Writing for Emotional Impact Flashcards

Question

Plot Points unresolved Express Collect prompts

Answer 1

telling good stories is listening and recognizing themes which seem unresolved for people. express what other people can’t. By collecting the best ideas presented by people, this is an opportunity to make something to which a larger audience will instantly connect. Again, a story that evokes stories is a good story. listen for statements or jokes or observations that excite people and prompt them to talk. Listen for something unique, beyond the politics of the moment, some unresolved and generally unexpressed idea that will last over a long period of time.

Answer 2

According to Chekhov, if you put a gun in a drawer in Act One, then you must take it out and shoot someone in Act !ree. If you do this well enough, you can create an organic feel. The viewer/reader will feel it's natural and they might not know why. The gun is about ending something not about beginning something.

Answer 3

Another type of gun is THE LIE An insincere promise/crime/secret is a lie is a gun. A buried gun will save you from writing endlessly without finding your plot Climax. Fiction shouldn't drag.

Answer 4

In both books, Choke, Fight Club, a kind-of social contract requires that their deception be revealed, and that the liars be subjected to the reaction of their victims. !e lie gives the narrator power over others. !e truth places the narrator at the mercy of others. What’s important is how the narrator is brought back to an honest relationship with his community. a well buried lie respects the reader's time. Tell a lie, tell it early, bury it, and unmask the teller before you get bored.

Answer 5

Gesture trumps dialogue. | Verbs connect with more basic structures of the brain.

Answer 6

Establish setting through action Also depict body language that contradicts what's actually said in dialogue. Establish the setting and the activity and important objects. Measure distance in a way specific to the situation.

Answer 7

Keep the narrator aware of the cumulative sensations of his or her body. Describe the narrator’s walk in terms that will suggest a zombie or monster staggering through a dark setting. And, mention creating a “trail” to foreshadow the up-coming plot point. A black tennis ball, round as the period at the end of a sentence. !e dot at the bottom of an exclamation point. Note: Using a simile is always less effective than stating the quality that’s similar. Instead of “the tennis ball looks like the period at the...” use this moment as a chance to state the qualities of the ball – round, black – then state the similarity to a punctuation mark.

Answer 8

there’s an old method for creating a sympathetic, physical response in the reader: describe either the inside of a character’s mouth or the soles of his feet. Another old saying goes: If you’re going to do something in a story, do it three times. So, here I’m using the soles of the narrator’s feet under three escalating conditions: contact with spit, urine, then bleeding. !is gives a nice balance between the ball writing in black oil, and the narrator marking his journey with a map of red blood.

Answer 9

Don't show the reader anything unless that this is moving or acting in relation to other things. People hate slide shows but they love movies. Describing the bloody feet is an on-the-body passage. It’s followed by a gesture. Please avoid dialogue if you can use gesture, instead.

Answer 10

Let’s talk about ‘Burnt Tongue.’ You can prompt your reader to stay more focused by misstating something. Especially in dialogue: “Don’t make him pissed off.” We’ve already demonstrated the anger, with the hostile sound of horns and the engine. !e dialogue merely summarizes that. To make it do more – help characterize Jenny – you can spin her slang any “wrong” way you’d like.

Answer 11

Describe your world only as some object or person moves through it. In a Film, the camera would be the motion, continually pushing through the static landscape, adding a sense of motion to the naturally slow movement of the sun, the wind, the plants. !e added action of the camera would heighten all that and justify the viewers interest. In fiction, consider always introducing your world through the objects that move through it.

Answer 12

Catching sight of it when the ball bounces, bouncing in one place until I %nd it, there. !en, rolling along the rut, leading me into the cottonwood trees that grow along the creek side. Note: Here, action implies time passing. I’d never want to say: “Fifteen minutes later...” or “All afternoon...” By linking verbs, I can suggest lapsed time.

Answer 13

!e previous paragraph is an example of cutting to “big voice” and leaving the narrative “little voice” scene for a moment. !e goal is to vary the texture of the narrative and imply more time and distance passing.

Answer 14

You describe a character by how the character describes his or her world. !e more speci#c, the better. Not “vegetables” but “tomatoes.” Not “the gutter of a house” but “the gutter of Mr. Lloyd’s house.” You can risk these odd extra details because, at this point, your plot is moving so well. People will read along, looking for the next verb. Ah, money... It represents the ultimate possibility. Money alone is boring, abstract shit, so make it equivalent to a character’s dreams and priorities. Build a character by describing what he or she would do with a new fortune.

Answer 15

If you read your work aloud, you learn to love repeating sounds. !e most-fun ones are explosive B’s or P’s. !ey act like a full-stop, and you can really “pop” them into a microphone. “... blood, busted, blasted, bouncing, back...” Like a series of good jabs in boxing.

Answer 16

You want a fast way to create tension? Hold a character underwater. It’s worked in a million movies, from “!e Poseidon Adventure” to “Aliens IV.” It worked well in “Guts” and that’s why I don’t want to over-use it, here. But a jar of gold makes a nice symbol for attachment to material possessions and the cost of being greedy. Once you establish the theme or “horse” of physics, it doesn’t take much to revisit it in the reader’s mind, to create a beat of time and better pace your actions. Here, it acts as a fragment of “big voice.”

Answer 17

Here’s another concept: “!e Vertical versus the Horizontal” of a story. !e Horizontal means the string of plot events from beginning to end. !e Vertical means the accumulation of emotion that leads to a character’s “transformation” near the end of the story. Most #rst drafts are limited to establishing the horizontal – the plotting, scene, characters. It’s usually in re&ection that a writer #nds and heightens the emotional or vertical aspects of a story.

Answer 18

Do not explain why a character takes an action: i.e. “I hid the gold under the tree so I could come back for it, later.” Simply take the action. Also, by revisiting each of the &uids which have soaked our narrator, we can summarize the various segments of the story, keeping them all present in the reader’s mind. !e dog piss keeps the dog around as a character, too. !e summary helps pace the on-going physical action and implies time and distance passing

Answer 19

About language, decide what words your narrator does NOT know, and avoid them. For example, my narrator doesn’t know the word “stride.” Using too great a variety of words can sound “writerly” as if the story is told by a writer instead of the narrator.

Answer 20

Since the ball is behind the narrator, let’s not assume the thing hitting him is the ball. Instead, describe the effect using comparable things which will describe the narrator’s life history: baseball, television, sports, etc. We know the attacker is the tennis ball so this sequence is an opportunity to describe the narrator by how he describes his immediate experience.

Answer 21

A good action sequence feels like writing for a sports | broadcast, just using one dynamic verb after another

Answer 22

Anytime I need to interrupt the action, I need only bring Hank’s car back around. All of my seemingly wasted years of cruising in cars with bored friends, they keep this story moving. Another aspect of using limited elements – characters, settings, repeated actions – is that you can recycle previous passages for comic effect, or simply to create an event with economy. For example, once we know what a gesture means, we no longer need it de#ned. !e character only performs the gesture, and it’s already loaded with previous meaning.

Answer 23

A character with nothing left to lose can reveal his deepest desire

Answer 24

To create tension, we need to suggest that Hank might win. !is will generate more sympathy for the narrator and make the obvious impending plot reversal seem like more of a victory. For a stronger effect, I need to reread the opening of this story and borrow some of that earlier wording to echo the scene where Hank was clearly superior. Just a few well-chosen words can keep that earlier scene present in the reader’s mind.

Answer 25

My preference is to limit dialogue, and to con#ne exchanges to a few lines. !e goal is to sort and separate action and speech, because they engage different parts of the reader’s mind. And – please – always avoid perfect “tennis match” exchanges where characters respond exactly to what they’ve been asked. If you can resolve a situation with a gesture instead of dialogue – use the gesture.

Answer 26

We’ve ful#lled the social contract. And the narrator has abandoned his childhood goals after #nding they had little value. Jenny was not his salvation. Neither was money. In the next revision it would be good to develop the theme of physical versus metaphysical strength – how at the narrator’s time of greatest in#rmity he wins the tennis contest by trusting in something he can’t explain. Like Luke Skywalker closing his blast shield, becoming blind, then trusting the ‘force.’ People love that shit. Once more, notice that your characters can ask questions, and these don’t have to be answered by another character. Your reader knows the answer. Also, consider a different #nal line. It would be nice to have the dog present in this last scene, to point up the narrator’s humanity, possibly to retrieve the ball and thus demonstrate that the ball is no longer possessed, and the spirit which occupied it is now at peace. !e sun is setting. !e heroic narrator is battered and bloody and limping home. Perhaps the old woman will call after him, shouting a kind-of existential chorus: “Who are you? What do I owe you? God bless you…”. !ose are all elements to keep in mind. So far this is the “horizontal” of the story, the chain of plot events. !e vertical will come, with it the emotions and symbols.

Answer 27

Belief - noun an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction.

Answer 28

Attitude - noun a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person's behavior. "she took a tough attitude toward other people's indulgences"