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Building Intrigue

Creative Writing
September 10, 2014

T h e C r e a t i v e Wr i t i n g Wo r k b o o k

The Very Essence of Creative


Writing
It must hook a reader. It must secure

their attention.

How do you hook the reader?


Many people mistake what this means.
Some think it means that they must use

fancy or unusual words to get a readers


attention.
Others think it means that lots of ornate
description is needed to help the reader
see what theyre writing about.
Some think it means using extremes of
action or expressions to force involvement;
others go for the opposite approach,
grounding what they write thoroughly in
every day life.

Weighing Down Your Writing


All the aforementioned suggestions could

weigh your writing down.


Not to say that there is not a place for
ornate description, unusual diction, the
extreme or the ordinary in creative writing.
Each can add their own kind of value for a
reader.
To build that elusive, page turning quality
into a piece of writing from the start, an
author must create intrigue.

Intrigue
Engaging writing creates

intrigue, before it does anything


else.
It gives the reader a reason to

read on, often in the very first


line.

The Waste Land


Opening sentence:

April is the cruellest month, breeding


Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
(Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot,
2002)

Discussion
How do we usually feel about

Spring?
What do we usually think about

when we hear Spring?

Was he talking about Spring?


How does the speaker feel

about Spring?
What do we usually expect when

we hear April is

Nineteen Eighty-Four
It was a bright cold day in April

and the clocks were striking


thirteen.
George Orwell

Discussion
What thoughts/questions come

to mind after reading that line?

1984
Orwell wrote and published this novel just

after World War II.


Up until then, writing about the future was
mostly propaganda for progress.
The future was going to be a wonderful place
with robots doing all the work while we fly
around in our jet-cars.
However, in Orwells future something as
simple as whether or not its cold out still
matters to people in a dingy world where food
is scarce.

How To Add Intrigue


Intrigue is generated in both the

poem and the novel by leading the


readers expectation one way its
spring! Its the future! and then
subverting the expectation.

How To Add Intrigue


In The Waste Land, regeneration in the warmth

of spring is painful and cruel.


These assertions are the opposite of what we
expect, when the subject is springtime.
In the future world of 1984, the progress we
expect in human society simply hasnt
happened.
In both works, expectation is invoked then
subverted in the very first sentence.
Writers call this technique, creating expectation
then turning it around, a reversal, or twist.

Consider the following


scenario:
A body is found on a riverbank after a storm.

Its in the middle of a flurry of muddy


footprints; it has leaked blood into the mud
beneath it, and the clothes and exposed skin
are caked in mud. If you were writing this
story, which of these developments would you
choose?
The victim turns out to be alive, but in a

permanent coma.
The victim turns out to be an alien, killed to
silence his warning of intergalactic chaos.
The victim turns out to have died before the
rain fell, when the ground was baked dry.

Discussion
So which of these three plot twists

did you feel promised the most


intriguing story?

How Twists Work


Reversals are a basic building block.
An expectation is created; then something

unexpected happens.
News articles/stories use this a lot.

Example
An interview with someone who

survived a tragedy.
Butterflies flutter among the neat

gardens of Primrose Terrace. The


sound of children playing in a
neighborhood park drifts over the
trim, tidy houses. But at number 32,
windows are shut tight against the
breeze and the garden gate is bolted.

Lord of the Flies


In William Goldings classic novel, the

action opens with a schoolboy


scrambling over rocks in the seaside sun.
We think we know whats going on, as
we read the first paragraphs. But when
the boy leaves the beach for the jungle
behind it, the terrible truth dawns there
are many kids here, stranded alone on a
desert island after a plane crash.

Lord of the Flies


If the author had started with the

obvious opening the full-on, heartin-mouth terror of a plane going down


his readers may have felt theyd
seen this scene before, in many
classic movies.
Instead, Golding opted for intrigue

over graphic action in his opening,


and created an opening hook thats

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy


Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not mind me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
(Robert Frosts Poems, 2002)

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy


Evening
Theres something strange going on.

Something clandestine, possibly even


dangerous.
The simple, incantatory rhythm and soft
sounds echo the snow falling but make it
sound like the speaker is getting sleepy too.
Stopping to watch snow fall in darkening
woods, far from human habitation, seems like
a bad call for this person by the end of the
first stanza; the second stanza shows us that
the speaker knows this, but is doing it anyway.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy


Evening
As the poem moves briskly through its

deceptively simple lines, we realize that


the sleepiness set up in the first lines is
metaphorical as well as literal.
In the fourth stanza the speaker snaps out
of this snow-induced reverie and rides on,
accepting that there are miles to go before
I sleep.
Intriguing scene-setting in this poems
opening lines is used to hook us into
reading about death, a natural subject for
art but one that we naturally find difficult

Building Intrigue
All writing needs to set a scene and

draw the reader into it. From crime


reporters covering grisly murders to
poets celebrating life, writers need to
get a reader into the world of their
piece, and intrigued enough to read
on.

Practice
So lets try some opening lines

writing.
Write two paragraphs (if youre a

poet, two stanzas) that zoom in on a


bowl of fruit in an empty room. The
location of the room, the quantity and
kind of fruit, the condition of the
building or the produce, present day
or distant past these are all up to

More Practice
If you are a prose writer, turn your

two paragraphs into two sentences.


If youre a poet, condense your two

stanzas into a haiku (5/7/5).


Be prepared to share.

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