Teaching Narrative Writing with Frankenstories

Advancing through activities & actions

One way to make something happen in a story is to advance through actions and activities.

There's more to this than you might think, so on this page we'll:

  • use The Fisherman and His Wife to establish some basic principles
  • test those principles against a Frankenstory called Phoning It In
  • provide class exercises and tips.

Note: the key points for this page are summarised in this student handout.

Let's start by examining the first thing that "happens" in The Fisherman and His Wife:

Once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a shack that was so filthy it might as well have been a pisspot. Every day the fisherman went out to fish, and he fished and he fished. One day he sat there looking down into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat, and his line went all the way down to the bottom of the sea. And when he pulled it out, there was a great big flounder on the hook.

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

Once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a shack that was so filthy it might as well have been a pisspot. Every day the fisherman went out to fish, and he fished and he fished. One day he sat there looking down into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat, and his line went all the way down to the bottom of the sea. And when he pulled it out, there was a great big flounder on the hook.

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

Once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a shack that was so filthy it might as well have been a pisspot. Every day the fisherman went out to fish, and he fished and he fished. One day he sat there looking down into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat, and his line went all the way down to the bottom of the sea. And when he pulled it out, there was a great big flounder on the hook.

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

Once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a shack that was so filthy it might as well have been a pisspot. Every day the fisherman went out to fish, and he fished and he fished. One day he sat there looking down into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat, and his line went all the way down to the bottom of the sea. And when he pulled it out, there was a great big flounder on the hook.

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

We can break this snippet into two chunks:

Develop (to establish the world)

  • The story introduces a fisherman, his wife, and their shack.
  • It establishes the fisherman's ongoing routine of fishing, until...

Advance (to make something happen)

  • He catches a fish.

But this "thing that happens" is not an arbitrary event; it is part of a chain of activities and actions. 

Let's look at what that means.

We can look at narrative as a series of activities that contain one or more specific actions.

For example: 

  • "Fishing" is an activity
  • But "dragging the boat into the water, climbing in, tossing out the line, waiting for a bite, reeling in a fish"—these are all actions

"Could those actions be considered an activity if you zoomed in on smaller actions?"

Yes. For example:

  • "Dragging the boat into the water" could become an activity
  • And "putting a hand on the bowsprit, tugging it along the wet sand, stopping to wipe your brow, tugging again, noticing the foam rushing around your ankles"—these could all be actions within that activity.

So we can see that...

Activity and action are relative terms defined by context

  • Action is whatever is the smallest increment of action in a scene.
  • Activity is any overarching process that meaningfully groups actions together.
  • One activity can contain other activities.

"Advancing" means progressing to a new action or activity

  • The word "progressing" is important here.
  • Random, disconnected events don't advance a story.
  • The actions and activities need to be causally linked.

If we look at this snippet in terms of activity and action:

  • Fishing (activity)
    • Sitting and waiting (action)
    • Catching a fish (action)

In this snippet, the over-arching activity is fishing, and the initial action is sitting and waiting—this is all part of establishing the platform. 

The first advance is when the action changes from sitting and waiting to catching a fish. 

Does this advance change the overarching activity?

No. In this instance, catching the fish is still part of "fishing".

This is important because it gives us a sense of how "big" the advance is.

Before we look at the next beat in the story, think about what we might expect to happen next (knowing that this is a fairy tale):

  • The fisherman could put the flounder in a basket and then continue the activity of fishing.
  • The fisherman could row back to shore and thus end the activity of fishing.
  • Or the story could take a left turn when the fish starts to talk.

The flounder said, "Now look, fisherman – what about letting me live, eh? I'm no ordinary flounder. I'm an enchanted prince. What good would it do you to kill me? I wouldn't taste nice at all. Put me back in the water, there's a good fellow."

"Fair enough," said the fisherman. "Say no more. The word of a talking fish is good enough for me."

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

The flounder said, "Now look, fisherman – what about letting me live, eh? I'm no ordinary flounder. I'm an enchanted prince. What good would it do you to kill me? I wouldn't taste nice at all. Put me back in the water, there's a good fellow."

"Fair enough," said the fisherman. "Say no more. The word of a talking fish is good enough for me."

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

The flounder said, "Now look, fisherman – what about letting me live, eh? I'm no ordinary flounder. I'm an enchanted prince. What good would it do you to kill me? I wouldn't taste nice at all. Put me back in the water, there's a good fellow."

"Fair enough," said the fisherman. "Say no more. The word of a talking fish is good enough for me."

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

The flounder said, "Now look, fisherman – what about letting me live, eh? I'm no ordinary flounder. I'm an enchanted prince. What good would it do you to kill me? I wouldn't taste nice at all. Put me back in the water, there's a good fellow."

"Fair enough," said the fisherman. "Say no more. The word of a talking fish is good enough for me."

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

Advance & develop

This snippet opens with big advance:

  • the fish tells the fisherman he's enchanted

The snippet then develops that advance:

  • the fish asks to be let go
  • the fisherman agrees

Do you notice how this advance feels "bigger" than the one before where the fisherman caught the fish?

Why is that?

Is it bigger because we've completed the activity of "fishing"?

No, not yet. The over-arching activity hasn't changed: the fisherman is still "fishing".

You could say we have started a new sub-activity called "having a conversation with an enchanted fish", and so far that sub-activity contains two actions:

  • Action: the fish reveals he is an enchanted prince and asks to be let go
  • Action: the fisherman agrees

But that still doesn't explain why this advance feels bigger.

So why does it feel bigger?

This particular advance feels bigger because it's one of those early-stage introductions that change the audience's circle of expectations:

  • If we have a fisherman and a boat, then catching a fish is expected, so that feels small.
  • However, catching a fish who claims to be an enchanted prince is unexpected, so it feels bigger.
  • (And because this is early in the story, the audience is happy to adjust their expectations.)

What happens next?

And he put the flounder back in the water, and down it swam to the bottom, leaving a long trail of blood behind it.

Then the fisherman went back to his wife in their filthy shack.

"Didn't you catch anything today?" she said.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I caught a flounder. A great big ‘un. But he told me he was an enchanted prince, so I let him go."

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

And he put the flounder back in the water, and down it swam to the bottom, leaving a long trail of blood behind it.

Then the fisherman went back to his wife in their filthy shack.

"Didn't you catch anything today?" she said.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I caught a flounder. A great big ‘un. But he told me he was an enchanted prince, so I let him go."

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

And he put the flounder back in the water, and down it swam to the bottom, leaving a long trail of blood behind it.

Then the fisherman went back to his wife in their filthy shack.

"Didn't you catch anything today?" she said.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I caught a flounder. A great big ‘un. But he told me he was an enchanted prince, so I let him go."

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

And he put the flounder back in the water, and down it swam to the bottom, leaving a long trail of blood behind it.

Then the fisherman went back to his wife in their filthy shack.

"Didn't you catch anything today?" she said.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I caught a flounder. A great big ‘un. But he told me he was an enchanted prince, so I let him go."

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

What do we see in terms of actions and activities?

  • The fisherman completes the activity of "fishing" by:
    • putting the fish back (action)
    • then going home (action)
  • His wife then starts a new activity of "having a conversation about the fishing":
    • asking the fisherman if he caught anything (action)
    • the fisherman telling her about the enchanted fish (action)

How big does this advance feel?

This definitely feels like a progression because the fisherman has completed one activity and moved to another.

However, this advance doesn't impact our expectations and it's really a reversion to the routine established at the start (because the magic fish has been shelved), so it's definitely progress, but it feels small.

A couple of other things to notice:

  • Quite a lot happens in a short snippet. (This is typical of fairy tales. There are sections of the same story that spend more time on descriptive detail.)
  • Any character can start an activity.

What happens next?

"Typical!" said the wife. "Why didn't you ask him for something?"

"I dunno," said the fisherman. "What should I have asked for?"

"Those enchanted princes can do anything," said the wife. ‘And look at this shack. It stinks, the rain comes in, the shelves keep falling off the walls; it's a terrible place to live. Go back and call that flounder up and tell him we want a nice cottage, all clean and neat. Go on."

The fisherman didn't really feel like doing that, but on the other hand he knew what would happen if he didn't do what his wife wanted, so back he went to the seashore. When he got there the water wasn't clear any more, but dark green and murky yellow.

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

"Typical!" said the wife. "Why didn't you ask him for something?"

"I dunno," said the fisherman. "What should I have asked for?"

"Those enchanted princes can do anything," said the wife. ‘And look at this shack. It stinks, the rain comes in, the shelves keep falling off the walls; it's a terrible place to live. Go back and call that flounder up and tell him we want a nice cottage, all clean and neat. Go on."

The fisherman didn't really feel like doing that, but on the other hand he knew what would happen if he didn't do what his wife wanted, so back he went to the seashore. When he got there the water wasn't clear any more, but dark green and murky yellow.

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

"Typical!" said the wife. "Why didn't you ask him for something?"

"I dunno," said the fisherman. "What should I have asked for?"

"Those enchanted princes can do anything," said the wife. ‘And look at this shack. It stinks, the rain comes in, the shelves keep falling off the walls; it's a terrible place to live. Go back and call that flounder up and tell him we want a nice cottage, all clean and neat. Go on."

The fisherman didn't really feel like doing that, but on the other hand he knew what would happen if he didn't do what his wife wanted, so back he went to the seashore. When he got there the water wasn't clear any more, but dark green and murky yellow.

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

"Typical!" said the wife. "Why didn't you ask him for something?"

"I dunno," said the fisherman. "What should I have asked for?"

"Those enchanted princes can do anything," said the wife. ‘And look at this shack. It stinks, the rain comes in, the shelves keep falling off the walls; it's a terrible place to live. Go back and call that flounder up and tell him we want a nice cottage, all clean and neat. Go on."

The fisherman didn't really feel like doing that, but on the other hand he knew what would happen if he didn't do what his wife wanted, so back he went to the seashore. When he got there the water wasn't clear any more, but dark green and murky yellow.

The Fisherman and His Wife(2012)

This is a big advance that changes the direction of the story:

  • The tale began with the overarching activities of "live in the shack" and "go fishing every day".
  • Now the story has a completely new activity: "get the fish to change our lives by granting us wishes."

A big, disruptive advance like this qualifies as tilt, because it destabilises the platform and tips the story into the unknown. (We'll talk about tilts separately, on another page.)

Summarising what we've established about activities, actions, & advancing

  • Stories contain activities and actions.
  • Actions are the smallest unit of action in a scene.
  • Characters take actions in order to complete over-arching activities.
  • Activities can nest inside each other.
  • One way stories advance is by characters completing actions and activities and progressing to new ones. 
  • Advances feel "bigger" when they:
    • Complete an activity
    • Start an activity
    • Change the audience's circle of expectations
    • Change the direction of the story

Now we have a framework for thinking about actions and activities, let's talk about how we use it to make things happen in a Frankenstory.

  • If a story has no advances, it's not really a story, it's a portrait.
  • If a story has only small advances, it will feel small and flat.
  • If a story has only big advances, it will feel volatile and incoherent.

All three of these variations can work, but they risk being boring.

The most effective stories generally balance static development (description), small advances, and big advances.

  • Descriptive development builds a believable world.
  • Small advances within or between activities build a kind of stored energy, an increasing pressure that something will happen. 
  • Big advances that change activities then release that some of that energy and send the story in a new direction.

Good stories often fall into a rhythm in which small advances develop the story and big advances change the story but then have time to settle.

You can think of it as establishing contrasting peaks and troughs of change and stability.

Most Frankenstories are short, so there is usually room for only a couple of activities (and maybe one big tilt).

For example:

PHONING IT IN

1

Her investigations led her to an alley in Circuit City. Her client, a wealthy influencer. Her target, a mobile—as in autonomous mobility—phone, full of compromising images, and with a mind and agenda of its own.

2

She knocked on the wall of an auto-shop. Bzzt! The shop droid wheeled over, holding a tray of microchip sample

3

Marta tried to peer into the back of the shop. "Have you seen a rogue Samsung, bedazzled, 5.5", trying to offload a stack of JPEGs?"

"No, nothing like that sir," said the bot.

But Marta could see the phone in the back.

4

The phone saw her too. It tried to unhook itself from the server. Marta jumped the counter, pulling her catcher—an electromagnetic shielded bag on stick—from her jacket.

"Access denied!" cried the bot—Marta knocked it over.

5

The phone darted towards a back door but Marta swept it up before it got too far.

"Got you, critter," she said. The phone looked sheepish.

Then it started displaying the images it was carrying, and Marta gaped. This phone was trouble. She was in it.

"Phoning it in"

PHONING IT IN

1

Her investigations led her to an alley in Circuit City. Her client, a wealthy influencer. Her target, a mobile—as in autonomous mobility—phone, full of compromising images, and with a mind and agenda of its own.

2

She knocked on the wall of an auto-shop. Bzzt! The shop droid wheeled over, holding a tray of microchip sample

3

Marta tried to peer into the back of the shop. "Have you seen a rogue Samsung, bedazzled, 5.5", trying to offload a stack of JPEGs?"

"No, nothing like that sir," said the bot.

But Marta could see the phone in the back.

4

The phone saw her too. It tried to unhook itself from the server. Marta jumped the counter, pulling her catcher—an electromagnetic shielded bag on stick—from her jacket.

"Access denied!" cried the bot—Marta knocked it over.

5

The phone darted towards a back door but Marta swept it up before it got too far.

"Got you, critter," she said. The phone looked sheepish.

Then it started displaying the images it was carrying, and Marta gaped. This phone was trouble. She was in it.

"Phoning it in"

PHONING IT IN

1

Her investigations led her to an alley in Circuit City. Her client, a wealthy influencer. Her target, a mobile—as in autonomous mobility—phone, full of compromising images, and with a mind and agenda of its own.

2

She knocked on the wall of an auto-shop. Bzzt! The shop droid wheeled over, holding a tray of microchip sample

3

Marta tried to peer into the back of the shop. "Have you seen a rogue Samsung, bedazzled, 5.5", trying to offload a stack of JPEGs?"

"No, nothing like that sir," said the bot.

But Marta could see the phone in the back.

4

The phone saw her too. It tried to unhook itself from the server. Marta jumped the counter, pulling her catcher—an electromagnetic shielded bag on stick—from her jacket.

"Access denied!" cried the bot—Marta knocked it over.

5

The phone darted towards a back door but Marta swept it up before it got too far.

"Got you, critter," she said. The phone looked sheepish.

Then it started displaying the images it was carrying, and Marta gaped. This phone was trouble. She was in it.

"Phoning it in"

You can see everything we've discussed on this page in action in this story:

  • The story quickly develops a platform, including an investigator, a sci fi setting, and the activity of "tracking down a rogue mobile phone".
  • When Marta finds the phone, we advance to "catching the phone".
  • And when she catches the phone, we have a big tilt-advance with Marta "discovering she's somehow implicated in the case".

The story balances big and small advances:

  • The big advances mark progress to new activities.
  • The small advances are actions that make progress within each activity.

(We haven't highlighted the actions; there are too many. But you can see that some actions are more significant than others.)

This is pretty common in Frankenstories. Because games are often short, one effective strategy is to develop a platform and then end with a tilt that serves as the climax to a prologue of a larger, unwritten story.

Teaching students how to advance a story

Enough theory! Let's do some practice!

Below are some exercises to help students learn key concepts and skills from this page.

Framing

  • Introduce the idea that, in stories, we "expect things to happen".
  • Ask students how they know when something is happening vs not happening in a story. How would they explain it to an alien?

Activity

  • Use Phoning It In (or any other text) as an analysis piece.
    • You can use either the highlighted version on this page or copy this Google Docs version if you want something to mark up and edit.
  • Read each round aloud and ask students to identify if anything has "happened" in that round.
    • How do they know?
    • Does everyone agree? If not, what's the nature of the disagreement?
    • It's fine to get the basic idea that "something is changing" or "story is moving forward".
  • After identifying points where "something happens", ask students how they would summarise the whole story in terms of "main things that happened":
    • Finding the phone
    • Catching the phone
    • Being implicated
  • Point out that "things happen" at the transition points between activities.
  • Point out that "things happen" within activities as well.

Formalising understanding

Once you've reached the end of the story, hand out this summary for students and explain the following concepts:

  • Stories contain activities and actions.
  • Actions are the smallest unit of action in a scene.
  • Characters take actions in order to complete over-arching activities.
  • Activities can nest inside each other.
  • One way stories advance is by characters completing actions and activities and progressing to new ones. 
  • Advances feel "bigger" when they:
    • Complete an activity
    • Start an activity
    • Change the audience's circle of expectation
    • Change the direction of the story

Once students understand the difference between activity and action and have a sense of what a big and small advance looks like, you can play games where you, as the teacher, specify criteria for advances.

Here are two example game formats:

Game 1: Advance within an activity

  • Round 1: Establish a platform, including an overarching activity
  • Round 2: Advance within the activity
  • Round 3: Advance within the activity
  • Round 4: Complete the activity and move to a new activity
  • Round 5: Free choice (e.g. small advance, big advance, tilt)

Demo game: A Flight For My Life

Game 2: Advance to new activity every round

  • Round 1: Establish a platform, including an overarching activity
  • Round 2: Advance to a new activity
  • Round 3: Advance to a new activity
  • Round 4: Advance to a new activity
  • Round 5: Free choice

Demo game: Marci Beaucoup

Debriefing

After playing each game, ask:

  • How did players feel about the story?
  • Did "stuff happen"?
  • Were the advances big or small? (Note that you can have big advances even within an activity if they are dramatic or elaborate enough.)
  • Did players feel a pressure building to make something big happen?
  • Was the story interesting?
  • Was it coherent?

Stories with a blend of advances should feel coherent and interesting, while stories with only big or small advances will tend to feel volatile or boring.

That said, there can be lots of variations, so don't be too prescriptive about the conclusions.

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