Exercise #4

I'm departing from exercises on scenes with this post to Whitcomb's discussion in NOVEL SHORTCUTS on framing devices for a story. She offers different examples of such devices, which could also be thought of as a way to structure your project. Here are some of the ones she talks about:

• the cautionary tale
• the knight's tale
• documentary (showing date and time)
• a confessional (speaking directly to the audience)
• the book of wisdom in which you insert "lessions in life" or "stories" at the start of chapters (pps. 63-67)
• diary
• the fairy tale

I'm going to suggest a variation of Whitcomb's exercise; hers involves picking devices out of a hat and applying them to known stories, such as fairy tales, to get the creative juices flowing. My variation is to apply at least three devices to the project that you are working on.