Winnie teaches how to write a second complication by showing a character facing an obstacle and recalling past trauma through flashback. In her example, Amber watches bully Viviana target Elizabeth, remembers her own verbal abuse, and grabs her mother's magical opal ring to intervene, pushing the story toward climax.
Chapters
Hi everyone, this is Winnie or Miss Tang. Today we are learning to write our second complication, also known as the rising action, and we are also going to include a flashback. The reason we are doing this is because when we are creating our obstacles or our problems or conflicts for our character, this moves our plot forward and it also gives our characters some problems to overcome and some goals for them to aim for. This also gives our narrative purpose. And it drives the change and it keeps our readers and our audience engaged. For our success criteria today, we will be describing the problem or the obstacle that our character is going to face. We will also show how the main character feels and describe the impact of this obstacle. We will do this by using some adjectives to build up some descriptions and also add in some verbs, adverbs, and adverbial phrases to provide some more information. To keep our readers engaged, as well, we are going to include figurative language such as similes, metaphors, and personification. This then helps our readers clearly understand what we are trying to say, and it also provides them with an image in their head as well. In our previous videos, we have planned for our writing, so we will have that ready to go before we write our second complication. We have also written our orientation and our first complication. At the end of this video, I'm to give you a challenge. The challenge is to figure out the difference between what a good, great, amazing, and fabulous complication looks like. And fun fact, this story that I am writing is actually the prequel to the book that my friend and I wrote, the Pollution Monster series. I've used this character Amber from our book called Amber and the Pesky Plastic Problem. And in some future videos, I would love to share our journey from drafting, editing, revising, to publishing our book. From the planning of our complication part 2. We know that Viviana has been bullying Amber, but we know, but Amber doesn't know, that Viviana has also been bullying other people. So Amber is not the only person. In this complication part 2, the problem we are going to describe is Viviana bullying someone else from the cheerleading team. So the first thing we are going to do is describe this problem, and we are also going to describe the impact of this obstacle. We'll need to make sure that we include when and where this is happening so that we can set the scene for this second complication. After cheer practice, Amber left the change rooms and the school hall to find Viviana staring down Elizabeth. Elizabeth was pretty yet awkward, with watery blue-green eyes and wispy hair. She was much taller than Viviana, but somehow she had shrunk. Her bottom lip trembled. Elizabeth was stuttering and stumbling over her words. So we've described the problem of Viviana bullying someone else as well. So we can infer from the descriptions that we have written down that she has also been bullying Elizabeth from the cheerleading team. To engage our audience even more and to help them visualize what is happening, we can also use figurative language as well to support our audience. So we can use things like similes, metaphors, or personification. In this case, I might use a metaphor. So, and then also I'll describe the impact or how other people are reacting to this situation. She was a deer in headlights. The other girls and boys on the cheer team had come outside. One glance at Viviana and Elizabeth had them quickly and quietly sneaking away like a burglar in the night. Amber shook her head. She remembered Viviana's harsh words just half an hour ago, as well as the other words she had endured from Viviana. Okay, so now what we are going to do is a bit of a flashback. With flashbacks, there are a couple of reasons why you might want to use this in your narrative or your story. Sometimes people might wanna give some more information about what has happened in the past, and you might describe vividly an event that happened previously. So this is something that I've done with my friend in the book that we are writing. So I can share that in a future video so we can describe how we wrote that flashback. But in this case, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use this flashback and we'll flashback to all the times that Viviana has said all of those words because Amber is, by seeing what is happening with Viviana and Elizabeth, she is flashing back to all those times that Viviana has said the harsh words to her. So she is going to remember all of those words and they're all going to come back to her. So what we're going to do is we'll write them in italics. So with the, um, word slanted to the side and to show that this is a flashback and she's remembering all of those words that Viviana has said to her in the past. Can you be any slower? You're looking a bit red there. Hope this routine isn't too much for you. Why Mrs. Robinson asked you to run for cheer captain, I don't know. Honestly, you would be terrible. Don't bother. Just quit the team. We don't need you. I'm just trying to help you. So the reason why I've added this in is to build up that tension within Amber because she knows that this isn't right and she doesn't want other people to be feeling how she's been feeling when Viviana is saying these harsh words to her. Now we're going to describe how Amber is feeling. And what she's going to do about it. Amber felt a fire burning in her chest and roaring in her ears. She marched over to Viviana and pulled her away from Elizabeth. Hey, leave her alone. Practice is over. Go home, Viviana. Okay, so now we have Amber who has, um, seen what has been happening. She's remembered everything that's happened in the past, and now she is actually confident enough to do something about it and take action. Now let's describe what happens afterwards. Viviana huffed and grabbed her bag. She glared one more time at Elizabeth and then at Amber and stalked off. Amber's jaw clenched, teeth grinding. Her eyes narrowed at the beloved cheerleader. How dare she? How dare she treat people this way? Amber clutched her mom's opal ring and wished very, very hard for Viviana to leave and never, 'Ever come back.' Oh, okay. So we know Amber doesn't know because she doesn't realize that her ring is magic, but we know that Amber has now made another wish with her ring. So that will lead us to the climax of our story, the very, very peak, and we will see and find out what will happen in the next part of the story. So this will be the highest, the top point of the story where there will be a lot of tension, and that will be the, the the climax. And there you have it. So now we have written our second complication. We have described the problem, shown how our character feels, described the impact of this obstacle. We have also used adjectives, verbs, adverbs, adverbial phrases, and included some figurative language as well to help our reader visualize what it is that we're trying to say and visualize what is happening in the story. Okay, are you ready for the challenge? This is what a good one looks like. This is what a great one looks like. We have amazing and fabulous. See if you can figure out what the difference between good, great, amazing, and fabulous complication looks like. I will also be sharing my Ultimate Guide to Narrative Writing in the description box below. So I'll leave a link there when it is ready for you to download. Up next, we will be writing the climax of our story. Can't wait to see you there. See you in my next video. Bye!
