Creative

Writing

Ms. Trexie Joy Infante

Teacher
Lesson Objectives:

 Identify the various elements techniques and

literary devices in fiction.
 Determine the various modes of fiction..
 Write journal entries and short exercises exploring
character and setting.
Fiction: Character and Setting
Fictional Character

Is created by a writer using only a few thousand

words; whereas a real person is a product of
millennia of heredity, centuries of culture, and a
lifetime of experience.
 BIG
Idea
To be a great fiction writer you must have a mind like
God: a mind that knows various complex
psychological make up; a mind that hears, and
distinguishes, the seven billion different prayers
uttered every night
Types of Character
 Major Character
 Minor Character
 Flat Character
 Round Character
Major Character

Is usually given much development, more

conflicts to resolve, more background story, and
usually more action
 Minor Character

Usually serves a certain purpose to move a

plot, but is not as developed and explored as
a major character
 Flat Characters

Are easily recognized by your “emotional

eye”; they are usually constructed around
single idea or quality
 Round Characters

Have the capacity to surprise you in a convincing and even

inevitable way.

They are richer, deeper, more complex, more mysterious,

and more unpredictable than flat characters
Herman Northrop Fyre (1912-1991)

Was a Canadian literary critic and literary

theorist who wrote the book Anatomy of
Criticism to help categorize works of
fiction.
 Fyre’s Mode of Fiction
1. Myth – is a story mode where the hero is a divine being with an ability that is
superior in “kind” to other people and to the environment of the people.

2. Romance- is a story mode where the hero has marvelous actions, but who is
identified as a human being with an ability superior in “degree” to other people
and to his environment.

3. High Mimetic- is a story mode where the hero is a leader with an ability
superior in degree to other people “but not to his environment”. The hero has
authority, passions, and powers of expression far greater than others but what he
does is subject to both social critism and the order of nature.

4. Low mimetic- is a story mode where the hero is one of us, with an ability that
is superior “neither” to the people nor environment.

5. Ironic- is a story mode where the hero has an ability or intelligence “inferior”
to ours so we often have sense of looking down on a scene of bondage,
frustration, or absurdity.
Stories are about events that happen to people.
In fiction, you call these people characters. You can
create characters from the combined powers of your
real-life observations and imagination.
Fiction: Plot and Conflict
 Lesson Objectives:

 Write journal entries and short exercises exploring plot

and conflict.
 Critically read a short story
 BIG Idea

Most successful stories are satisfying because they

create a sense of order out of the chaotic events in the
story itself..
 Story vs. Plot

Edward Morgan Foster’s Aspect of the Novel defined story

as “the chronological telling of events”, and the plot as “the
cause and effect arrangement”.
He gave the famous eamples:
• The King died and the queen died.
Story
because it tells a series of events in their
chronological order

• The king died and then the queen died in

grief.
Plot
tells a series of events in a casual and logical
structure that connects the events to reveal their
dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance.
You may also think of stories and plots in the movies
The story is what the movie is all about, while the plot is what
happens in the movie

Take a look:
STORY: James Bond fights the bad guys and save the world

PLOT: Well, it starts with James Bond being tortured because

(flashback) ….Then he was able to escape because….then (flash
forward) because…because…because
TYPES OF PLOTS
LINEAR PLOTS
-constructed logically and not by coincidence
EPISODIC PLOTS
-linked to one another by common characters places, or a unified
theme
CUMULATIVE PLOTS
-events are repeated with one new aspect added with each repetition
CIRCULAR PLOTS
-characters in the story end up in the same place.
PLOTLESS PLOTS
-wherein narratives are written without traditionally recognizable
plots and yet still evoke in you a feeling that you are going
somewhere when you read them