On the Routine of Writing Short Stories

In English literature, there is a writing type called narrative, which means telling stories in Chinese, so narrative can be translated into narrative writing or narrative writing. Both short stories and novels belong to this style.

In Chinese, we are used to translating novels into "stories" and stories into "stories", so it is still inconclusive whether short stories should be translated into "short stories" or "short stories". Because there is no complete equivalent translation in different languages, and because the development path of China's novels is very different from that of western literary novels, the details of this kind of chew over words are put aside for the time being, which is called short stories below.

Short stories in English literature are short narrative works centered on a single event. The maximum length is 10000 words, and some people think that 5000 words is the maximum.

So, what are the elements of classic English short stories? To put it simply, the Canadian high school teacher P.A.C.T.S. will ask students to fill in the P.A.C.T.S. form and analyze and understand a short story.

Stories or novels are inseparable from love. According to the definition of short story, it has only one central event, and the story revolves around this central event. Including:

The plot of a complete short story should include all these elements, so that the overall trend of the novel is one word:

Storytelling should create an atmosphere so that readers can have corresponding emotions. The atmosphere is conveyed by the author through his own words, while the emotion is perceived by the reader in the process of reading the words. A good work should be one in which the author can make readers feel the atmosphere created by themselves and produce corresponding emotions. Poor works make readers feel the atmosphere created by the author, or produce emotions that are completely inconsistent with the author's expectations.

For example, creating an atmosphere with the natural environment is the most common technique in literary works. Sunny days represent good mood and cloudy days represent sadness. It's not that bad things don't happen on sunny days in real life, but that this writing is closest to normal people's psychological perception, because people will feel awake when they are in a good mood. Thomas Hardy is an expert in this field. We can refer to how his description of nature in Tess of the D 'Urbervilles sets off the tragic and joyful situation of the protagonist.

Of course, literary masters can make bad things happen in sunny days and make readers feel more sad, but for junior writers, it is often dangerous to do so, which will make readers feel confused when reading and suspect that the author is snake disease.

Someone once received a letter from a distant friend on New Year's Day: "In recent years, every time our two families get together, how happy our friends are to get together." You went abroad this year, but somehow, we don't feel sad at all. " If you don't know that this buddy will never express himself, this letter is basically the rhythm of a dear John letter. This is the atmosphere created at the scene of the car accident.

Needless to say, short stories must have characters, and generally there is more than one character: one or two main characters and several minor characters. You can't have more than two protagonists, otherwise it will be chaotic.

The minor characters are constant throughout the story and exist as background colors. With the unfolding of the plot and the development of contradictions between the parties, the main characters must have a clear and logical change process, either the change of situation, psychology or mood, and so on. If the main characters haven't changed, it's a tasteless story, and if the secondary characters have changed, it's a chaotic story.

The protagonist should also have an opponent (adversary), that is, someone or something that makes trouble for the protagonist. The opponent can be another protagonist, a minor role, the protagonist himself, or even the social and natural environment in which the protagonist lives.

In the context of China, the most important difference between a novel and a story is that the story only tells one thing, which may be true or imaginary, and the story does not necessarily convey any values and concepts of the narrator; On the other hand, novels are different. Fiction is the author's "central idea" to convey his thoughts through a story, which is what we often say in middle school and what we hate most.

Therefore, a good novel should enable readers to get a kind of "life truth". Of course, every reader has his own life experience, so the truth of life that every reader gets from the same novel may be different. Take Mo Bosang's The Necklace as an example. China's standard answer to high school Chinese is "ruthless criticism of bourgeois vanity lifestyle", while there are several Canadian standard answers: honesty (admitting to your friend that you may only have to pay 500 francs for losing your necklace instead of working hard for ten years) and loyalty to love (the defeated wife didn't abuse her, but borrowed money to help her pay her debts, which is absolutely true love). ...

Generally speaking, the time and place of the story will be made clear at the beginning of the story, but this is not always the case. Sometimes, the time and place of the story will be hidden in the story. For example, if you see a taxi, readers will probably guess that it was at least a century ago. Speaking of earning seven shillings a week, you can guess that the story happened in England, and it was a long time ago.

Junior writers can explain the time and place clearly from the beginning, while senior writers can convey this information quietly and smoothly in the text and combine it with the story into a coordinated whole.

In addition to the five elements of agreement, short stories also have one main element & point of view, which is abbreviated as POV in English. POV refers to the perspective of telling stories, that is, the first-person narrative and the third-person narrative in Chinese.

The first person is easy to understand. The whole story is me, me and me. I see, I listen, I move, I say, I think. The biggest limitation of this perspective is that I can only know what others have said and done in front of me, but I don't know what others think or what others have said and done in my absence (unless another person comes to tell me). The biggest advantage of this perspective is that it is suitable for beginners, because as long as you write clearly what "I" is like, others are the reflections in my eyes and ears.

The third person tells stories with "he", "she" and "it". The third person is subdivided into limited third person view and omniscient third person view of God.

The limited third person is written from the perspective of the protagonist. The storyteller knows what the protagonist is doing and thinking, but he doesn't know much about other characters. This is the way most third-person stories are told.

The third person of God's perspective is called God's perspective, which means that the storyteller knows all the actions and thoughts of the whole story and is an omniscient and fully conscious existence. For specific writing examples, please refer to Jane Austen's novels. This kind of narration is the favorite of beginners, because it is simple and easy to write out the thoughts of each character directly and explain them to readers, which is much easier than describing the behavior of the characters. However, writing in this way can easily lead to confusion in writing, making readers jump from different perspectives of different characters, just like a beginner shaking his camera, and the video he shoots can only make people dizzy. As for some beginners who write in the first person, it is even more ridiculous to "accidentally" get into other people's bodies and express their thoughts.

This article is based on my notes in senior high school English class in Canada and my personal understanding. Please correct me if there are any mistakes.