Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 743, Writing a Story.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 743.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Javier and Sarah.
It's called Writing a Story.
Let's get started.
How's your novel coming along?
It's not.
I abandoned it for now.
I think I bit off more than I can chew.
Now I'm working on a short story.
That sounds interesting.
Who are the main characters?
I'm not sure yet.
Character development is really important, so I need to give the characters themselves some serious thought.
Okay.
Tell me about the general plot.
Is it an adventure?
Romance?
Horror story?
What?
I haven't decided that either.
All right.
What about the setting?
Is it going to be set in the U.S.?
?
Hmm, that's still up in the air, too.
I'm thinking of writing a period story, but I'm not sure what time period to choose.
That'll help decide the actual setting.
I'm guessing you haven't decided the point of view of the story either, whether it'll be told in the first person or third person.
Am I right?
You are.
I know I have a lot to think about.
You've definitely got your work cut out for you.
I know.
I'm just waiting for some inspiration.
Good luck with that.
Our dialogue begins with Javier saying to Sarah, How's your novel coming along?
A novel is a long fictional story, a story that is not true.
To be coming along means to be progressing along.
So Javier is asking Sarah how her novel is progressing.
Is it getting finished?
Sarah says, it's not.
It's not coming along.
I abandoned it for now.
To abandon, A-B-A-N-D-O-N, means to give up on something completely.
Well, Sarah has not given up on it completely.
That's why she says, I abandoned it for now, meaning maybe in the future she'll come back to it.
She says, This is a common expression.
To bite off. means to use your teeth to remove usually a piece of food.
For example, if you are eating chicken and you are holding the piece of chicken by your two hands, you might bite off a piece.
The difference between to bite and to bite off is has to do with separating the piece with your mouth.
You remove it completely from where it was.
You could bite something, you could bite your finger, but you wouldn't be removing it from your hand well, unless you bit it very strongly.
The expression here in the dialogue however, is i bit b-i-t off.
Bit is the irregular past tense for bite.
So I bit off more than I can chew.
To chew is to use your teeth to break down food into smaller pieces so you can swallow it.
To bite off more than you can chew however, as an expression means to try to do something that you are not completely able to do or even capable of doing.
Sarah says.
Now I'm working on a short story, which is also a work of fiction, a story, but not a long one, that you would publish as a book.
Javier says.
Sarah says Character development is really important, so I need to give the characters themselves some serious thought.
Character development is the way that a person in a novel, a play, a movie changes over time in the story itself.
Sarah says she's going to give this some serious thought, meaning she's going to think about it seriously for a long time.
Javier says, OK, tell me about the general plot.
A plot, P-L-O-T, is the main events in a novel, play, or movie.
We might call it the main storyline.
First this happens, then this happens, then this happens.
Boy meets girl.
Boy and girl fall in love.
Boy and girl get married.
That's the basic plot for a lot of romantic movies and books.
Javier wants to know about the general plot of Sarah's book.
So he gives her some examples, some kinds of books, what we would call some genres.
Adventure, romance, horror story.
He asks which of these his friend's story is.
Well, an adventure story is a story that is exciting.
There are many usually dangerous activities or experiences in the story.
You can think of a movie like Indiana Jones, the series of movies.
Those were adventure movies.
Romance is boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl get married.
That's the general idea of a romance story, usually.
Horror story, H-O-R-R-O-R. is a novel or a movie that has something scary or frightening.
The Silence of the Lambs was kind of a horror movie.
Usually horror movies have a lot of blood nowadays.
Movies with people who get their heads cut off and that sort of thing.
I don't really like horror stories.
I like adventures, romance, eh, not so much.
Sarah says I haven't decided that either, meaning she doesn't know what kind of story she's going to write.
Javier says, all right, what about the setting?
Is it going to be set in the U.S.?
?
The setting of a story has to do with the time and the place where the story takes place, the location and the period of time.
Is it in the 1980s in England?
Is it in Scotland in the 1400s?
What's the setting?
The question that Javier asks is, is it going to be set in the U.S.?
Meaning, is it going to take place in the United States?
Sarah says, that's still up in the air, too.
When we say something is up in the air, we mean it's undecided.
We're not sure yet.
We haven't determined that yet.
Someone may say, our plans are up in the air.
We don't know what we're going to be doing tomorrow.
Perhaps we'll be in a beautiful balloon.
Sarah doesn't know what her setting is going to be.
She says, is a story that takes place at some time in the past.
It's not a story about what's happening today.
It might be about England in the 19th century or Rome at the time of Julius Caesar.
Those would be period stories or period pieces, they might be called.
Sarah isn't sure what period she's going to write in.
She says that will help decide the actual setting.
Javier says, Am I right?
The point of view is the view or perspective from which a story can be told.
Usually a story is told either in the first person.
Meaning you read the story from someone's viewpoint.
They say I.
I walked into a room and I saw a beautiful woman and I said can I have your phone number?
And she said, no, get out of here.
You're ugly.
That would be a first person story.
That's kind of what my romance story would probably be.
A third-person story is the story being told not by one of the characters in the book but, if you will, by some person outside of the book.
He walked into the room.
He saw a beautiful woman.
He said, Hey, baby, how you doing?
That would be a third person story.
That would never happen to me.
So first person is I, A character is telling the story from their own perspective, their own point of view.
Third person is someone else's point of view.
The story that Sarah is writing is still undetermined in terms of its point of view.
She says, you are, you are right, I don't know.
I know I have a lot to think about, she says.
Javier says, you definitely got your work cut out for you.
To have your work cut out for you means to be required to complete something that is going to be very difficult.
You have a very difficult task, a very difficult problem to solve.
Sarah says, I know.
I'm just waiting for some inspiration.
Inspiration is something that occurs to you, that stimulates your mind to do or to feel something.
When we talk about creative people, artists, writers, painters...
Sometimes they'll talk about their inspiration.
A man may paint a picture of a beautiful woman.
He was inspired by some woman in his life, perhaps.
Sarah is waiting for some inspiration.
Javier says good luck with that.
That's kind of a comical expression nowadays.
When someone says oh, good luck with that, they mean you probably won't be able to do that, or I doubt you will be able to do that.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a normal speed.
How's your novel coming along?
It's not.
I abandoned it for now.
I think I bit off more than I can chew.
Now I'm working on a short story.
That sounds interesting.
Who are the main characters?
I'm not sure yet.
Character development is really important, so I need to give the characters themselves some serious thought.
Okay.
Tell me about the general plot.
Is it an adventure?
Romance?
Horror story?
What?
I haven't decided that either.
All right.
What about the setting?
Is it going to be set in the U.S.?
That's still up in the air, too.
I'm thinking of writing a period story, but I'm not sure what time period to choose.
That'll help decide the actual setting.
I'm guessing you haven't decided the point of view of the story either, whether it'll be told in the first person or third person.
Am I right?
You are.
I know.
I have a lot to think about.
You definitely got your work cut out for you.
I know.
I'm just waiting for some inspiration.
Good luck with that.
Scriptwriters write stories, and our scriptwriter has written some wonderful stories with funny and interesting plots.
Some of them romance, some of them adventure, not a lot of them horror, thank goodness.
Thank you, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
