The Short Story
One of the options that appears pretty much every year in the Composing section is the Short Story. This is a deceptively challenging task and you should not attempt it unless you are well-practised and feel confident in your abilities.
The model for the short story is fairly basic. You must have a beginning, a middle and an end. There must be a small cast of characters (no more than about four). Most importantly, something must happen! You are no longer at Junior Cert level, where a pleasant narrative about a day at the zoo will suffice. At Leaving Certificate level, a degree of sophistication and style is expected, both in plot and in narration.
You must be familiar with the following concepts: setting, characterisation, exposition, conflict, climax, resolution. Each of these is essential to your story.
Setting refers to the when and where of your story. Are we in present-day Ireland? The past? A different country?
Characterisation is the development of your characters. Who are they? How old? What kind of personality does each of them have? Are they a follower or a leader? Do they create tension or seek to keep the peace? What is their motivation?
Exposition refers to the opening paragraphs of your story, where setting and characters are established. The conflict that is to be at the heart of your story should also be introduced here.
Conflict must exist for your story to be interesting. There must be an issue or a problem to be resolved or overcome. It does not have to be a global issue - it can be something as simple as your football team's hopes of winning the final jeopardised by the absence of a key player.
The climax of your story is the point at which the conflict is at its most intense. The climax decides the outcome of the story - does the team score the vital penalty? Can the detective interpret the crucial clue?
The resolution of the story is where the problem that has been driving the narrative is resolved. This happens just after the climax and should be fairly swift. Once the problem is solved, the reader's attention begins to wane, so there is no point dragging the conclusion out for pages. Any loose ends are tied up and the story ends.
In order to write a successful short story, you must be fully aware of all aspects of the story before you begin. A comprehensive plan is essential, as it is immediately obvious to an examiner if you are making it up as you go. Stories written in this manner are always much weaker than properly planned compositions. Having said that, your story should not read like a summary! When planning, you may have noted that the hero (John) is 17, has dark hair and is an angry person. That's fine in the plan, but it should not lead to opening sentences like, "John walked down the street. He was seventeen and had dark hair. He was always angry." This is much too blunt and lacks any sophistication. One piece of advice given to aspiring writers is "Show, don't tell". The example above is telling us the information. A good story shows us. For example, instead of saying "He was always angry", write "He scowled at a passing pensioner," or "He kicked a stone aggressively as he made his way down the road." The same applies when establishing setting. Don't write, "It was a lovely summer's day in Dublin. The year was 2013. We had just finished our exams." Weave the details into the story. Refer to the warm sunshine, mention that one of the characters was wearing shorts, reference their relief that they finally had some time away from their books in order to transmit the same information.
Practise writing a few stories, and read as many as you can before you go near the exam. If you turn out to have a flair for the genre, it's a wonderful option. Don't be disheartened if it's not for you. Even professional writers would baulk at the idea of writing an accomplished story under exam conditions!
The model for the short story is fairly basic. You must have a beginning, a middle and an end. There must be a small cast of characters (no more than about four). Most importantly, something must happen! You are no longer at Junior Cert level, where a pleasant narrative about a day at the zoo will suffice. At Leaving Certificate level, a degree of sophistication and style is expected, both in plot and in narration.
You must be familiar with the following concepts: setting, characterisation, exposition, conflict, climax, resolution. Each of these is essential to your story.
Setting refers to the when and where of your story. Are we in present-day Ireland? The past? A different country?
Characterisation is the development of your characters. Who are they? How old? What kind of personality does each of them have? Are they a follower or a leader? Do they create tension or seek to keep the peace? What is their motivation?
Exposition refers to the opening paragraphs of your story, where setting and characters are established. The conflict that is to be at the heart of your story should also be introduced here.
Conflict must exist for your story to be interesting. There must be an issue or a problem to be resolved or overcome. It does not have to be a global issue - it can be something as simple as your football team's hopes of winning the final jeopardised by the absence of a key player.
The climax of your story is the point at which the conflict is at its most intense. The climax decides the outcome of the story - does the team score the vital penalty? Can the detective interpret the crucial clue?
The resolution of the story is where the problem that has been driving the narrative is resolved. This happens just after the climax and should be fairly swift. Once the problem is solved, the reader's attention begins to wane, so there is no point dragging the conclusion out for pages. Any loose ends are tied up and the story ends.
In order to write a successful short story, you must be fully aware of all aspects of the story before you begin. A comprehensive plan is essential, as it is immediately obvious to an examiner if you are making it up as you go. Stories written in this manner are always much weaker than properly planned compositions. Having said that, your story should not read like a summary! When planning, you may have noted that the hero (John) is 17, has dark hair and is an angry person. That's fine in the plan, but it should not lead to opening sentences like, "John walked down the street. He was seventeen and had dark hair. He was always angry." This is much too blunt and lacks any sophistication. One piece of advice given to aspiring writers is "Show, don't tell". The example above is telling us the information. A good story shows us. For example, instead of saying "He was always angry", write "He scowled at a passing pensioner," or "He kicked a stone aggressively as he made his way down the road." The same applies when establishing setting. Don't write, "It was a lovely summer's day in Dublin. The year was 2013. We had just finished our exams." Weave the details into the story. Refer to the warm sunshine, mention that one of the characters was wearing shorts, reference their relief that they finally had some time away from their books in order to transmit the same information.
Practise writing a few stories, and read as many as you can before you go near the exam. If you turn out to have a flair for the genre, it's a wonderful option. Don't be disheartened if it's not for you. Even professional writers would baulk at the idea of writing an accomplished story under exam conditions!