What speech leaves behind
Look at your full written-out story. Cross out every word that was only there because you were speaking. You will find more than you expect.
Six things from your four minutes. Match each to what happens to it on the page.
A finished piece
The Paper Bag · 184 words
We got lost on the way to my cousin’s wedding, and my family has never stopped talking about it.
It was July and the car smelled of hot plastic. My father had a map on the passenger seat and a theory about the back roads. For two hours he would not stop and ask anybody, because he was not lost, he was taking a shorter way.
Halfway through, my mother turned round in her seat and said, very quietly, “We are going to miss it.” She said it once. That was the worst part.
In the end we pulled into a petrol station outside a village nobody had heard of, and a woman came out and drew us a map on a paper bag. We arrived two hours late, and my cousin came outside in her dress to meet us in the car park.
We still have the bag. It is in a drawer in my mother’s kitchen, and eleven years later my father took it out at a dinner and said, “This woman saved my marriage.” Everybody laughed. He was not entirely joking.
Four questions about the construction of the piece.
1. The first sentence gives away the whole plot. Why is that not a mistake?
2. She said it once. That was the worst part. Two very short sentences. What are they doing?
3. The paper bag appears in paragraph four and again in paragraph five. Why twice?
4. The last three words are not entirely joking. Why not just joking?
Five paragraphs, five jobs
The shape, and roughly how long each part runs
| Paragraph | Job | Words |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | One sentence. What happened and why it still matters | 15–25 |
| 2 | The scene. Past continuous, and one thing you could smell, hear or see | 40–50 |
| 3 | The turn. Short sentences. One line of direct speech | 25–35 |
| 4 | What you had to do, and how it ended on the day | 45–55 |
| 5 | Now. Present tense. An object, a habit, or something somebody still says | 35–45 |
Five sentences from a different student’s memoir, shuffled. Put them back into the five-paragraph shape.
Two rules the model obeys.
The last paragraph switches to the present, and it is the only one that does. That switch is what tells the reader the story is over and you are speaking from now.
Every adjective in the piece is doing work. There is no very nice, no really strange. At 180 words you cannot afford an adjective that only means "quite".
Before you write it
A scene paragraph with its verbs missing. One to three words per gap.
It the last week of August and the flat of the paint we had not finished. My brother on the floor with the radio on, and outside somebody a car alarm every four minutes for an hour. Neither of us what we were going to do next.
Six sentences of the kind that appear in first drafts. Fix each one now.
1. It was a very very strange and really weird situation.
2. So anyway, then after that, we went home.
3. I was not knowing what to say to him.
4. And then it was finish and everybody went away.
5. My father could not support the silence.
6. In this moment I am realising that she was right.
Write it
Task card · Writing · Individual · 16 minutes
Your four-minute story, cut to 180 words. This is the piece that goes into your portfolio.
Five paragraphs, about 180 words, entirely in the past until the last paragraph.
- Paragraph 1: one sentence, what happened and why it still matters.
- Paragraph 2: the scene, in the past continuous, with one thing you could smell, hear or see.
- Paragraph 3: the turn, in short sentences, with one line of direct speech in the person’s exact words.
- Paragraph 4: what you had to do, and how the day ended.
- Paragraph 5: now — present tense, and an object or a habit that survived.
- No very. No really. No false friends. Write the word count at the bottom.
Write straight through, then cut. Aim for about 220 words in the first twelve minutes and spend the last four cutting to 180. Cutting is where the piece gets good; writing to length from the start makes it thin.
Task card · Audit · Pairs · 7 minutes
Swap. You are a reader who has never heard this story out loud.
Hand back a marked page and one spoken sentence: the moment where you stopped being able to picture it.
- Underline every verb. Circle any that broke out of the past before paragraph five.
- Put a box round every adjective. If it only means "quite", cross it out.
- Mark ? beside any sentence you had to read twice.
- Check the word count at the bottom by counting one line and multiplying. Writers lie about this.
What the drafts did
Five sentences from drafts of this piece. Fix each, then check your own page for the same thing.
1. My grandmother was living in that house since 1961.
2. I still remember how the kitchen was smelling.
3. She was saying to me that everything was fine.
4. It was very exquisite to see him there.
5. And that is all what happened.
What goes home
Two questions about your own draft.
1. Your reader circled three verbs that broke out of the past before paragraph five. What is that?
2. Your piece came to 240 words. What should you cut first?
Before next lesson. Rewrite it once using the marked page, and bring the clean version on paper.
Next lesson you hand it in and tell the same story out loud for four minutes without looking at it. Both go into the portfolio and both close the unit.