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story elements – J.E.S. Hays http://www.jeshays.com Author, Worldbuilder, Wordsmith Fri, 06 Nov 2015 03:58:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 http://www.jeshays.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/cropped-sitelogo-32x32.gif story elements – J.E.S. Hays http://www.jeshays.com 32 32 Hillerman Convention: Day 1 http://www.jeshays.com/?p=1279 Fri, 06 Nov 2015 03:58:14 +0000 http://www.jeshays.com/?p=1279

Thursday is the Pre-Converence Conference. Today we learned The Anatomy of Engaging Stories (Bill O’Hanlon)

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Elements of an Engaging Story:

  • Characters – must engage the reader; the reader must identify with the character in some way. Create a mental image of the character with names, appearance, gestures, dialogue, and what other characters say or think.
  • Specific sensory details about people, places or actions – use the five senses!
  • Action (Plot: beginnings, middles and ends) – the character must be frustrated or threatened or face conflict somehow, must feel called to act or thwarted in his action.
  • Scene setting – props and sets; think more Little Theater than Hollywood – go for minimal props and setting (place/time/social)
  • Dialogue – bring the reader into the moment
  • Vague enough to allow for imagination (let the reader “hallucinate” much of the description)
  • Repetition of sounds/theme/elements
  • Revisiting the beginning at the end (story arc)

Elmore Leonard used the term “hoppetedoodle” (HOP-tee-doo-dle) to mean too much descriptive detail in a story.

We also had a great lecture about “The Language of Liars,” which is going to be quite useful to me with Chance! Then, it was Tony Hillerman’s 90th birthday party (with cake!), and a chance to see the new educational portal UNM is working on, to take Tony’s legacy to schools and educate young writers.

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