CREATIVE PROCESS

The Muse Behind the Story (3)

IT’S A RESOURCE …

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The inspiration behind ‘The Proseland Courier’ was simple … I had to produce a college teaching resource … from scratch … ergo … ‘The Proseland Courier’.

I’m being a little oblique. Let’s get to the backstory.

I qualified as a college instructor in 1996 and was offered a part-time position teaching English. Within weeks of my commencing, I was also offered the role of teaching Creative Writing. The previous instructor wanted to scale back on his commitments to pursue his own writing.

Creative Writing was to become my priority focus. The subject was to be formally assessed through submissions of set coursework and a final, full-blown assignment.

It was up to me how I planned and delivered the course as long as the main criteria was adhered to.

I was advised that any resources I produced would become the property of the college. I was always a little perplexed by that. Sure, resources should be shared, but the resources I devised from scratch were also mine to use as and when I saw fit. And I did! But that’s another story.

I produced the majority of my resources at home by pounding on a word processor. Yes, high-tech times! I would then take my templates to college and photocopy them to be used as class handouts.

Using the seven elements of fiction as a baseline, sessions would revolve around character, plot, setting, conflict, theme, style, and voice.

With character, dialogue plays a huge role in revealing personality.

Good dialogue should be engaging while moving the story forward. Good dialogue needs to give the impression of real speech but is far from real speech.

But I go off-topic. Writers, both aspiring and seasoned, can struggle with speech presentation (layout) as well as the use of speech tags (he said/she said).

*A speech tag (or cue) not only identifies which character speaks and when but also their tone of voice or intention — she said, he lied, she whispered, he responded … and so on.*

The danger with speech tags can be twofold:

1. Monotony

Monotony is the repetitive use of the same tag, she said, she said, she said.

2. Overkill

Overkill is the excessive use of tags. Tagging every last line of dialogue is unnecessary, jolting, and tiresome.

So, my self-imposed mission (should I choose to accept it, and I did) was to try to present this concept in an entertaining way.

One day, a newspaper headline caught my eye. I can’t remember exactly what it said, but there was something about ‘on the loose again.’

So, I thought about presenting monotony and overkill as undesirables … as crimes to be put behind bars for!

From this, The Proseland Courier was born. Styled as a tabloid newspaper exposé on literary faux pas, The Proseland Courier became my teaching resource to entertain and inform.

★ Extract from The Proseland Courier (1996):

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!!

Jack and Jill’s Atrocious Attributives are on the loose again!!

Atrocious Attributives are intruding Proseland again! Yes, loyal reader, these pesky, time-wasting speech tags are back, menacing the reader by being both superfluous and distracting.

The Proseland Courier tracked down the culprits — only Jack and Jill, would you believe?

You can be assured, dear reader, that they were severely dealt with and swiftly put away for this infamous exchange last year …

This resource proved a favourite time and time again. We all had a giggle, but the message was clear.

★ Read The Proseland Courier (updated version) here:

[embed]The Proseland Courier ATROCIOUS ATTRIBUTIVES ARE BACK!medium.com

★ The Muse Behind the Story is an ongoing series of articles written, produced, and published by Susi Moore.

If you missed her previous article, here it is:

[embed]The Muse Behind the Story (2) THE ACCIDENTAL INSPIRATION …medium.com

Thank you for reading. Should you have any thoughts on this topic, I’d love to hear them in your comments.

Susi Moore © 2023. All Rights Reserved.

Want to discuss your own Muse and processes? Become a writer for MuserScribe! See the link below.

[embed]Welcome to MuserScribe 💜 CONVERTING THE MUSE INTO WORDS …Smedium.com