How to write fiction

How to write fiction in a nutcasing clasification of the scene (in two stone throws)

girl in white dress holding a candelabrum
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FIRST STONE OR FIRST PART

Stubbornly (and only since I didn’t really get it and I’m particularly talented at being bigheaded), is it that I’ll try to explain a really basic classification of narrative scenes. According to Sarah Domet in “90 days to your novel”.

Narrative scenes internal and external

Were this to have any more clasification, then I’d have to sit down to read from Wednesday and write on Fridays. However, there are only two.

               The things that happen in our head or internal scenes, are exactly that. The existence’s quarrel; among those of sound mind surrounded by all the ones wanting to pretend to be responsible: the how much I hate the neighbour’s drapes; the lovely behind of the guy in the gas station.

               He casual meeting or the external scene. Yep. Encounters between our dear character and the rest of the population inhabiting our fantasy world, that require more action than hating some cloth or just admiring an anatomy model. If the character goes to the gym, they talk to their coach. Greets the receptionist at the dentist (whilst trembling inside). Buys the bread looking at the sugar bread loaves of the cashier. Smiles to the cute doggy they cross with, in the street. Interaction with the outside and if not there (according to Domet) can turn our world into a bore.

In her opinion[1], good stories are populated of these casual meetings in different shapes and arrangements… Butm if I remember it well, Teresa (from The unbearable lightness of the being) doesn’t have much interaction to be mentioned, with other characters. Much less the girl in The North China Lover. Of course, these stories are part of the LITERATURE in ways Agatha Christie doesn’t.  That… that takes us to Miss Marple. Miss Marple is always remembering what he or she said and talks pretty much to eveeeeerybody. And maybe such is the charm of these kind of stories. Not many people refrain themselves from solving a Christie’s puzzle.

And if what you need is a more modern example, Yumi’s cells by Donggeon Lee, is a lovely webtoon where to see this internal/external or zoom in/zoom out scene game. The thoughts of the main character, Yumi; are displayed on stage by the cell of love, hunger, emotional, good manners, history, naughty (the pervert one).

Everything coming through her head is an interaction game between these tiny characters. So, at least for the case, the external scenes show Yumi as an entity who displays what happens outside, either on her own or with other characters.

Taking into account, Ronald B. Tobias (the one of the “20 master plots”) likes explaining plots by using movies as examples  —besides books— (take little to SEE what the heck he is talking about), I think comics are a very good source of knowledge. It is between movies, where you see what’s coming on and it is almost impossible to narrate telling, and the novel; where there is a bunch of text and you can only trust the words. 

Complicate?

The example makes it a little more palatable, doesn’t it?

Like, subscribe, leave a comment instead having an internal scene where you like this nonsense and… be happy.


[1] She uses Charles Dickens as an example since he wrote lots of characters, “some fairly

insignificant, but fun to meet.”  Any Dickens expert out there? I only read Christmas Carol and didn’t like much of it… so I barely remember it.

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