Narrative Writing Revision: Classroom Activities

The following piece is taken from PETAA book Writing like a Writer: Teaching Narrative Writing, written by Libby Gleeson.

Here are some revision questions to consider with your students. In this instance, we are working on self-reflection, a life skill that may take years to develop. I suggest you join the class in a writing task and then respond to these
questions. 

Intention

  • How do you feel about this story? Model this using your own writing.
  • Are you happy with it?
  • What are you trying to do in this story and have you succeeded? If the aim of the story was to write a scary dramatic adventure, has your audience been scared? If you wanted to make people laugh, did you succeed?
  • Are you satisfied that you have achieved what you set out to do?

This last question may be very difficult to answer for someone unused to being so self-reflective but self-reflection is a good skill to develop.

Sometimes we don’t achieve what we set out to do, but we achieve something else that is of value. Certainly professional writers may change their ideas during the writing process and may decide the new ideas are better than the previous ones.

Thus the focus of the story, the characters, the point of view, even the genre may change. This variation to the task at hand may not be permitted for the student writer in the classroom

Characters

  • Are the characters interesting and original?
  • Are all the characters necessary? Do any detract from the focus of the story?
  •  Are there enough characters?
  • Are all the characters fully drawn? (Sometimes a minor character can be developed and given a stronger role.)
  • Do we care about the characters?
  • Are all the characters well differentiated from each other?
  • Have you shown flat descriptions of characters or have you shown characters in action?

Dialogue

  • Does the story use dialogue?
  • If not, would it benefit from including some dialogue?
  • If yes, is the dialogue there for a purpose? What is that purpose? Could it do that job better?
  • Is the dialogue credible? Do we believe this character would say these words?
  • Are the voices distinct or does everyone sound the same?
  • Is the dialogue appropriately attributed and laid out?

Description

  • If not, would it benefit from including some dialogue?
  • Have you used concrete images in your descriptions?
  • Have you used tired adjectives/adverbs?
  • Is there detail to build vivid pictures of what you are describing?
  • Have you used clichés?
  • Have you used ‘character in action’ to describe both the character and the landscape?

Point of view

  • Is the point of view consistent?
  • Would changing the point of view improve the story?

Voice

Our response to a piece of writing is often intuitive. Analysis may show that some language jars: a formal word used where an informal one was appropriate or vice versa.

  • Is the voice of the whole story consistent?
  • Does any of the writing jar?
  • Is every word the best word for that place in the story?
  • Is the rhythm of the sentences right for the meaning: when the situation is tense, does the rhythm reflect that?
  • Are you showing or telling the reader what to think?
  • What tense is the story written in and have you been consistent?
  • Have you used similes and/or metaphors and/or other literary devices? If not, would they enrich the writing? If so, are they fresh and original?

Design

  • Is your story written as a linear sequence?
  • Can you divide your story into an orientation, complication, resolution?
  • Is each section of the story balanced? They do not have to be the same length but sometimes a feeling that a story is ‘not right’ arises because there is too much weight in one part of the story and not enough in the others.
  • Is there enough dramatic tension in the story to keep the reader interested?
  • If there is a simple complication phase, would a three-stage complication work better?
  • Is there a narrative focus to the story?