Blog Archive

Monday 31 October 2011



Work for Week 6: middles, actions, thoughts and pace

Take any point in the  middle of your story,  autobiography, poem, incident.

Focus on ‘pace’, that is the way you make the action/events move forward.  Write drafts for two kinds of incident in which you’ve got some tension going

(1)            Where the pace is slow – e.g.:  waiting for someone to come,  something crawling slowly closer and closer,  slow motion

(2)         Where the pace is fast -  e.g.: a chase,   a succession of events mentioned so as to tumble over each other,   working fast.

(3)         Where someone’s thoughts are either serene or aggravated

 THINK ABOUT

making the pace of the sentences help to express the pace of the action or the ‘pace’ of the thoughts, or the point of view of the narrator


WHAT EFFECTS DO THE SENTENCE STRUCTURES HAVE ON THE WAY YOU READ THESE?

First she’d dig a deep hole in the garden, and then drag him out through the french windows,  get him into it,  fill it in, then get Coulson to lay the foundation for the shed on top of it tomorrow.


After digging a deep hole in the garden, dragging him out through the french windows, getting him into it and filling it in, tomorrow she’d get Coulson to lay the foundation for the shed on top of it.


She’d dig a deep hole in the garden. She’d drag him through the french windows.  She’d get him into the hole.  She’d fill it in.  She’d get Coulson to lay the foundation for the shed on top of it tomorrow


Dig a deep hole in the garden. Drag him out.  Through the french windows.  Get him into the hole.  Fill it in. Get Coulson tomorrow.  Tell him to lay the foundation for the shed.  On top of it.


John looked up and saw that it was Mr Leighton, the policeman.

John looked up.  It was Mr Leighton.   The policeman.

It was Mr Leighton, John saw when he looked up.  The policeman.

John looked up.  Mr Leighton!


2 comments:

  1. John, surrounded by four identical policeman, realized that there had always been something odd about Mr. Leighton.

    ReplyDelete
  2. But hasn't she just had Mr.Leighton buried under the shed?

    ReplyDelete