About Narrative Intervention

About Narrative Intervention

So, you’ve been asked to do some artistic writing, specifically, a Narrative evaluation intervention on a text studied in class. Cue: Student panic.
Now, breathe.

Firstly, I wish to reassure students with this: Categorically, this is the task that students shock themselves with the most. Particularly, anticipate it, boys. Yearly my students inspire me with their creativity and insight with their therapy of a novel and its characterisation. Yearly my boys moan about this activity, roll their eyes and dread the weeks ahead. And every year, without fail, my boys outperform their expectations and even benefit from the task.

What’s the trick?

Commentary and mimicry.

Just because the lyrebird has learnt to listen and mimic the sounds it hears in the surrounding bush, so too must you watch, practise and apply the techniques utilized by the author to recreate their style and to create your own perspective of a spot or silence within the text.

Similarly, just as an essay has numerous parts that work together as a whole, there are layers to the narrative intervention. There are four precept layers that work towards the development of a successful narrative:

Know your character: values, attitudes, concepts, quotes, idiosyncrasies
Know your context: cultural assumptions, time, place and setting
Know your gap: What has occurred, what is going to happen and how can you elude to future events (foreshadow)
Know your aesthetics: What strategies are utilized by the author? How do they write? Is there a motif? How are you going to manipulate it?
You can not have 3 layers in your narrative and disregard the other. To achieve the very best results, you will need to effectively build each layer so that ultimately, your writing is almost indistinguishable from that of the author’s. It must be genuine and believable.

Keep away from:

Implausible leaps in plot
Retelling what has occurred
Over description of any sort
Inconsistency of character
Insufficient size (quick or too lengthy)

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