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