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Ryan Van Meter
July 14, 2005
English 475 - Bartlett
Story vs. Plot: Creative writing
lesson plan for Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People"
and "Greenleaf"
(Note: With less emphasis on freewriting and fiction writing
exercises, this lesson could easily be adapted for the literature
classroom, using the issue of story and plot as a point of departure
for discussing these two texts.)
Course Overview:
This lesson is designed to fit the curriculum of
a college-level introductory creative writing class, most likely
focusing on fiction and literary non-fiction. Students in this
course will learn the basic elements of fiction-writing (characters,
plot, tone, theme, setting, etc.) as well as structural fundamentals,
such as rising action, climax and denouement. Students will
be responsible for reading published works of fiction carefully
and critically, in preparation for classroom discussion. They
will also be responsible for in-class and take-home writing
exercises - when experimentation and risk is encouraged - and
for two 8-14 page short stories and a final revision. This lesson
was written for a three-hour class that meets twice a week (for
60-90 minutes) but can be adapted for longer/shorter periods.
Theoretical Reflection:
This lesson should try to illustrate for beginning
fiction writers the difference between a story and a plot. The
lesson should also try to expose them to the enormous range
of possibilities for story structure and the various effects
of story structure. Both "Good Country People" and
"Greenleaf" are stories that unfold in a relatively
short period of time - the first over two days, the second over
just three - but include backstory, flashback, character sketches
and more, which complicate the plot of the stories and offer
resonance.
Student Learning Goals:
After this lesson, students should be able to differentiate
between the terms story and plot, and should be able to identify
a story's structure and the parts of a plot. When writing their
own stories for class, students should demonstrate an active
knowledge of story and plot and be mindful of the effects that
successful story and plot have on a reader.
Resources and Preparation:
Before class, students will be assigned to read "Good
Country People" available in The Norton Anthology of Literature
by Women and "Greenleaf" available in the collections
Everything That Rises Must Converge and The Complete Stories.
When reading, students will be instructed to pay careful attention
to the "real-time" events of the story, and the way
the story moves from those events, to flashback, character history,
etc. A handout for an exercise analyzing story and plot will
be provided.
Definitions:
"A story is a series of events recorded in their
chronological order. A plot is a series of events deliberately
arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional
significance."
- from Burroway's Writing Fiction, page 39.
Class Plan:
Class will begin with a small group exercise/discussion.
Using the Story/Plot handout, students will choose to work with
either "Good Country People" or "Greenleaf."
In groups of four or five, with the handout, students will go
through the story page by page identifying every major event
or revelation in the order they appear, either occurring in
the "present" of the story or in its past. Next, students
will place all of those events and revelations in their chronological
order. This discussion will probably take 15-20 minutes.
Class will continue in a full group discussion. One group representing
each story will volunteer to read their "plot" columns
with another group reading their "story" column to
follow. After we have identified each event in the stories,
we'll discuss the effects/effectiveness of O'Connor's plots,
guided along these questions:
- Identify the parts of the plot (conflict, rising action,
climax, denouement) of each story. Where does O'Connor establish
the conflict?
- The "real-time" events of these stories unfold
over just a few days? What would these stories be like if
we were only given these "present" events?"
- Why doesn't O'Connor choose to tell her stories in chronological
time? In "Good Country People," why doesn't she
begin with the bible saleman's first visit? In "Greenleaf,"
couldn't she have begun right after Mr. May's husband died?
- What kinds of techniques does O'Connor use to move us away
from the "real-time" events of her stories? What
are the effects? How does O'Connor increase the tension of
the "real-time" conflict with revelations from the
past?
- What kinds of so-called subplots do the inclusion of characters
like Mrs. Freeman and Mr. and Mrs. Greenleaf offer? Why do
these characters work (or don't) in these stories?
- What pieces of the plots could O'Connor have left out (if
any) and why? To what other effect?
- What advice do you think these stories offer us as writers
constructing plots?
- What other questions do the students have about these stories?
About story vs. plot?
After discussion, students will free-write according to specific
topics. They should write as quickly as possible without paying
too much attention to language or if what they are creating
is good or bad. The objective is to just keep writing. Write
for five minutes for each part.
- First, describe a character doing something very ordinary.
Examples might be washing a car, making a bed, walking a dog.
Write a scene about this character, shaping him or her into
a person in a particular setting at a particular time. Be
vivid and make something happen.
- Now, describe your character from at least a year before,
and this time, reveal something about your character that
changes the event that happened in your first scene. Don't
think too much and don't worry about being melodramatic or
silly. Just play.
- Now, continue whatever was happening in your first scene
from the point where you left off. How can you bring the past
revelation to bear now on your present scene?
As a group, for the last part of class, students will discuss
their experiences in free-writing. Was it comfortable to construct
a plot in this way? How did it feel to write events out of chronological
order? What kinds of cause-and-effect relationships did they
uncover?
Extensions:
Students can choose one of two creative writing assignments:
Write a 3-4 page piece about what happens the day after each
of the O'Connor stories. You may use any character you'd like,
for example, a story about Mr. Greenleaf, about Mrs. May's sons,
about Joy/Hulga, or Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell. Remember
to bring the events of the O'Connor story to bear on yours.
Use the characters' histories to some effect. Try not to tell
your story chronologically. Your piece need not be a completed
short story, but try your best to develop a narrative arc of
some kind.
Develop your freewriting exercise into a polished 3-4 page
piece. Try to use material from all three parts of the exercise,
though try to find the best "plot" for your story,
by changing the order of things if you'd like. Try not to tell
your story chronologically. Develop a narrative arc in your
piece, and try for some kind of transformation of your characters.
Assessment:
Instructor will offer comments on developed pieces,
paying careful attention to the ways students manipulated the
chronological events of their stories into a plot. This piece
could be used as a starting point for one of the longer, polished
stories due by the semester's end.
Web and Print Resources:
- For more information on Flannery O'Connor:
Bedford St. Martin's The Meyer Literature Site
- Lit links for O'Connor
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/fiction/floconnor.htm
This site includes a short bio and several
good links including one to the Flannery O'Connor Collection
which includes a large bibliography of scholarly books and
articles, a lot of detailed biographical information and some
full-text stories.
- For further discussion of story and plot:
Writing Fiction - A Guide to Narrative Craft
Janet Burroway
Addison Wesley Longman, 2000
see chapter two - The Tower and the Net: Story Form and Structure
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