CREATIVE WRITING

READING AND WRITING

FICTION
Group #3
 JOHN ELMHAR FAELDONEA  MARK GEO PALOMAR MARJORIE APINES
JHON WENDELL FAGTANAC NATHALIE BENEDICTO STEPHANIE FUERTE
JOHN PAUL BARRY SERAME MEKHAILA FARAON LORIELYN FUNDAL
LOUI DELFIN JESSA FUNESTO
MARK GEO PALOMAR GRETCHEL FABALES
 ELEMENTS OF GENRE
Elements of fiction and elements of story in general
can be used by the reader to increase their
enjoyment and understanding of different literary
pieces. Once students are aware that all stories have
elements of character, setting, plot, theme, point of
view, style, and tone; they can be encouraged to ask
themselves to identify the characteristics of each for
a particular story. The more familiar they become
with the different kinds of elements the better they
will understand and critically analyze stories.
 A. CHARACTER
• Character is the mental, emotional, and social
qualities to distinguish one entity from
another (people, animals, spirits, automatons,
pieces of furniture, and other animated
objects).
• Character development is the change that a
character undergoes from the beginning of a
story to the end. Young children can note this.
 TYPES OF CHARACTERS
• Round characters are those the
reader/listener/viewer gets to know well.
They have a variety of traits that make them
believable. Central characters are well
developed in good literature
• Flat characters are less well developed and
have fewer or limited traits or belong to a
group, class, or stereotype.
 Anthropomorphic characterization is the
characterization of animals, inanimate objects,
or natural phenomena as people. Skilled authors
can use this to create fantasy even from stuffed
toys (Winnie-the-Pooh). The characterizing of
inanimate objects from tiny soldiers to trees and
so on is represented in Andersen's works and
the ballet The Nutcracker.
 CHARACTER CHANGE
• Animal characters in realism are best when
the animals act only like animals as in The
Incredible Journey.
• Dynamic characters are rounded characters
that change.
• Static (stock) characters are round or flat
characters that do not change during the
story.
 B. POINT OF VIEW

• Point of view is determined by the authors'

descriptions of characters, setting, and events
told to the reader throughout the story.
 FIRST PERSON POINT OF
VIEW
• (Who is telling a story) where the story is
narrated by one character at a time. This
character may be speaking about him or
herself or sharing events that he or she is
experiencing. First person can be recognized
by the use of I or WE.
 SECOND PERSON POINT
OF VIEW
(how the story is told) where the narrator tells
a story to another character using the word
“you”. When writing fiction in second person,
the author is making the audience a character,
implicating them.
 THIRD PERSON POINT OF
VIEW
• The narrator tells us about what’s happening
in the story. In third person limited, the
narrator shows us the thoughts and feelings of
one character. In third person omniscient, the
narrator is all-knowing and shows us the inner
world of every character that appears.
• Omniscient: third person (he, she, they) is all-
knowing in every detail of action, thought, and
feeling (conscious or unconscious)
• Sometimes the author uses limited omniscient
point of view (when only a select amount of
characters are presented omnisciently), Little
House stories where Laura's actions and
thoughts are told but not other characters.
• Objective or dramatic point of view: There is
no explanation to the reader of what is going
on or what the characters think or feel. The
camera selects and we see and draw our own
conclusions. Incredible Journey, is an example.
Since the characters are animals we are not
able to know what they think, if indeed they
do. We must imagine their actions and
movements or other sensory images.
 C. PLOT
• Plot is the order in which things move and happen in
a story.
• Chronological order is when a story relates events in
the order in which they happened.
• Flashback is when the story moves back in time. Jean
George, Julie of the Wolves or dreams in Maurice
Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. Dreams are
easier for children to understand because of their
experience with them. Flashbacks are more
problematic.
• Conflicts occur when the protagonist struggles
against an antagonist (villain that goes against
the protagonist), or opposing force. Conflict
and order make plot. The author creates the
conflict by describing one of the following
types of interactions.
• Person-against-self: Tom Sawyer's fear of Injun
Joe and guilt, can't sleep, fear of talking in sleep,
ties mouth shut, struggle with moral
responsibility even in the face of danger. A
Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin. Ged
struggles against the flaws in himself, as the
shadow, must make himself whole. "a man who,
knows his whole true self cannot be used or
possessed by any owner other than himself. He
will now live his life for its own sake, not for
hatred, pain, ruin, or the darkness of evil.
• Person-against-person: Meg and IT in A
Wrinkle in Time, Michael and his mother
in The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Bell
Mathis, Little Red Riding Hood and The Three
Little Pigs Vs. the wolves.
• Person-against-society: Child will probably call
it "will Wilbur live?", but it is really Wilbur Vs.
dinner table, Wilbur Vs. good business. Kit Vs.
the Puritans in The Witch of Blackbird Pond by
Elizabeth George Speare.
• Person-against-nature: Julie in Julie of the
Wolves by Jean George. Karana in Island of the
Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell.
• Lack of conflict: A story that lacks struggle, lacks suspense,
lacks alternatives, lacks a sense that it had to happen, and
therefore, satisfaction. All the reader can say at the
conclusion of such a story is "So what does that prove? A
Wrinkle in Time shows Meg in a powerful planet saving
person-against-person conflict. The author builds the plot,
character, ... so well that the reader/listener cares very
much what happens to Meg. Even simple stories
like Goldilocks, The Three Little Pigs, and The Billy Goats
Gruff have conflict and tension. Double Fudge by Judy
Blume has a different sense of conflict. There are little
incidents that happen throughout the book but nothing of
significance to anyone but Fudge and maybe some family
members. However the reader's attention is maintained by
an attachment to Fudge and his struggle with childhood.
 LINEAR
• Pattern of action
• Rising action builds during the story and reaches
a peak at the end. The Borrowers by Mary
Norton.
• Steady action maintains the same amount of
action through out the story, rising and falling
from time to time. Little House in the Big
Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
• Rise and fall action: the action rises to a climax
and then trails off. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by
Mildred D. Taylor.
• Suspense is what makes us read
on. Charlotte's Web: Wilbur's fate. Will he
live? Will Charlotte run out of words? Is
Templeton too selfish to help? Will Wilbur win
at the fair? Can Charlotte go? Lose to Uncle?
New category? Dead pig! Templeton bites
tail...
• Cliffhanger: Trouble River by Betsy Byars, The
Borrowers by Mary Norton, and the High
King by Lloyd Alexander.
• Foreshadowing is the planting of clues to indicate
the outcome of the story. Not all readers will be
alert to these. Some may notice them
subconsciously and describe their inferences as
guesses or feelings. Charlotte's Web: When we
first meet Charlotte we are told that she eats
living things and the friendship looks
questionable. But White adds that "she had a
kind heart, and she was to prove loyal and true to
the very end. A prophetic statement. Another
clue is when Charlotte assures Wilbur, after he
learns of the slaughter, with, "I am going to save
you."
• Sensationalism: the thrilling and the startling.
Achieved at the expense of the character and the
idea. A writer must be careful with
sensationalism, so as not to weaken the character
or theme, to balance suspense over action, and
then hint at the outcome, as not to overpower
small children but provide relief as needed.
• Climax: The peak and turning point of the
conflict, the point at which we know the outcome
of the action. Children call it the most exciting
part. In Charlotte's Web when the pig
survives. The Borrowers when the boy ventilates
the fumigation. A Wrinkle in Time when Meg
discovers what she has that IT does not.
• Resolution is the falling action after the climax.
When the reader is assured that all is well and
will continue to be, so the plot has a closed
ending. If the reader is left to draw their own
conclusions about the final plot then the
ending is open. Many adults as well as
children are disturbed by open endings.
• Inevitably is the property of it had to be. This
is high praise for a writer.
• Coincidence: events that happen by mere chance. The
Incredible Journey has some coincidental events that
remove credibility from the plot. First, a handwritten note
blows into the fire and leaves the housekeeper baffled.
She therefore does not know that the two dogs and cat
have struck out on their own, and does not search for
them. Later a crumbling beavers' dam gives way at just the
right moment to sweep the frightened cat downstream.
Later a boy hunting for the first time with his own rifle
saves the cat from a lynx with one remarkable shot.
• Sentimentality is a natural concern or emotion for another
person. The way a soap opera or a tear-jerker plays on its
viewers.
 TYPES OF PLOT
• Progressive plots have a central climax followed
by denouement. Charlotte's Web and A Wrinkle in
Time are examples.
• Episodical plots have one incident or short
episode linked to another by a common character
or unifying theme (maybe through chapters).
Used by authors to explore character
personalities, the nature of their existence, and
the flavor of a certain time period.
 D. SETTING
• Setting includes time and place.
• the setting is unimportant for the story and
the story could take place in any
setting. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne is an
example of a story in which could happen in
any setting.
 E. CONFLICT

• Is a literary devices, involves a

struggle between two opposing
forces usually protagonist and
antagonist.
 F. IRONY
----A situation or use of language, involving
some kind of incongruity or discrepancy.
• VERBAL IRONY – A figure of speech in which
what is meant is the opposite of what is said.
(ex. Sarcasm)
• DRAMATIC IRONY – A device by which the
author implies a different meaning from that
intended by the speaker in a literary work.
• IRONY OF SITUATION (SITUATIONAL IRONY)
- A situation in which there is an incongruity
between actual circumstances and those that
would seem appropriate or between what is
anticipated and what actually comes to pass.
(typical Irony, twisted ending)
 G. THEME
• Theme is the main idea that weaves the story
together, the why, the underlying ideas of
what happens in the piece of literature, often
a statement about society or human nature.
• Explicit theme is when the writer states the
theme openly and clearly. Charlotte's Web:
friendship. Primary explicit themes are
common in children's literature, as the author
wants to be sure the reader finds it.
• Implicit themes are implied
themes. Charlotte's Web: If two such unlikely
animals as a spider and pig can be friends,
then so can we. Even a Tempelton can be a
friend to a degree. Friendship is giving of ones
self, as Wilbur did for the egg sac and
devotion to the babies. Best friends can do no
wrong. Friendship is reciprocal.
 CREATIVE WRITING

TECHNIQUES AND
LITERARY
DEVICES
 TONE
• In written composition, is an attitude of a
writer toward a subject or an
audience. Tone is generally conveyed through
the choice of words, or the viewpoint of a
writer on a particular subject. ... The tone can
be formal, informal, serious, comic, sarcastic,
sad, or cheerful, or it may be any other
existing attitude.
 MOOD

Mood-In literature, mood is a literary

element that evokes certain feelings
 FORESHADOWING
• Foreshadowing is a literary device in which a writer gives
an advance hint of what is to come later in the story.
Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story,
or a chapter, and helps the reader develop expectations
about the coming events in a story. Charlotte's Web: When
we first meet Charlotte we are told that she eats living
things and the friendship looks questionable. But White
adds that "she had a kind heart, and she was to prove
loyal and true to the very end. A prophetic statement.
Another clue is when Charlotte assures Wilbur, after he
learns of the slaughter, with, "I am going to save you."
 SYMBOLISM AND MOTIF
• Symbolism -In literature, symbolism can take
many forms including: A figure of speech
where an object, person, or situation has
another meaning other than its literal
meaning. The actions of a character, word,
action, or event that have a deeper meaning
in the context of the whole story.
Motif-In narrative, a motif (pronunciation)
(help. info) is any recurring element that
has symbolic significance in a story.
Through its repetition, a motif can help
produce other narrative (or literary)
aspects such as theme or mood.
 CREATIVE WRITING

MODELLING FROM WELL-

KNOWN LOCAL AND
FOREIGN SHORT STORY
WRITERS IN A RANGE OF
MODES
 Short Story Writers
• write short pieces of prose fiction that
generally focus on a single theme, simple plots
and few characters. There is considerable
debate surrounding what should be the
appropriate word limit for a piece of fiction to
be considered a short story; it is generally
considered to be between 1000 to about
20,000 words.
• Edgar Allan Poe, the famous American author
regarded to be one of the earliest writers of
short stories defined a short story as a short
piece of fiction that can be read in one sitting.
However this categorization is also subjective,
there is no concrete definition of what
constitutes the time limit for one sitting. Many
novelists begin their career as writers of short
stories.
Writing shorter pieces of prose before
commencing a lengthier piece of work gives
them an opportunity to hone their writing
skills and get an idea about the readership for
their works. It also helps popularize the
writer’s name in the market so that any other
work by the same author is received favorably.
Short stories are mostly based on a single
theme that revolves around a small cast of
characters, and are usually less complex than
novels.