Recently, I got my P6 students to work on a seemingly easy composition topic: an unpleasant surprise.
A few criteria:
– must be unpleasant
– protagonist must not have expected it
Two common mistakes:
1. Unpleasant surprise
Finding my house in a mess is unpleasant.
Buying A but getting B is unpleasant.
However, finding your friend murdered is not an unpleasant surprise. Sure it is unpleasant. But it’s so serious it is a tragedy.
Note the severity of the “surprise” or risk going out of point.
2. If you are writing about yourself as a protagonist, and your friend gets an unpleasant surprise, how did you know he was surprised if you were not with him in the story?
In such a case, best not to write in first person so it removes the question about how you would have known how the other character had felt.
Share this if you find this useful. #fridaywritingtip from Study Room https://ift.tt/2vOBsUi