theguide11e

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing

The activities in this section will help you choose an event to write about and develop it into a story that is well-told, vivid,and meaningful. Do the activities in any order that makes sense to you (and your instructor), and return to them as needed as you revise.

Choose an event to write about.

To make a compelling story, the event you choose to write about should

take place over a short period of time (preferably just a few hours);
center on a conflict (an internal struggle or an external confrontation);
disclose something significant about your life;
reveal strong and possibly complex or ambivalent feelings (rather than superficial or sentimental ones).

Make a list of possible events in your life that you would feel comforatble writing about. If you have trouble coming up with promising events to write about, try the following:

Review the Consider Possible Topics sections in “An American Childhood” (Dillard), “Tupac and My Non-Thug Life” (Desmond-Harris), and “Writing about What Haunts Us” (Orner), and reread any notes you made in response to those suggestions.
Consult Web sites where people post stories about their lives, such as the Moth, Story Preservation Initiative, Sixties Project, or StoryCorps. Try also typing memory project, survivor stories, or a similar word string into the search box of your browser.

If you need more ideas, the following may give you a jumping-off point:

a difficult situation (for example, when you had to make a tough choice and face the consequences, or when you let someone down or someone you admired let you down)
an occasion when things did not turn out as expected (for example, when you expected to be criticized but were praised or ignored instead, or when you were convinced you would succeed but failed)
an incident that changed you or that revealed an aspect of your personality (such as initiative, insecurity, ambition, jealousy, or heroism)
an incident in which a conflict or a serious misunderstanding with someone made you feel unjustly treated or caused you to mistreat someone else
an experience that made you reexamine a basic value or belief (such as a time when you were expected to do something that went against your values or had to make a decision about which you were deeply conflicted)
an encounter with another person that led you to consider seriously someone else’s point of view, that changed the way you viewed yourself, or that altered your ideas about how you fit into a group or community
an event that revealed to you other people’s surprising assumptions about you (as a student, friend, colleague, or worker)

TEST YOUR TOPIC

Considering Your Purpose and Audience

After you have made a tentative topic choice, ask yourself the following questions:

Will I be able to reconstruct the story, place, and people in enough detail to help my readers imagine what it was like? (As you probe your memory, you may remember more details, but you may also need to fill in or re-create some details.)
Do I feel comfortable sharing this experience with my instructor and classmates—revealing what I did, thought, and felt at the time? What concerns or anxieties do I have about the impression they will have of me?
Will I be able to help my readers understand the personal and social dimensions of the underlying conflict? Will my own understanding of its significance deepen as I write about it?

If you lose confidence in your choice after answering these questions, return to your list and choose another event.

Shape your story.

Once you have selected an event, begin by making a simple sketch of your story. Here is a sample outline you can modify to fit your needs. (Remember that each section need not be the same length; the exposition and conclusion/reflection may be very brief —a sentence or two — while the rising action and climax may run for several paragraphs.)

Exposition/Inciting Incident: Set the scene and show how the conflict or problem started.
Rising Action: Build tension and suspense, showing how the crisis developed or worsened.
Climax: End the suspense by dramatizing the most critical moment or turning point.
Falling Action: Show how the tension diminished as the conflict moved toward resolution.
Conclusion/Reflection: Bring closure to the story and reflect on the event’s overall significance.

Then you can use the following “Ways In” suggestions to anticipate your readers’ likely questions and flesh out your chronology.

WAYS IN

HOW DO I DEVELOP A DRAMATIC ARC?

Ask yourself the following questions:

What is the underlying conflict, the dilemma facing my narrator?

To answer, provide some EXPOSITION, the background information that will help your readers understand the situation:

I wanted ______ but didn’t want to ______ . So I ______ .

EXAMPLE

The object of my desire was a 75-cent Snoopy button. . . . I took one look at the lines at the cashiers and knew I didn’t want to wait thirty minutes. . . . (Brandt, pars. 2, 3)

What started it?

To answer, dramatize the INCITING INCIDENT, the crisis that sets off the conflict or triggered the event.

Use an action sequence:

I did ______ But then ______ .

EXAMPLE

A black Buick was moving toward us down the street. We all spread out, banged together some regular snowballs, took aim, and, when the Buick drew nigh, fired. (Dillard, par. 7)

Use dialogue:

“______,”______announced excitedly.

EXAMPLE

“Your friend died!” she called out from another room. (Desmond-Harris, par. 2)

What will happen?

To answer, intensify the story’s RISING ACTION to arouse curiosity, and build suspense and excitement.

He ______ us. We______ .

EXAMPLE

He ran after us, and we ran away from him, up the snowy Reynolds sidewalk. At the corner, I looked back; incredibly, he was still after us. . . . This man was gaining on us. He was a thin man, all action. All of a sudden, we were running for our lives. (Dillard, par. 10)

What did it lead to?

To answer, dramatize the CLIMAX. It may be the only climax or one of several, as in Brandt’s story.

I thought I had ______, but then ______ .

EXAMPLE

I was home free. I thought about how sly I had been. . . . An unexpected tap on my shoulder startled me. (Brandt, pars. 5–6)

When she told me, “______,” I knew I had______ .

EXAMPLE

“I’m afraid sorry isn’t enough. I’m horribly disappointed in you.” Long after we got off the phone, while I sat in an empty jail cell, waiting for my parents to pick me up . . . I cried. (Brandt, pars. 35–36)

How did it turn out?

To answer, summarize the FALLING ACTION, showing how the conflict subsides and complications unravel.

Afterwards, I______ .

EXAMPLE

When the officer came to release me, I hesitated, actually not wanting to leave. We went to the front desk, where I had to sign a form to retrieve my belongings. (Brandt, par. 36)

Why does my story matter?

To answer, conclude with REFLECTIONS on the event’s significance:

I realized then that ______ .

EXAMPLE

As I looked from my father’s eyes to my mother’s, I knew this ordeal was over. Although it would never be forgotten, the incident was not mentioned again. (Brandt, par. 39)

TEST YOUR STORY

Facing an Audience

Get together with two or three other students to try out your story. Your classmates’ reactions will help you determine whether you are telling it in an interesting or exciting way.

Storytellers: Take turns telling your stories briefly. Try to pique your listeners’ curiosity and build suspense, and watch your audience to see if your story is having the desired reaction.

Listeners: Briefly tell each storyteller what you found most intriguing about the story. For example, consider these questions:

Were you eager to know how the story would turn out?
What was the inciting incident? Did it seem sufficient to motivate the climax?
Was there a clear conflict that seemed important enough to write about?

Clarify the sequence of actions.

Excerpts from the reading selections in this chapter demonstrate how writers clarify when different actions occur in relation to each other. Try using some of these strategies to help your readers keep track of what happened when.

Manage tenses to show the sequence of actions occurring over time. You can use the simple past tense (watched, was, pulled, held) to depict an action and other tenses (had . . . returned, continue to mourn) to show what occurred before or after:

Past tense

Earlier past (past perfect)

I watched my father in the front hall putting on his new, lambskin leather gloves. . . . My father had just returned from a business trip to Paris. He’d bought the gloves at a place called Hermès. . . . He pulled one on slowly, then the other, and held them up in the mirror to see how his hands looked in such gloves. (Orner, par. 3)

Use time cues (such as when, now, then, and as) to help readers understand how one action relates to another in the time sequence:

Both actions occur at same time

As we all piled into the car, I knew. . . . (Brandt, par. 1)

One action follows another

When I got back to the Snoopy section, I took one look at the lines . . . and knew I didn’t want to wait. . . . (Brandt, par. 3)

For more on transitions of time, see Chapters 13 and 14.

Refer to calendar or clock time to establish when the event took place.

On one weekday morning after Christmas. . . . (Dillard, par. 3).

(See “Transitions,” Chapter 15, for more about transitions of time.)

Describe key people and places vividly, and show their significance.

The excerpts below show how the writers whose stories appear in this chapter use strategies like naming, detailing comparing, selecting sensory details, and providing an overview of the setting to bring key people and places to life. Try using some of these strategies in your own writing to make people and places vivid.

Use naming and detailing to help readers visualize people and understand the roles they play in your story. For example, identify people by name, occupation, or relationship to you; specify how they act, talk, look, and gesture:

Mikey and Peter — polite blond boys who lived near me on Lloyd Street (Dillard, par. 4)

My rainbow-striped tee and her white wifebeater capture a transition between our skater-inspired Salvation Army shopping phase and the next one. . . . (Desmond-Harris, par. 7)

Add comparisons to convey what’s distinctive about the person and to help create a dominant impression:

. . . this sainted, skinny, furious redheaded man (Dillard, par. 21)

His unpredictability is what made his explosions so potent. Sometimes the bomb wouldn’t go off, and he’d act like my idea of a normal dad. (Orner, par. 9)

Specify sensory details—size, shape, color, sounds, textures, smells, tastes — of key features of the scene that contribute to the dominant impression you want to create.

Tupac was the literal sound track when our school’s basketball team would come charging onto the court, and our ragtag group of cheerleaders kicked furiously to “Toss It Up” in a humid gymnasium. (Desmond-Harris, par. 11)

Give readers an overview of the place or take them on a tour of it.

. . . we ran across Edgerton to an alley and up our own sliding woodpile to the Halls’ front yard; he kept coming. We ran up Lloyd Street and wound through mazy backyards toward the steep hilltop at Willard and Lang. (Dillard, par. 12)

Weave active, specific verbs and vivid descriptive details into your action sequences.

I whirled around to find a middle-aged man, dressed in street clothes, flashing some type of badge. . . . (Brandt, par. 6)

I had just embarked on the iceball project when we heard tire chains come clanking from afar. (Dillard, par. 7)

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Consider scanning, uploading, or attaching a photograph or video to help readers picture people and places. Make sure you introduce it or use a caption to demonstrate its relevance.

A snapshot taken that Monday on our high school’s front lawn (seen here) shows the two of us lying side by side. . . . (Desmond-Harris, par. 6)

Use dialogue to portray people and dramatize relationships.

Dialogue — in the form of quotation, paraphrase, or summary — can give readers a vivid impression of the people and their relationships while also enhancing the drama. The excerpts below may give you ideas of how you might use dialogue in your own story.

Insert a quotation to dramatize a key moment or characterize a relationship:

. . . I was too ashamed to tell my mother the truth, but I had no choice.

“ Jean, where are you?”

“I’m, umm, in jail.” (Brandt, pars. 26–28)

“Maybe they’re in the glove compartment,” my mother said.

“Impossible. I never put gloves in the glove compartment. The glove compartment is for maps.”

“Oh, well,” my mother said. (Orner, pars. 10–12)

Use summary to emphasize thoughts, feelings, or actions or simply to move the story along.

As we crossed the threshold, I heaved a sigh of relief. I was home free. I thought about how sly I had been and I felt proud of my accomplishment.

An unexpected tap onmy shoulder startled me. I whirled around to find a middle-aged man . . . politely asking me to empty my pockets. (Brandt, pars. 5–6)

Use speaker tags to identify each speaker and intersperse remembered thoughts:

“Did we really do that?” I asked Thea this week. I wanted to ensure that this story, which people who know me now find hilarious, hadn’t morphed into some sort of personal urban legend over the past 15 years. “Yes,” she said. “We put them in a lovely tin.” (Desmond-Harris, par. 4)

(See “Using Information from Sources to Support Your Claims,” Chapter 23.)

Clarify your story’s significance.

Try using some of these strategies to refine your understanding and presentation of the event’s significance. Some of these sentences may make their way into your story; others may simply help you understand your reactions, so you can depict the event’s significance more clearly.

WAYS IN

HOW CAN I HELP MY READERS UNDERSTAND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MY STORY?

Reexamine the UNDERLYING CONFLICT to determine what your story is really about.

I was confused, torn between ______ and______ .

EXAMPLE

Did we feel a real stake in the life of this “hard-core” gangsta rapper, and a real loss in his death? We did, even though we were . . . in a privileged community. . . . even though we’d been so delicately cared for, nurtured and protected from any of life’s hard edges — with special efforts made to shield us from those involving race — that we sometimes felt ready to explode with boredom. Or maybe because of all that. (Desmond-Harris, par. 8)

Consider whether you now have INSIGHT into your motivation that you did not have at the time or whether you feel just as bewildered today as you did then.

I still don’t understand why I ______ .

EXAMPLE

“I just did it. I can’t explain why” (Brandt, par. 34).

How could ______ ? I now think ______ .

EXAMPLE

What precisely could he have done to prolong the drama of the chase and cap its glory? I brooded about this for the next few years. . . . He could only chew us out there . . . , after months or years of exalting pursuit. (Dillard, par. 20)

Examine any INCONSISTENCIES or AMBIVALENCE in the language you used to tell the story or describe people and places. These apparent contradictions may lead you to a deeper understanding of why the event continues to be so fraught for you.

Why did ______ ?

EXAMPLE

Why did he take the gloves? My character could never express it in words and the story kept collapsing. . . . I can’t give the gloves back, in fiction or in this thing we call reality. If I did, I’d have to confront something I’ve known all along but have never wanted to express, even to myself alone. (Orner, pars. 21–22)

Recall your REMEMBERED FEELINGS and THOUGHTS from when the event occurred.

Before / during / after the event, I felt ______ . I showed or expressed these feelings by ______ .

EXAMPLE

I could still distinctly hear the disappointment and hurt in my mother’s voice. I cried. . . . I felt like a terrible human being. (Brandt, par. 36)

Explore your PRESENT PERSPECTIVE, what you think and feel now as you look back.

I realize now that my feelings have not changed. I still ______ .
Looking back at the event, I realize I was probably trying to ______, though I didn’t appreciate that fact at the time.

EXAMPLE

I love my father. I suppose I did even then, in the worst moments of fear. (Orner, par. 23)

Reconsider your PURPOSE and AUDIENCE in light of your developing understanding of the event’s significance. Determine what you want your readers to think and feel after reading your story.

When my readers finish the story, I want them to better appreciate ______.
The point was that ______.

EXAMPLE

The point was that he had chased us passionately without giving up, and so he had caught us. Now he came down to earth. I wanted the glory to last forever. (Dillard, par. 19)

Write the opening sentences.

Review what you have already written to see if you have something that would work to launch your story, or try some of these opening strategies:

Begin with a surprising statement:

I’ve been trying to lie about this story for years. (Orner, par. 1)

Set the scene—a specific time and place—and mood:

I knew it was going to be a fabulous day . . . [we were] setting off for a day of last-minute Christmas shopping. (Brandt, par. 1)

Reflect on something from your past that provides context for the event:

I got in trouble throwing snowballs, and have seldom been happier since. (Dillard, par. 2)

But don’t agonize over the first sentences because you are likely to discover the best way to begin only after you have written a rough draft.

Draft your story.

By this point, you have done a lot of writing

to develop a plan for a well-told story;
to come up with vivid details to help your readers imagine what happened;
to think of strategies for showing or telling the autobiographical significance of your event;
to try out a way to launch your story.

Now stitch that material together to create a draft. The next two parts of this Guide to Writing will help you evaluate and improve your draft.