Monday, 22 September 2014

HOW TO START A STORY AKA HOW TO START A PSLE COMPOSITION PART II

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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