Workshop 3: Plot & Development with Helen Hagemann, Friday, 4th September

  

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Friday 4^th September the workshop is the final in the series “Plot & Development” is called “Writing the Character Outline”. The class will look at how outlining can bring out ‘voice’. The main topics will be 1. Character Arc,  2. Main Traits and 3. Details of your character(s).  1pm-3pm, Upstairs, Room 3 at Fremantle Arts Centre.  OOTA Member $20 - Non OOTA $25

Developing Characters by Lawrence Block

The chief reason for almost any reader to go on turning the pages of almost any novel is to find out what happens next. The reason the reader cares what happens next is because of the author’s skill at characterization. When the characters in a novel are sufficiently well drawn, and when they’ve been so constructed as to engage the reader’s capacities for sympathy and identification, he wants to see how their lives turn out and is deeply concerned that they turn out well.

   Some novels depend more on characterization than do others. In the novel of ideas, the characters often exist as mouthpieces for various philosophical positions; while the writer may have taken the trouble to describe them and give them diverse individual attributes, they often have little real life outside of their specific argumentative role in the novel.

   Some whodunits rely on the clever intricacy of their plotting to hold the reader’s attention, stinting on characterization in the process…..Agatha Christie supplied her Hercule Poirot with a variety of attitudes and pet expressions, but I’ve never found that the little Belgian added up to anything more than the sum of these quirks and phrases. He serves admirably as a vehicle for the solution of brilliant mystery puzzles but does not interest me much as a character….And while one of Ms. Christie’s Poirot mysteries will always do to fill an idle hour, I’m a passionate fan of her Jane Marple stories, not because their plots are appreciably different from the Poirots but because Marple herself is such a fascinating character, warm and human and alive.

References: Lawrence Block "On Writing" and Gabrielle Lessa - Article "How Outlining can bring out Voice".https://janefriedman.com/2015/08/24/how-outlining-can-bring-out-voice/?utm_content=buffer177ad

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Workshop 2: Plot & Development with Helen Hagemann: Friday 21st August

Second workshop in the Series: Plot & Development with Helen Hagemann
Friday, 21st August 2015 1.00-3.00pm, Room 3, Fremantle Arts Centre.
Cost:  $20 OOTA   $25 NON-OOTA

This workshop "How to write an outline" includes writing a novel or short story outline of one of your favourite authors, and by utilising a template of Helen Hagemann's "3 Act outline" of her novel The Ozone Cafe. There will be an exercise on writing your own "outline", as well as class discussion on choice of genre, point of view, timeline, and choice of tense.

Outlining by Lawrence Block

An outline is a tool which a writer uses to simplify the task of writing a novel and to improve the ultimate quality of that novel by giving him/herself more of a grasp on its overall structure.

    And that’s about as specifically as one can define an outline, beyond adding that it’s almost invariably shorter than the book will turn out to be. What length it will run, what form it will take, how detailed it will be, and what sort of novel components it will or will not include, is and ought to be a wholly individual matter. Because the outline is prepared solely for the benefit of the writer himself, it quite properly varies from one author to another and from one novel to another. Some writers never use an outline. Others would be uncomfortable writing anything more ambitious than a shopping list without outlining it first. Some outlines, deemed very useful by their authors, run a scant page. Others, considered equally indispensable by their authors, run a hundred pages or more and include a detailed description of every scene that is going to take place in every chapter of the book. Neither of these extremes, nor any of the infinite gradations between the two poles, represents the right way to prepare an outline. There is no right way to do this – or, more correctly, there is no wrong way. Whatever works best for the particular writer on the particular book is demonstrably the right way.

 

The writer who does not use an outline says that to do so would gut the book of its spontaneity and would make the writing process itself a matter of filling in the blanks of a printed form. At the root of this school of thought is the argument first propounded, I believe, by science-fiction author Theodore Sturgeon. If the writer doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, he argued, the reader can’t possibly know what’s going to happen next.

   There’s logic in that argument, certainly, but I’m not sure it holds up. Just because a writer worked things out as he went along is no guarantee that the book he’s produced won’t be obvious and predictable. Conversely, the use of an extremely detailed outline does not preclude the possibility that the book will read as though it had been written effortlessly and spontaneously by a wholly freewheeling author.

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Helen Hagemann introduces a Series of Workshops titled: Plot & Development

Workshop Series:  Plot & Development with Helen Hagemann, Friday 7th August 1-3pm at the Fremantle Arts Centre.

Utilising Lawrence Block's "Writing the Novel" and other references, this is the first in a series of workshops to help writers understand the narrative arc of the novel / short story. 
   Helen aims to take writers through the many steps as a guide from the initial outline to the final stage.

Workshop 1 will look at "What Exactly is Plot?" This week we will look at graphs, including storyboarding, brainstorming and a writing exercise.


Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print

Block includes 'deciding which novel to write', developing plot ideas, and developing characters, with examples of how he has approached each.  "Ideas", he believes, arise in the mind "when the conditions are right," and then he gives concrete examples of how to make conditions right: read the kind of things you want to write, pay attention, remember what you're looking for.  Decidedly the best chapter in the book is "developing plot ideas" and his anecdotes resonate. His emphasis on individual patterns in writing continues throughout the book.  The chapter on 'outlining' states near the beginning, "There is no right way to do this -- or, more correctly, there is no wrong way.  Whatever works best for the particular writer on the particular book is demonstrably the right way." Block goes on to say, "If you feel comfortable beginning your book without an outline - or  even without a firm idea where's it's going - by all means go ahead. If you feel more confident of your ability to finish a book with an outline in front of you, by all means construct and employ one.  As you go along, you'll learn what works best for the particular writer you turn out to be.  Other good advice comes in his chapter on "Getting It Written."  Concern yourself with the work of the day.  Don't worry about what comes next, or whether you'll be able to sort out tomorrow's problems.  If nothing seems to come out right, write it anyway; you can throw it out later. This book is a fun read and can be useful for someone looking for specific pointers on process, alternative methods of working, or just glimpses of how one author thinks about writing. 

Please note: Apart from references such as a review (paraphrased) by Erin Hartshorn, acknowledgement must also be attributed to the OOTA Prose writers who have suggested these workshops!

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