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Writing Tips for by Melanie Anne Phillips Genre - Act by Act Receive Melanie's Writing Tip Newsletter Many writers have a misconception that genre is something you "write in" - like a box. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Genre is the overall mood of a story, created through structural and storytelling elements and approaches. This mood isn't simply set at the beginning of the story and then continued through the conclusion. Rather, the elements of genre are sprinkled into the story, establishing an initial mood, and then developing it over the course of the entire story. Genre
in Act One Your
story's genre is its overall personality.
As with the people that you meet, first impressions are very
important. In act one, you
introduce your story to your reader/audience.
The selection of elements you choose to initially employ will set
the mood for all that follows. They
can also be misleading, and you can use this to your advantage. You
may be working with a standard genre, or trying something new.
But it often helps involve your reader/audience if you start with
the familiar. In this way,
those experiencing your story are eased out of the real world and into
the one you have constructed. So,
in the first act, you many want to establish a few touch points the
reader/audience can hang its hat on. As
we get to know people a little better, our initial impression of the
"type" of person they are begins to slowly alter, making them
a little more of an individual and a little less of a stereotype.
To this end, as the first act progresses, you may want to hint at
a few attributes or elements of your story's personality that begin to
drift from the norm. By
the end of the first act, you should have dropped enough elements to
give your story a general personality type and also to indicate that a
deeper personality waits to be revealed. As
a side note, this deeper personality may in fact be the true personality
of your story, hidden behind the first impressions. Genre in Act Two In
the second act, your story's genre personality develops more specific
traits or elements that shift it completely out of the realm of a broad
personality type and into the realm of the individual.
Your reader/audience comes to expect certain things from your
story, both in the elements and in the style with which they are
presented. If
the first impression of your story as developed in act one is a true
representation of the underpinnings of your story's personality, then
act two adds details and richness to the overall feel over the story.
But if the first impression is a deception, hiding beneath it a
different story personality, then act two brings elements to the surface
that reveal the basic nature of its true personality. Genre in Act Three It
is the third act where you will either reveal the final details that
make your story's personality unique as an individual, or will reveal
the full extent of its true personality that was masked behind the first
impressions of the first act, and hinted at in the second. Either
way, by the end of the third act you want your reader/audience to feel
as if the story is an old friend or an old enemy - a person they
understand as to who it is by nature, and what it is capable of. Genre
Conclusion If
you've ever seen the end of a science fiction movie where the world is
saved, the words "The End" appear, and then a question mark
appears, you have experienced a last-minute change in the personality of
a story's genre. In
the conclusion, you can either re-affirm the personality you have so far
revealed, alter it at the last moment, or hint that it may be altered.
For example, in the original movie "Alien," there are
several red herrings in the end of act three that alternately make it
look as if Ripley or the Alien will ultimately triumph.
In the conclusion of Alien, the Alien has been apparently
vanquished, and Ripley puts herself in suspended animation for the long
return home. But the music,
which has been written to initially convey a sense that danger is over
suddenly takes a subtle turn toward the minor chords and holds them,
making us feel that perhaps a hidden danger still lurks.
Finally, the music returns to a sustained major chord as the ship
disappears in the distance, confirming that indeed, the danger has past. Keep
in mind that your reader/audience will need to say goodbye to the story
they have come to know. Just
as they needed to be introduced to the story's personality in act one
and drawn out of the real world into the fictional one, now they need to
be disentangled from the story's personality and eased back into the
real world. Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips The Top 10 Most Popular Articles Be a Story Weaver - NOT a Story Mechanic! How to Create Great Characters! Conflict Can Limit Your Characters Writing From A Character's Point Of View Writing Characters Of The Opposite Sex Our Most Popular Products |
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