Welcome back to the second
part of How to Start a Story. You can read Part I and Part III by clicking on the links.
To recap, in the previous post I talked about 9
techniques to start a story. We went through 3 of them:
1.
Describe the setting
2.
Speech/Dialogue
3.
Sound
Today we’ll cover the next 3:
4.
Characterisation
5.
Question
6.
Flashback
4. Characterisation
Characterisation refers to the
description of a character, usually a main character of the story, either the
protagonist (the good guy) or the antagonist (the bad guy).
Two things to note about
characterisation:
Describe
relevant trait of character
For your storyline to be tight
and compelling, do not simply put together a haphazard description of the
character. The description must be relevant to the story.
As an example, if your story is
about bullying, and you decide to start with the description of the bully, then
you would need to show why he is a bully (swaggers like a gangster, cuts
queues, forces his classmates to do his homework, etc.). Or you could do a
characterisation on the protagonist. You could describe him as being a coward,
always trying to stay of out trouble because he fears the bully’s attentions
will be turned on him. The turn in the story will come about when the bully
picks on the protagonist’s best friend (or maybe a girl he likes ;) ) and that forces the protagonist to stand
up against the bully.
The point I’m trying to make
is that the trait you describe during characterisation should be LINKED to the
story.
From
general to specific
What I mean here is that when
we describe a character, we are talking about the character’s general behaviour. But stories are made
up of specific events so we have to
link the general behaviour to the specific event.
I used to think this is
instinctively grasped by most pupils until I came across pupils who didn’t do
the transition properly and the story didn’t flow smoothly. See this post.
Making the transition is easy:
make a reference to the specific event by using words like ‘one day’, ‘that
incident’, and/or the ellipsis (a punctuation mark denoted by three full stops '...') etc.
Using the crab story as an
example to link the general to the specific:
Darryl
was addicted to computer games. He played it every free moment he had; in class
when his teacher was teaching, his thoughts would wander to his favourite game
as he thought about what moves he should make to make it to the next level;
sometimes he even skipped his homework to play the games. His parents had
coaxed, cajoled and chided him, but it was to no avail. All their words rolled
off him like water off a duck’s back. (General
description) Until
one day something unforgettable happened… (moving to
the specific)
(The specific) It was the night before the class’ Community
Involvement Programme (CIP). Early next morning, Darryl’s class was to go to
East Coast Park to pick up litter. It was almost midnight but Darryl had no
intention of going to bed. He was determined to finish the new game he had
bought. He tried and he tried, time ticked on. Twelve midnight. One o’clock.
Two o’clock. It was after four in the morning before Darryl finally turned in.
Needless
to say, he had a hard time getting out of bed the next morning. He snoozed all
the way to the beach, and was unable to admire the tranquil beauty of the early
morning beach. He was so exhausted that he even failed to listen to his
teacher’s instructions, missing entirely the safety part whereby Mr Chong
stressed to the class the need to use tongs or gloves when touching the litter…
You can guess how the story
continues.
Another
type of characterisation
There is another type of
characterisation besides the description of a main character. It is the
description of a relationship between two people. Strictly speaking, it is not
characterisation, but for ease of categorising the different types of introduction
we do for stories in class, I’ve classified it as characterisation.
This type of introduction is
useful for stories about quarrels (describe the hostile relationship between
neighbours for example, before recounting the infamous quarrel in the neighbourhood)
or friendships (such stories usually involve a 180˚ turn in the relationship;
at the start maybe one character has a tense relationship with another
character and then something happened so that the two characters draw closer
together, or vice versa; you could also do a complete circle — describe a close
relationship in the past, then show that at the start of the narrative the
relationship has already become strained, finally a development so that the
characters become close again).
That is the beauty of story
writing. So many possibilities. And as long as your story makes sense, anything
is possible.
5, Question
We rarely do this one in
class.
One thing I’ve observed about
this one is the need to be careful. I’ve come across a couple of students who
loved it so much they kept using it until it became cliches.
This particular student would
always begin his story this way:
•
Have you ever been trapped in a fire? Well, I
have. Let me share my story with you… (story about fire, obviously)
•
Have you ever been in danger of drowning? I
have and let me share my experience with you… (I don’t have to tell you what
this story is going to be about, do I?)
•
Have you ever been kidnapped? I have and let me
share my tale with you… (Ditto.)
I think what happened in
school was that the first time he tried it, it got a favourable response from
the teacher so for subsequent compositions, he used it every single time.
Eventually it got to such a point that he was marked down because of it.
You could get away with the
introductions above if you were in Primary 3 or 4, but for P5 and 6 standards,
a bit more work is required.
Example using the crab story:
Why
do humans keep provoking me? All I wanted to do was to enjoy my nap in the
sand, admire the sunset, enjoy a meal of detritus. But why, oh why do they keep
disturbing me?
I
did not want to hurt the boy. But I really thought I was in danger. I am well
aware of human dietary habits, and I know my brethren and I are considered
delicacies by those two-legged monsters! Let me tell you what happened and you
could judge for yourself if my act was justified.
It
started off as an ordinary day…
If you want it from a human
perspective:
What
is my favourite food? Crab, of course. Nothing gives me more pleasure than
cracking open a crab’s shell and tearing into its flesh. Each time I eat a
crab, I am ridding the world of one pest. Why do I loathe crabs? It all happened because of an incident when I
was young…
It
was a beautiful day at the beach…
6. Flashback
This is a perennial favourite
among students. But it is subject to the same danger as using a question to
begin a story — it could become rather cliche.
So same thing. If you decide
to use a flashback to begin your story, you need to put in more work to make
sure it really stands out from the crowd.
No
cliches.
First thing you do: Avoid the
cliches. Many compositions starting with flashbacks involve old photographs and
visible scars. So don’t do that. Do
something original. I bet you many students who do the crab story would
talk about Darryl looking at the scar on his little pinkie and then reminiscing
about the incident. If you have to have a scar, do it with a fresh twist:
‘Grandpa,
why is there a deep hole in your last finger?’ Chloe’s high voice piped out.
Her grandfather who was holding her little chubby hand looked down at his
gnarled and wrinkled hand before he replied her.
‘My
little pinkie? Oh it happened long, long ago…’ Darryl’s memories came flooding
back as he recounted one of the most unforgettable events in his childhood to
his favourite grandchild…
It
was day like any other day, except that Darryl’s class had to go to the beach
for CIP…
Use
tension/suspense to hook the reader for certain storylines
Another way to use the
flashback technique effectively is to introduce suspense into the introduction,
to hook the reader. But this works better for stories with more serious
consequences like a fire, drowning, car accident, etc. With such stories, you
could hint in the introduction about the gravity of the incident (e.g.: Little did I realise that death would brush
us by.)
Beware
the timeline
One thing you need to be
careful of when you use the flashback as an introduction is the timeline.
The story would begin in the
present, then the narrator recalls an event from the past and the story goes
back to the past. Some children end the story in the past, which is a NO NO.
The narrator has to return to the present, then end the story. In fact, I
posted about this some time back.
Using the example we gave
above about Darryl being a grandfather:
(End of story) Even though the gash was deep, the doctor
told Darryl that he was lucky that it did not reach his bone. It would leave a
scar when it healed, but it was not life-threatening. A few stitches, some
anti-septic, and Darryl was as fine as rain after a few days.
‘What
a naughty crab!’ Chloe exclaimed, her sweet voice jolting Darryl from the past
back to the present. He looked at his grandchild with amusement.
‘Yes,
naughty crab, isn’t it? So what do you say, let’s have crab for dinner tonight,
shall we?’
Chloe
pouted in a most adorable manner as she answered, ‘No, I will never eat nasty
crabs again!’
Repeat: If you use a flashback
to start the story, remember to return to the present in the timeline.
Otherwise, your story will be considered to be out of point.
That’s it for the 3 three
techniques today. Note that the techniques are not ranked in any way. Examiners
do not prefer any one technique over another. What they look out for is how
effective and well-written the introduction is.
Tomorrow, we’ll have the final
segment in which we’ll go through the last 3 techniques.
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