Today we looked at Hills Like White Elephants and looked at the different ways we can convey different information via dialogue. Dialogue is a great way to practice showing and not telling and a great way to start a specific scene in your narrative. Presenting the words that people actually say allows us to provide our narrative with a higher level of specificity. We can reveal things like character, setting, the conflict, the relationship between two characters, the mood of the piece, time period, background, etc.
Conflict
A story isn't a story without conflict. A character overcoming an obstacle is what drives a story. Again think about our activity in class as you write. Remember how you had to use different tactics to attempt to get what you want. Remember that you weren't given what you wanted easily. You want to show your character working hard for what they want. Also if it's another person preventing you (or your main character) from getting what you want, try and provide them with a reason while they're doing so (remember how your classmate always denied you for a reason). This keeps us from having flat stereotypical villains.
Homework
- One Page Dialogue via ELI Review (due Thursday 9/22 at 11:45pm) You can use your dialogue to either further your personal narrative that you started over the weekend or you can use it to start your fictional narrative.
- Read "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan, pg. 8 Readings for Writer (due Thursday 9/22 in class)
- Review The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me by Sherman Alexie for discussion in class. To get a jump start on our discussion, review the story and be prepared to tell me what theme connects the various different events that Alexie talks about in his piece. (due Thursday 9/22)
- Do the Review Task- Character/Setting Description Review via ELI Review (due Friday 9/23 at 11:45pm)
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