ABSTRACT
Exploring the flowchart The flowchart explores prose fiction from ‘the bottom up’, looking at the more
basic aspects of story such as narrative elements and genre before investigating
the particulars of character and background (settings). This has been done
partly for simplicity’s sake and to offer young writers a route through the decision-
making process of building a story. Some pupils will want to work in this way:
out of their big decisions will come ideas for particular storylines, character
details and descriptive details of place. Other pupils might have an idea for a
specific story in the first instance. A Science Fiction fan for example, being
familiar with that genre, may well come up with a number of storylines quickly
and easily. When this happens you might direct them to individual modules
rather than suggesting they follow the route through the flowchart. Having said
that, you might decide that that pupil would benefit from looking at the deeper
structure of narrative (elements and sub-elements) to give him deeper insights
into his writing.
