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Fictional Narrative Basics - Beginning
Completion Date: End of Week 1
Description Exercise
Description underlies the effectiveness of almost all elements of traditional fictional narrative. The best plot, character, or point of view will prove unconvincing unless presented with vivid, engaging and believable description. Very often, the key to description is not in giving the reader enough detail--it is very easy, in fact, to provide too much description--but in selecting for your reader the detail that is precisely the one that carries the action forward convincingly. The details presented also depend to a large extent on who is observing them, which is part of the idea explored in the exercise that follows.
The following exercise is developed out of one John Gardner suggests in "The Art of Fiction."
Describe a barn, as seen by a person in one of the following circumstances:
1) A man who has just learned that his son was killed in a war.
2) A woman who has just accepted a marriage proposal.
3) A teenager who has just survived a terrible car accident.
You may only provide descriptions of physical attributes of the barn. You may not mention characters or their situations, or make reference to anything but the barn. Everything you describe must be able to be seen, heard, felt (tactile sensation, not emotional), tasted, or smelled.
Beginning Exercise 3 (Req. - Option 4) - Submit Response
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