Creative Writing: Plot and Structure
Nancy Kress’ work is a profound piece of writing. Kress mainly focuses on characterization of literary plots. Characters within any story are fundamental in building the connection of readers to the literary text. Therefore, authors should make sure that they select characters who contribute the overall quality of the plot. This means that any character that is within the plot has to be making a contribution to the plot in accordance to the objective of the author.
There are different types of characters with any given plot. There are main characters and minor characters. However, it is worth noting that the main characters cannot function by themselves. They have to be reliant on the action of the minor characters to be able to successfully realize their intended goals. Kress explains that if any of the minor characters is excluded from the plot, the main characters and the plot as a whole is affected. Therefore, it is important for an author to make sure that they use characters that play a specific role in the plot. Characters whose roles can be performed by other characters should be exempted from the plot in order to avoid confusing the readers with a large number of characters.
Chapter two focuses on the first impression of characters. The perception of the readers with respect to characters is dependent on the way that the author first presents the character to the audience. The behavior and first actions of the character determines how a given character is perceived by the readers throughout the plot. Therefore, if a certain literary task is going to resonate with the audience the author has to make sure that the characters are personalities with whom readers can associate with.
