ASSH 307: Creative Composition - Comprehensive Notes on Narrative Planning, Outlining, and Revision

Foundations of Narrative Planning

• Narrative: A spoken or written account of connected events. A narrative fundamentally incorporates characters, setting, and plot.

• Narrative Planning: The deliberate process of organizing the critical elements and events of a story prior to drafting.

• Purpose of Planning: Planning provides writers with a structured framework to:

  • Systematically organize creative ideas.

  • Determine which events are essential to the core arc.

  • Construct a coherent beginning, middle, and end.

  • Establish logical cause-and-effect connections between events.

  • Eliminate unnecessary details and fluff that disrupt story flow.

Transforming an Idea into a Story

• Stories frequently originate from simple premises that require intentional expansion into dramatic situations.

• Example Concept: "A student finds an old letter."

• Developmental Questions: To convert a basic premise into a compelling narrative, ask:

  • Who finds the letter?

  • Where is it found?

  • Who wrote it?

  • Why is it important?

  • What does the student do after finding it?

  • What problem or discovery follows?

• Narrative Planning Formula:   $\text{Character} + \text{Goal} + \text{Problem} = \text{Story Direction}$

• Core Principle: A well-structured narrative premise endows the character with a clear objective to pursue, an obstacle to face, a discovery to make, or a personal transformation to undergo.

• Applied Example:

  • Character: A graduating student.

  • Goal: Repair a broken friendship.

  • Problem: Her friend refuses to talk to her.

The Five Core Elements of Narrative Architecture

1. Character

• Definition: The person or figure involved in the story. Characters serve as the emotional anchor and movement engine of any narrative.

• Fundamental Philosophy: A story is a human reaction to events rather than a simple chronological log of occurrences.

• Planning Focus: Priorities must lie on desire and action rather than surface visual descriptions.

• Key Character Questions:

  • Main Character & Baseline: Who is the protagonist, and what is their baseline mindset or emotional state at the start?

  • Desire: What does the character want? Desire creates momentum; if a character wants nothing, the story stalls.

  • Action: What does the character need to do? What choices or actions are they willing to commit to in order to achieve their goal?

  • Arc / Change: How does the character change? What specific choice or breaking point forces adaptation, and who are they by the end?

• Three Principles of Launching a Character:

  • The Hook: Framing characters through their wants rather than their physical appearance.

  • The Core Principle: Story occurs when a character's desire hits an obstacle.

  • The Three Questions: Unpacking Who, Want, and Action.

2. Setting

• Definition: The specific time and place in which the narrative unfolds.

• Function: Setting goes beyond a passive backdrop canvas by establishing atmosphere, mood, physical constraints, available resources, and societal or environmental pressure acting on characters.

• Planning Questions:

  • Where and when does the story take place?

  • How does the physical space limit or pressure the character during critical moments?

  • Atmosphere and Sensory Detail: What does the environment feel, smell, and sound like? How does the physical space mirror or contrast the character's internal mood?

• Literary Example: Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher:

  • "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone…"

3. Plot & The Narrative Arc

• Definition: The structured sequence of events designed to build and resolve tension into a cause-and-effect narrative arc rather than a simple chronological timeline.

The Five Stages of Plot

1. Exposition (Beginning):

   • Goal: Establish the narrative world, introduce key characters, and set the status quo.

   • Key Elements: Setting the scene (time, place, atmosphere, societal rules) and character introduction (protagonist goals, motivations, flaws, and everyday baseline life).

   • Key Considerations: How the opening hooks the audience and what makes the protagonist's starting situation compelling or vulnerable.

2. Rising Action:

   • Goal: Build momentum and escalate tension as complications multiply.

   • Inciting Incident (The Catalyst): The precise moment or event that disrupts the status quo and forces the protagonist into an unfamiliar, uncomfortable, or critical situation demanding action.

   • Complications & Obstacles: Introducing external hazards, opposing forces, and internal emotional dilemmas.

   • Rising Stakes: Increasing risks so failure carries escalating consequences.

   • Character Adaptation: Forcing characters to make tough decisions, testing relationships, and prompting growth.

3. Climax:

   • Goal: Deliver the peak emotional, mental, and dramatic turning point of the narrative.

   • Key Elements: Direct confrontation with the central challenge/antagonist/internal dilemma, reaching a Point of No Return with irreversible choices, and revealing the core thematic truth.

4. Falling Action:

   • Goal: Capture the immediate aftermath of the climax and show the shift in perspective or understanding.

   • Key Elements: Revealing immediate consequences, unraveling secondary plot threads and subplots, and transitioning characters toward a new state.

5. Resolution (Denouement):

   • Goal: Re-establish balance and provide a satisfying conclusion.

   • Key Elements: Illustrating the New Status Quo (how characters and the world have permanently changed) and providing final reflection on moral or philosophical takeaways.

4. Conflict

• Definition: The engine of drama. Without an obstacle standing between a character and their desire, no story exists.

Types of Internal Conflict

• Person vs. Self:

  • Definition: A character struggles with inner turmoil, moral dilemmas, fear, self-doubt, or opposing personal values.

  • Core Theme: Identity, choice, and personal growth.

  • Example: A hero deciding whether to reveal a secret that could save others but ruin their own reputation.

Types of External Conflict

• Person vs. Person:

  • Definition: Direct opposition between the protagonist and another character (the antagonist) with opposing goals.

  • Example: A detective attempting to outsmart a criminal mastermind.

• Person vs. Society:

  • Definition: A character challenges the rules, beliefs, laws, traditions, or injustices of a larger group or government.

  • Example: A citizen standing up against a dystopian regime or oppressive social norms.

• Person vs. Nature:

  • Definition: A character struggles to survive against natural elements, severe weather, wild animals, or environmental disasters.

  • Example: A stranded traveler fighting to survive a severe blizzard or wilderness exposure.

• Person vs. Technology / Machine:

  • Definition: A character faces threats posed by artificial intelligence, robots, advanced machinery, or automated systems.

  • Example: Astronauts trying to regain control from a rogue AI system controlling their ship.

• Person vs. Supernatural / Fate:

  • Definition: A character battles forces beyond human comprehension or control, such as gods, ghosts, monsters, or an inevitable destiny.

  • Example: A warrior attempting to defy a prophesied doom handed down by ancient gods.

• Key Principle: The physical size of the conflict matters far less than the emotional stakes tied to it.

5. Point of View (POV)

• Definition: Determines the narrator's distance from the reader, dictates the lens through which events are experienced, and controls what information is revealed or withheld.

The Four Major Perspective Lenses

• First-Person POV:

  • Mechanics: The narrator is an active character telling their own story using pronouns such as I, me, my, and we.

  • Attributes: Provides high emotional intimacy and unfiltered access to thoughts; scope is strictly subjective to what the narrator observes; contains potential for an unreliable narrator who misinterprets or hides truth.

• Second-Person POV:

  • Mechanics: The narrator speaks directly to the reader or a specific subject using the pronoun you.

  • Attributes: Highly immersive and rare; creates immediate involvement; difficult to sustain over long texts; typically reserved for Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, experimental fiction, or interactive text.

• Third-Person Limited POV:

  • Mechanics: An outside narrator tells the story using he, she, they, and character names, staying tethered to the perspective of a single character at a time.

  • Attributes: Focused scope where scenes are experienced only through the focal character; balances objective distance with emotional closeness; restricts head-hopping without clear scene breaks.

• Third-Person Omniscient POV:

  • Mechanics: An all-knowing, god-like external narrator uses he, she, and they with unlimited access to the thoughts, feelings, and backgrounds of all characters.

  • Attributes: Offers a broad scope that jump-cuts between perspectives and reveals historical/future context; creates panoramic overviews; risks losing individual character intimacy if mismanaged.

Structural Framing Techniques

• Linear Framing (Chronological):

  • Description: Begins at the chronological start of the arc and moves sequentially to the resolution. Clean, accessible, and driven by explicit cause-and-effect progression.

  • Examples: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Hunger Games, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Finding Nemo.

• In Media Res (Middle of the Action):

  • Description: Opens directly at a point of high tension or conflict (such as during the inciting incident or climax) to hook the reader immediately, then loops back to provide background exposition before advancing forward.

  • Examples: The Odyssey by Homer, Forrest Gump, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dune by Frank Herbert.

• Circular Framing:

  • Description: Begins and ends in the exact same setting, object, or situation. However, the audience's understanding of that opening element is completely transformed by the conclusion due to the intervening journey.

  • Example: The Lion King (1994):

  • Beginning: Opens with the "Circle of Life" sequence presenting baby Simba at Pride Rock to the animal kingdom.

  • Ending: Concludes with the identical presentation ritual at Pride Rock featuring Simba and Nala's newborn cub.

  • Transformation: The physical setting and ritual are identical, but the context has shifted from celebrating an heir to restoring ecological and political balance after overcoming Scar's reign.

Outlining Personal Narratives

• Relationship Between Planning and Outlining:

  • Narrative planning helps generate and develop story ideas.

  • Outlining organizes those developed ideas into a structural map to guide drafting.

• Definition of Personal Outline: A structured plan created by a writer based on their own experiences, ideas, choices, and memories to order main events before drafting.

• Purpose of an Outline: It serves as a navigational map; while writers do not need to follow it rigidly, it maintains directional clarity.

• Why Writers Outline:

  • Organize complex thoughts systematically.

  • Preserve logical sequence.

  • Prevent omission of crucial details.

  • Identify plot holes and narrative gaps.

  • Maintain focus during drafting.

  • Streamline the writing process.

Essential Attributes of an Effective Personal Outline

1. Clear: The writer clearly understands what each section represents (identifies exact figures, events, and core themes).

2. Logical: Events follow a natural, understandable sequence where one event directly leads to the next.

3. Flexible: The outline acts as a flexible guide rather than a prison; details can be added, deleted, or rearranged during drafting.

4. Specific: Avoids generalities (e.g., "Mia discovers a photograph showing herself inside the abandoned house" instead of "Something happens").

5. Concise: Uses short phrases, bullet points, or key sentences rather than writing out the full draft.

The Five-Part Narrative Outline Structure

• Part 1: Introduction / Setup:

  • Identifies characters, character desires, physical setting (where and when), and the baseline situation.

• Part 2: Beginning of the Conflict:

  • Details what goes wrong, decisions/actions triggered by the disruption, and what is at stake if unresolved.

• Part 3: Rising Action / Development:

  • Documents character efforts to resolve the problem, emerging obstacles, and newly discovered information.

• Part 4: Climax:

  • Focuses on the single most intense turning point, critical decisions made, and the event that irreversibly alters the story arc.

• Part 5: Resolution:

  • Details the immediate aftermath, conflict outcome, final discoveries, and personal transformation or perspective shift.

Anchoring Memoir to Theme

• Personal narratives must be anchored to a single thematic truth drawn from a specific, real life event.

Developing Narratives Through Detailed Techniques

• Sensory Details: Incorporates the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) to immerse the reader.

  • Basic: "The classroom was quiet."

  • Sensory Enhanced: "The classroom was so quiet that I could hear the faint ticking of the wall clock."

• Description: Renders clear visualizations of people, settings, objects, and situations.

  • Basic: "My grandmother's house was old."

  • Descriptive Enhanced: "My grandmother's house stood quietly, its faded walls and creaky wooden floors carrying the warmth of years gone by."

• Dialogue: Represents character speech to expose emotions, relationships, and friction.

  • Basic: "My mother told me not to give up."

  • Dialogue Enhanced: "'Are you really going to quit now?' my mother asked, raising an eyebrow. 'I didn't raise a quitter.' 'It's okay to be tired,' my mother said softly. 'Just don't stop believing in yourself.'"

• Action and Reaction: Couples physical actions with immediate internal or situational responses.

  • Basic: "I was scared."

  • Action/Reaction Enhanced: "I reached for the doorknob, hesitated, and took a deep breath before opening the door."

  • Action Mechanics: Hands trembling; reaching for the handle.

  • Reaction Mechanics: Freezing instantly upon hearing a loud bang.

The Revision and Reflection Process

• Writing Process Philosophy: "The first draft is where you discover what you are trying to say. Revision is where you actually say it."

• Editing vs. Revision:

  • Editing: Addresses surface-level mechanical errors (correcting grammar, punctuation, and spelling).

  • Revision: Reworks structural content, narrative voice, pacing, and overall meaning; diagnoses where the text drags, rushes, or lacks emotional cohesion.

Three Pillars of a Well-Written Narrative

1. Coherence: The piece holds together logically and emotionally, seamlessly guiding the reader without confusion.

2. Impact: The narrative lands emotionally or intellectually, evoking a genuine response rather than offering a passive summary of events.

3. Ethical Representation: Real individuals are portrayed fairly with authentic human complexity rather than flattened into caricatures, respecting personal privacy while preserving emotional truth.

The Triangulation of Feedback

• Self-Assessment:

  • Role: Ensures authentic voice and clear intent; evaluates missing elements.

  • Common Blind Spot: The writer's internal intent can blind them to the reader's actual reading experience (leading to defensiveness).

• Peer Feedback:

  • Role: Diagnoses clarity, pacing, and real-time reader experience; pinpointing exact locations where confusion occurs.

  • Common Blind Spot: Peers may prescribe incorrect solutions or offer unhelpful, vague praise/critique.

• Teacher Feedback:

  • Role: Identifies deep structural problems, narrative voice inconsistencies, and ethical blind spots.

  • Common Blind Spot: Feedback can be misapplied by the writer as a mandatory command, destroying authentic voice.

Self-Assessment Tool: Reading Aloud

• Reading text aloud externalizes written words, making awkward phrasing or unnatural flow immediately apparent to the ear.

• Detected Errors & Solutions:

  • Tangled Syntax: Tripping over a long, dense sentence.

  • Solution: Break the sentence into smaller, clearer units.

  • Missing Transition: Pausing awkwardly between sections.

  • Solution: Recognize a logical gap and insert a bridging image or sentence.

  • Voice Shift: Tone shifting from intimate to stiff or formal.

  • Solution: Recognize a performed formal register and return to an authentic personal voice.

Constructive Peer Feedback

• Peer Feedback Formula:   $\text{What Worked} + \text{The Confusion} + \text{Offer Direction / Generative Question} = \text{Constructive Peer Feedback}$

• Execution: Avoid vague praise ("Great job!") or vague attacks.

• Model Example: "The opening image of counting the red marks places the reader inside the experience immediately. + The middle section shifted to your father's expectations, and I wasn't sure how the time shift connected to the failing grade. + What did failing three times mean to you now?"

Translating Deep Teacher Feedback

• Diagnostic Comment: "Lacks a clear emotional center."

• Translation: This does not require changing the subject (e.g., changing a story about a grandmother's illness). It requires identifying the underlying core emotional question.

• The Fix: Identify the tension beneath the surface events (e.g., "Is it possible to love someone you resent?") and restructure the narrative spine around that central emotional question.

The Five-Step Feedback Filtering System

1. Trigger: Receive feedback (e.g., Peer states: "I got lost in the second section").

2. Acknowledge: Pause and acknowledge that reader confusion is real, regardless of writer intent.

3. Investigate: Listen without immediate defense; ask targeted questions (e.g., "At exactly which point did you lose track of time?").

4. Test: Read the passage privately as a stranger to verify time markers and clarity.

5. Decide: If genuinely unclear, revise; if effective after honest testing, set feedback aside confidently.

Hierarchical Order of Draft Revision

• Level 1: The Foundation (Structure & Substance): Address the overarching emotional thread, unresolved conflicts, and unearned endings first.

• Level 2: The Framing (Pacing, Scene Expansion, Voice): Cut repetitive middle sections, expand key scenes, and stabilize voice.

• Level 3: The Paint (Surface Mechanics): Focus on word-level edits, grammar, and syntax corrections last.

Elevating Narrative Impact

• Impact requires placing the reader directly inside a moment rather than providing a summary.

  • Flat Summary Example: "We met for coffee. It was okay."

  • Revised Impact Example: "He ordered the same thing I did. I did not tell him."

  • Impact Strategy: Slow down pacing; focus on specific physical details (hands, menus, silences) where real, unresolved emotion lives.

Ethical Representation Guidelines

• Fairness = Complexity: Portraying difficult people complexly rather than reducing them to one-dimensional villains.

• Acknowledge Burden: Include details that acknowledge what real subjects were carrying (their personal history, pressures, or context).

• Protect Privacy: Alter identifying details (e.g., changing names, professions, or locations) to protect privacy while upholding absolute emotional truth.

• Writer as Final Authority: Feedback from self, peers, and teachers is an advisory resource, not a binding command.

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