Week 4: Building your story

Introduction

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DEREK NEALE

Welcome to week 4. So far you’ve discovered how an important part of ‘setting out’ is starting to keep a journal. You can try out your ideas– map them, interrogate them, collect them.

A journal can also form a kind of personal ‘running commentary’. It’s private you can write there without fear of censorship, intrusion or critical comment.

We’ve seen how ideas for stories can come from anywhere and this week we’ll look further at where ideas for stories may come from and how to make them matter, personally, to you.

You’ll see an extract from a Fred D’Aguiar novel with a personal resonance and we’ll also be looking at research. You’ll hear from novelists Tim Pears, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland talking about the value of research to their writing.

You’ll discover how your journal can become a tool to help you undertake research and record observation. You’ll consider ways of turning events into a plot; and how plot can develop from character.

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What have you written in your writer’s notebook so far? Find out how other writers use theirs and how you can develop a ‘notebook habit’.

Your writer’s notebook is a secret space where you can try out your ideas – map them, interrogate them, collect them. A journal can also form a kind of personal ‘running commentary’ to yourself, on your thoughts about your own work.

In the stories you’ve written so far, you’ll have seen how ideas can come from anywhere. We will now look further at where ideas for stories may come from, and how to make them matter personally to you.

4.1 Why take notes and what to note

Figure 1

By now you should have quite a few things in your writer’s notebook, besides the set writing tasks you have undertaken. Your notebook should be a repository for what you collect.

Alongside some of the activities included in this course, your journal might include:

• general notes and sensory observations of the world around you
• things you have seen or heard, felt or read – perhaps passages of other people’s writing, or turns of phrase that you admire
• words and word-derivations that are new or interesting to you
• facts that you want to remember
• lines or phrases that you might use in your work
• images: postcards, pictures, photographs that are in some way significant to you, perhaps because they conjure up a scene or story that you might write about
• descriptions or sketches of characters and places you might wish to write about
• notes about periods in recent or distant history that you are interested in
• ideas and plot lines that might be useful in future, or that you are gathering for particular pieces of work.

A single line noted down can prove to be the basis for an entire story or even a novel.

Describing her writer’s journal, the American writer Joyce Carol Oates says:

Over time, a writer’s notebook can act as an anchor to remind you how certain ideas originated, and where you initially meant to take them. It will also form a rich source book for you to draw on, to help to guide you through your work.

Also, for ‘writer’s block’ and the nerves of facing a blank page or screen, a journal can be a great comfort – full of notes, reminders, jokes, special words or word-derivations, leads and prompts to get you started again.

Think of your notebook as being rather like an ongoing map of your writing’s progress. You add to it every day, so each day your map improves and becomes more useful to you.

Remember, whatever works for you, works.

4.1.1 Research

Figure 2

Writing fiction often involves finding out about things you don’t yet know enough about, or checking things you are not sure of. Sometimes you will use your notebook to detail your research. But what research do other writers undertake?

Here novelists Tim Pears, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland talk about their approaches to research. Do their approaches have anything in common?

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Writing fiction often involves finding out about things you don’t yet know enough about, or checking things you are not sure of. Sometimes you will use your journal to detail your research. Here novelists Tim Pears, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland talk about their approaches to research.

TIM PEARS

It’s one of the great advantages of writing a novel is that it’s an excuse to find out about a whole world I always have that at the beginning of a book. I think right, what do I really want to find out about for this book. I’ve got some basic idea but, it’s got to be embedded in a world, a real world, a world of people, and work which is something I’m kind of generally interested in is what people do.

From everywhere, you know like a magnet, people sometimes say that, you know the most important thing that we must do is to remember, do not forget, you know do not forget, there’s a great a kind of a 20th Century injunction, do not forget, do not allow things to be forgotten, and that novelists are somehow, it’s one of our jobs, it’s a guardians of memory.

But in my own experience and for other writers that I’ve spoken to, it seems like one of the common attributes is a poor memory, and it’s almost like you kind of fill yourself up with things, and then you let them go, because you move onto the next thing. So, certainly for In a Land of Plenty it was dealing with the recent past with things that had happened in my lifetime, but certainly I couldn’t rely on my own memory, so I would just draw on everything; newspapers books, other people’s memories a lot. Photographs, I think photographs are very useful, because you forget hair style, fashion and so on and then it just all comes back, when you see aphotograph and you think, my god we were dressed like that, and all things come back.

PATRICIA DUNCKER

I’ve written one historical novel which is my second novel, James Miranda Barry. To some extent, I think all novels are historical novels because whatever period you’re writing about, has to be thoroughly researched, and the last novel that I wrote was a contemporary novel, that was set in our present time. And I still found that I had to do almost as much research for that as I did for James Miranda Barry.

With James Miranda Barry the research was fun because it was set in the early part of the 19th Century through to about 1865/1870 and one of the things about that period which really interests me is, the fact that you’re moving from the Regency through to the Victorian period. So we’re gradually becoming more and more straight-laced, and religion is becoming more and more important in the society. So that the reading I did was, a lot of history, an awful lot about the professions of my characters. One was a doctor one was an actress, so I read an awful lot about what the conditions were on the stage of that period, and about the state of medical research in the 19th Century.

The other aspect of the book that was fascinating for me was the West Indian content of the book. Because James Miranda Barry was a doctor in the colonial service who worked abroad, and he spent some of his professional life in Jamaica, which is where I come from, so it was fascinating to read all the things that I’d vaguely heard about in history or knew a little about, but to go into them in depth. Particularly, the slave revolts, because there is a scene in the book which is about, the Morant bay rebellion, about which I knew absolutely nothing, except that we frequently commemorated it on stamps, until I’d researched it up. But I wouldn’t say that I did less research for the novels that are contemporary, and in fact, the research tends to be the same, it’s about professions, about locations, and about the histories of places.

ALEX GARLAND

I didn’t really do any deliberate research on either of the two books. Coincidentally, I was a back packer that was what my life revolved around in a way. Writing was always a secondary concern to me about how I could get a ticket or a visa and where I wanted to go. The Philippines, I was particularly fond of, I’d been there repeatedly for years and years and years by the time I started to write The Tesseract so I didn’t really need any research.

I think also research, deliberate research can be difficult because it’s a kind of side step away from imagination or it can be if you’re not careful. And that can show up in writing as well. I think very often, you know, another one of these little truisms about writing is that a lot of writing is about editing and about what you take out, and I think that’s very true and if you leave a reader with a sense that something’s been too heavily researched I think that’s bound to distance them from their emotional contact with the narrative.

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4.1.2 Different approaches to research

Figure 3

As you can see, different writers have differing approaches to research – and you may find a similar variety among any fellow writers. But are there things you have to do?

Consider what the novelists that you’ve just heard – Tim Pears, Patricia Duncker and Alex Garland – say about research, and note down your thoughts. The relevant questions might start with:

• What are the key areas of research for writing a novel?
• Does life experience have anything to do with research?
• Do you have to undertake research for a novel or story that is set in the present day?
• Are there any dangers in researching for a story? If so, how do you counter these dangers?
• Can you rely on memory if writing about an era within your lifetime?
• What was the difference in attitudes towards research between the three writers?

4.1.3 The notebook habit

Figure 4

Research might well be one of the uses you have for your notebook. Whether it’s research, observations, ideas, your reading or something else, get into the habit of writing something, however short, in your notebook every day.

These ideas may be developed into stories, or they may not. You may not wish to follow them up now, but might suddenly be inspired by them in years to come, and use them as the basis for a story then. It doesn’t matter whether you ever use them. Keeping ideas ‘floating’ is what’s important.

4.2 What is plot?

Figure 5

How do you get from making notes for a story in your journal to thinking up a suitable plot line? The novelist E.M. Forster (1927) explains this very clearly.

He describes a story as ‘a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence’ and a plot as ‘also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality’ (Forster, 1927, p. 87). 

For example, ‘The king died, and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot.

This is because there is a reason given for the queen dying. In a story, someone dying is not in itself interesting. It is the reason for the death that fascinates the reader, especially if the reason is connected with something that has happened to, or been done by, another character.

Readers are well tuned to guessing and imagining causes just from the details they perceive in the story. With this in mind, even the smallest recorded observations can be relevant.

For example: ‘A woman on a bus today carried her Pekinese dog inside her handbag. It had a red bow on its head that matched her sweater.’

This short description of a real person could be the starting point for a fictional character. Imagine:

• Who might she have been?
• Where was she going?
• What did her appearance suggest about her mood or state of mind?
• How old was she?
• How did she live?

In answering these questions you are starting to build a concrete sense of character. You are starting to get a story.

4.2.1 Developing your plot line

Figure 6

Developing the detail of your character will help you arrive at your story. And discovering causality – what causes your character to do things or to be the way they are – will give you plot. But how do you develop that plot?

Returning to the example:

‘A woman on the bus today carried her Pekinese dog inside her handbag. It had a red bow on its head that matched her sweater.’

Now consider:

• Why was she on the bus?
• Why did she have the dog and where was she taking it?
• Why did she look the way she did?
• Why did the dog have a red bow?

These are not scientific questions: if you wanted to know the correct answer to them, you would have asked her. They are matters for your imagination. Answering them will give you a plot.

For example:

• Perhaps she is taking the dog to be put down at the vet’s, and is so upset about having to do so that she decides not to drive, and is taking the bus for the first time in ten years.
• Perhaps she’s travelling through a dangerous neighbourhood and is now afraid to get off, so stays on the bus until it takes her back to where she lives, which also means that her beloved dog has a reprieve, and when she gets it home she feeds it the prime cut of rib-eye steak she’d intended for herself … and so on.

4.2.2 What if?

Figure 7

In the example possibilities of how and why the woman happened to be on the bus with her dog, we are asking a question which is essential for writing fiction. This question is – ‘What if?’

Asking ‘What if?’ can help you to get from having an idea about a character you want to write about to developing a plot. For example, you might ask:

• What if at one time the straight-laced schoolteacher worked in the circus?
• What if that charming woman in the sweetshop poisoned her neighbour’s cat?
• What if tomorrow I inherited a million pounds, and then what if the next day I lost it?
• What if the characters are not as they first seem?

This ability to ask ‘What if?’ is a habit that can easily be learned. It adds causality and richness to your characters as well as helping you to form a plot.

4.2.3 Writing character

Figure 8

Regularly reviewing past work and any ideas or observations listed in your notebook can help you generate new ideas.

4.3 Hooked by lines and images

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Sometimes your subject will suggest itself to you through a line that simply emerges in your consciousness as being in some way significant. Raymond Carver described how the single sentence: ‘He was running the vacuum cleaner when the telephone rang.’ gave him the idea for a story:‘I knew a story was there and that it wanted telling. I felt it in my bones, that a story belonged with that beginning …’ Or perhaps a particular image, more than a line, presents itself to you in this way, as the key to a story. Novelist John Fowles described how he came to write The French Lieutenant’s Woman: ‘It started four or five months ago as a visual image. A woman stands at the end of a deserted quay and stares out to sea. That was all. … These mythopoeic ‘stills’ (they seem almost always static) float into my mind very often.’ The more you immerse yourself in your subject and in what you want to write about, the more you will encounter these sorts of lines and images.

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‘One sentence inspires great novel’: it could be a headline. Often the motivating force behind the writing of a story can be an odd line or image that somehow sticks with the writer.

Have you ever found inspiration to write from a single sentence?

What about images? It could be an awe-inspiring sunset, a work of art or simply an imagined scene that just won’t leave you.

4.3.1 Hunches that matter

Figure 9

The starting points for stories can come from many different directions. As an ongoing exercise in your journal, keep a note of any lines or images that present themselves to you in this way.

Also, note down a ‘menu’ of what you consider to be your overall ‘concerns’. This exercise aims to help you build up a self-portrait of who you are as a writer, and to help you to become clearer about the kinds of things that matter to you, that are likely to be your overall subject matter or material when you write. Remember, your list will (and should) be highly personal.

For example, it might include:

• my children’s safety
• passion for travel
• hatred of liars
• fascination for the movies
• fear of ageing
• interest in local politics
• love of animals.

Over time, your list should extend to include much more detailed descriptions of your concerns.

4.3.2 Writing about personal concerns

Figure 10

Now read the extract from a novel by Fred D’Aguiar, considering what you learn about the characters, the story and what you speculate to be Fred D’Aguiar’s concerns. This extract is also available as a PDF  for your convenience.

4.3.3 Week 4 quiz

The following quiz will encourage you to think further about dramatising concerns.

4.3.4 Reflecting on concerns and ideas

Figure 11

Reflecting on who you are and what sort of material you want to write about is an important and ongoing part of the writing process, not least because you will be more motivated by characters and storylines which embody topics that are important to you.

4.3.5 Extraordinary versus ordinary

Figure 12

Fiction does not have to be about extraordinary circumstances. In fact, the best fiction is often the fiction that presents familiar concerns in a new and surprising way. Fiction will always be new and surprising if it is truthfully observed.

Raymond Carver writes:

Sometimes stories are about extraordinary situations, of course. When tackling an extraordinary or huge theme, don’t try to say everything about everything. Sometimes a single focus on one or a few characters placed in extraordinary circumstances, will give a much larger sense of the whole. No matter how extraordinary the scenario, the reader’s primary interest will always be the characters. If you, the writer, don’t develop the characters well enough then the reader will lose interest.

4.4 Summary of Week 4

Figure 13

Have you developed a ‘notebook habit’ yet? What notes have you made that could become a story? A notebook is an important tool for a writer and should be a place you can record interesting uses of language or new ideas.

This week you’ve thought about where to find stories, and how you might consider using personal topics and thoughts in writing.

Next week you’ll discover how to make characters rounded and more interesting. You’ll also get the opportunity to test out these character skills by writing a character sketch. You can move on to Week 5 now.

If studying this week of Start writing fiction has inspired you, take a look at the area specifically created for you to explore more about writing fiction on OpenLearn.

References

Acknowledgements

This course was written by Derek Neale.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated in the acknowledgements section, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit:

Figures

Figure 2 © The Open University/Rory Carnegie (Pears)/Getty Images: Anita Schiffer-Fuchs (Duncker)/J Vespa (Garland)

Figure 5 © The Open University/Corbis Images/Hulton-Deutsch Collection

Figure 10 © Courtesy Professor Fred D’Aguiar

Figure 12 © The Open University/Corbis Images/Bob Adelman

AV

Research © The Open University/Alex Garland/Tim Pears/Patricia Duncker