Elements of FictionFocus onPLOT1Enhancing Your UnderstandingMake a path, deviate, return, discover. 1Set the Stage 2 Develop the Conflict 3 Find Some Resolution 2Set The StageWhen, Where, and Who1 3

WHENIf you nurture your mind, body, and spirit, your time will expand. You will gain a new perspective that will allow you to accomplish much more.Brian Koslow

WHEREThe set is absolutely amazing and unbelievable. The set places the choir in the courtyard in front of a temple ruin forcing us to become part of the drama.Bill Downs

MOODOf all the ruinous and desolate places my uncle had ever beheld, this was the most so. It looked as if it had once been a large house of entertainment; but the roof had fallen in, in many places, and the stairs were steep, rugged, and broken. There was a huge fire-place in the room into which they walked, and the chimney was blackened with smoke; but no warm blaze lighted it up now. The white feathery dust of burnt wood was still strewed over the hearth, but the stove was cold, and all was dark and gloomy.Charles Dickens

We left the home place behind, mile by slow mile, heading for the mountains, across the prairie where the wind blew forever. At first there were four of us with one horse wagon and its skimpy load. Pa and I walked, because I was a big boy of eleven. My two little sisters romped and trotted until they got tired and had to be boosted up to the wagon bed.That was no covered Conestoga, like Pas folks came West in, but just an old farm wagon, drawn by one weary horse, creaking and rumbling westward to the mountains, toward the little woods town where Pa thought he had an old uncle who owned a little two-bit sawmill.INCITING INCIDENTSetting the StageInciting INCIDENT

2Develop The ConflictGive em something to fight over! 11Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but its the middle that counts.Sandra BullockIn the Middle

Fiction is love and hate and agreement andand common adventure.A. B. Guthrie Jr.

14Conflict Exists Inside and Outside

Man vs. SELFThe greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.Garth Brooks

Man vs. MANThere are terrible conflicts that arise out of misunderstandings and people just think someone else is doing something terrible when they're not, and we know how to fix that.Guy BurgessMan vs. SOCIETY

In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessaryKathleen Norris

Man vs. NATUREThe wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but deliverance from fearRalph Waldo EmersonMan vs. SUPERNATURALIt's a fabulous story . . . It's got these supernatural elements as well. It's one man's fight against a man-shaped monster and against his mother who is bestial, and then against a dragon.Andy Orchard

Whatever course you decide upon, there are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.Ralph Waldo EmersonRising Action, Increasing TensionDarkness. Dust. The musty odor of old furniture and draperies. The stifling inability to draw a free breath. The cold, paralyzing terror. And the furtive steps drawing nearer and nearer!--The Mystery of the Empty Room (Augusta Huiell Seaman)SUSPENSE

22but a singular sense of impending calamity, that should indeed have served me as a warning, drove me onward.H.G. Wells, The Time MachineFORESHADOWING

I walked out of the room, and saw the portrait of my mother in the otherwise empty hallway. I remembered, years ago, my father would stare mindlessly at it for minutes, sometimes hours, before a bird chirping would awaken him from his trance. Without warning, a bird chirped, and I immediately tore my eyes away from that portrait.FLASHBACK

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We want a story that starts out with an earthquake and works its way up to a

Samuel Goldwyn

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The CLIMAX of the Mountain

3Find Some ResolutionHappily Ever After 28I wanted a perfect ending. Now Ive learned, the hard way, that some poems dont rhyme, and some stories dont have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing whats going to happen next.Gilda Radner

The DENOUEMENT

How it all works out for the characters.

Not always present

The RESOLUTION

Anything that happens after the climax

Can be long or shortTHE END of the Story

31If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.Orson WellesRESOLUTION

32I knew I wanted the ending of the story to be poignant and heart-felt. If I couldn't do it, I didn't want to waste my time writing the rest of the novel, knowing it would collapse at the end.Nicholas SparksDENOUEMENT

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FOCUS ON FICTION35