing but silence and then a dark musky voice says “George, it is time”.

“Who is this” George asks in a frightened manner.

Then, just as he turns to look at the assistant she hits him over the face with a head statue.


The ending is short as it was supposed to be 500 words, but I feel that for my first time is was ok.

My partner say that she thought it was more 'screenplay' than actual 'fiction writing' sio I have been looking into screenwriting and kinda like it!

Let me know what you think! Comments would be great!

Thanks,

Ben.

I am starting to learn about creative writing.

This is a new experience for me and today I wrote my first creative writing and I post it here soon!

Keep looking!