creative writting:how to tell your stories, Dialogue, Monologue,The Persona, Point of View

creative writting:how to tell your stories, Dialogue, Monologue,The Persona, Point of View

1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objective 3.0 Main Content 3.1 Dialogue 3.2 Monologue 3.3 The Persona 3.4 Point of View 3.4.1 First Person Point of View 3.4.2 Second Person Point of View 3.4.3 Third Person Point of View 4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary 6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 Reference/Further Reading 1.0 INTRODUCTION In the last unit, we tried to take you through the process of creative writing. You were taught how to plan, start and complete your story. In this unit, we will introduce you to how you would present that story. Who will tell your story – your point of view and why you should choose a particular point of view. 2.0 OBJECTIVES By the end of this unit, you will be able to: • Identify the various points of view; • List different genre of literature; • List various modes of presenting your creative work for each genre; 44 • Identify the most appropriate perspective for your writing; • Apply perspectives appropriately. 3.0 MAIN CONTENT In creative writing, you tell a story or relate an experience. It is necessary for you to know how to do that. You need to decide whether you will tell the story by yourself or you will tell it through somebody. Each genre of literature has its unique characteristics which influence the way it is presented. 3.1 Dialogue Dialogue is a conversation between two people. It is the ultimate medium of presentation of action in drama. However, it is used sparingly in poetry prose where it is used to inject action but in drama the action is presented through dialogue. In whatever genre, you should need Hamlet’s advise to the players in the “Mouse Trap”. “Suit the action to the word and the word to the action”. For effectiveness, dialogue should be tight and move swiftly. Dialogue is used to convey information, to reveal character, to crystallize relationships, to propel the plot and “precipitate revelation, crises and climaxes” (Oakley 94). It means that dialogue should not be static but must be moving forward in such a progressive manner that it should lead to a change of heart or plan or a resolution of an action. You should bear in mind that you must take pains to consciously create dialogue that is as close as possible to everyday speech. Avoid irrelevances, you should play down on the use of obscenities even when it is used to depict particular environment or people. Excessive use of profanities tends to bore the audience. Try not to use slangs in dialogue except when it contributes to the depiction of a character. 45 In creating your dialogue, try to be as concise as possible and ensure that your dialogue expresses one thought at a time and try to keep the lines short. Lengthy dialogue tends to slow down action, while short ones make the action brisk, racy and lively. In prose fiction, try to keep your dialogue minimal but at the same time it should be able to give the reader enough hints, information to fill out ensuing scenes from his/her own imagination. Dialogue should be informative but not propagandist except for special effect. You should not turn your characters to preachers of specific ideologies. Your character’s dialogues must sound convincing and true to life and must conform to the characters as presented in the work. Realistic dialogue does not mean “copying down everything you might pick up with a tape recorder at a social gathering” (Maxwell – Mahon 36). You should be able to prune the superfluous aspects of everyday speech from the dialogue and present only the “sense and sentiments” that carry your plot through its stages of development. That notwithstanding, you should reflect the real-life mutual conversation that involves lots of interruptions as the speakers butt into each other’s argument with noises of approval or disapprovals or cut-ins with counterarguments. Sometimes, normal conversations are disjointed, so try to reflect this disjointed nature of everyday dialogue especially at the emotional crisis moments in your work. Let us look at the dialogue below and see if it reflects some of the characteristics we discussed. Matron: Back! I said go… Inmate: (in Edo) Ikhian ya sa amen ye ete vben. Matron: What was that? Nweke: He wants some hot water for his sores. Matron: Not now, Sorry. 46 Nweke: (to patient, in Edo) Yato ta. (Meaning go and sit down) (Patient returns sheepishly to his mat). Matron: Now, would anyone care to explain what all that merriment was about? Nweke: We had just finished choir practice, Madam. Since we still had some time left before curfew, we were only keeping ourselves..er…keeping ourselves going. Matron: With drumming and dancing! Where do you think you are? Editor: (with malevolent calm) In the hospital. The General Hospital of his Imperial Majesty King George V of England; situated in the land of Port Harcourt, in the Colonial Territory of Nigeria, West Africa, the World. Matron: Is that supposed to be plain rudeness or a display of high intellect in geography? Cat: It’s neither. Matron: Beg you pardon! Cat: you asked a simple question, and he gave you a simple answer. Matron: (curtly) No one is seeking your opinion. (turns again to the Editor) In the first place, I was addressing him… (indicates Nweke) Since when did you become the spokesman for the … (restrains herself from describing the group) Or who do you think you are? Cat: Another question 47 Editor: Leper, madam. I am a leper – like the rest…of them. …(with a sweep of the arm taking in the entire inmates) lepers, lepers all – at the mercy of the hospital authorities. Matron: You could be – She is cut short by a querulous appeal from an inmate still in dance tableau. Dancer: (in Ibibio) Ami ndi da ke utom mi tutu idaga nke? (meaning: For how long am I supposed to hold this position?) Matron whirls round reproachfully: for the first time her calm is visibly rattled. Cat: The fellow wants to know how much longer he is to remain like that…(raises his eyes over the newspaper to glance at Inmate: he chuckles, and suppressing the rest of the impulse, adds)…Like a smoked he-goat. Matron does not respond, starts pacing about. Editor: Well, how long? Matron: Till the Senior Medical Officer himself comes to witness the extent of your latitude. Hannah: (breaks off her tableau) Well, we can’t wait forever! You hear? (in a frenzy)The night watchman you sent is too slow for our pains. Go yourself quickly and carry the SMO here on your back. Matron: (shocked beyond belief) Miss Hannah! 48 Hannah: Don’t Miss Hannah me! What’s the matter! Don’t we have a right to live in this land – just because we are like this? (displays her body) Everything we do – (crosses from inmate to inmate releasing them from their tableau) Sit down! Relax, all of you. The SMO? We can wait for him sitting down You can see the fast pace of the dialogue above. In prose fiction, you could start your novel with an exciting dialogue instead of in a narrative for. The exposition presented in dialogue is usually more dramatic and effective that it could have been done in a narrative form. Self Assessment Exercise – Study the dialogue above carefully and note the emotional crisis generated in it. 3.2 Monologue Dialogue is a conversation between two people while monologue is a one man conversation. We talk of monologues more in drama where it is referred to as dramatic monologue. However there is monologue in poetry especially in the 19th century English poetry perfected in the narrative poetry of Robert Browning and others. Dramatic monologues help to give more information on action and character. Soliloquy is a type of monologue but soliloquy is like thinking aloud so the character is oblivious of the audience. In dramatic monologue on the other hand, the character is aware of the audience and in actual sense, speaks and dramatizes to the audience. A very good dramatic monologue is the one we have in the opening scene of Althol Fugard’s Sizwe Bansi is Dead. 49 Get the play, read it and compare the monologue with the one presented below from Efua Sutherland’s Edufa. Seguwa:(Returning) This is what we are living with. This weakness that comes over her, and all this meandering talk. Talk of water and of drowning? What calamitous talk is that? When will it end? How will it end? We are mystified. How wouldn’t we be? Oh, we should ask Edufa some questions; that is what I say. You should all ask Edufa some questions. (She goes to the fire, throws in more incense, and withdraws from it as if she hates it) I wish I could break this lock on my lips Let those who would gamble with lives. Stake their own. None I know of flesh and blood Has right to stake another’s life For his own. Edufa! You have done Ampoma wrong. And wronged her mother’s womb Ah, Mother! Mother! The scenes I have witnessed in here, In this respected house. Would make torment in your womb Your daughter, all heart for the man She married, keeps her agonies from you Ah, Mother! Mother! Edufa has done Ampoma wrong Tafrakye! Some matters weigh down the tongue But mother, I swear 50 Edufa does Ampoma wrong He does her wrong. (She returns angrily to the incense burning). 3.3 The Persona Persona is the voice used mainly in poems. However, persona means the person the artists fronts in presenting his or her work. It is the writer’s mouthpiece. The writer may be a man, an adult but presents his work through the experiences of a child. The persona is like a mask which the writers wear to camouflage him/herself to make the experience presented vivid and more realistic. In “Abiku”, Wole Soyinka uses an Abiku child as a persona. 3.4 Point of View We talk of point of view in the novel and the short story. Basically, there are three types of point of view – first person point of view, second person point of view and third person point of view.

also see points of views in telling a story