 Hello dear learners, welcome to today's program. I am Dr. Pallavi Gugoy of Padmanat Kuhaybara School of Humanities, Peshna Kander Handik's Theatre Pen University. Today I shall take up Unit 15, titled Story Writing, where we shall discuss samples of stories. This is from the Foundation course in English, semester 1, block 2. So let us quickly begin. First I shall start with table of contents. Starting with the learning objectives, followed by sample stories. I have selected two stories for this particular video, followed by questions to check your progress and preferences. Now come to your learning objectives. After going through this unit, the learner will be able to gain a better idea on the techniques of story writing through the given samples and also appreciate some of the basic important techniques of story writing. First let us take up a sample story. Let us take this extract from our story written by Guidey Mopasam. I am sure you must have heard his name. Quote, Along all the roads around Godaville, the peasants and their wives were coming towards the town because it was market day. The men were proceeding with slow steps. The whole body bent forward at each movement of their long twisted legs, deformed by their hard work, by the weight on their plow, which at the same time raised the left shoulder and swerved the figure, by the reaping of the wheat, which made the knees spread in order to hold the wheat firmly, by the slow and painful labours of the country. Their blue blouses ornamented with a little design in white at the neck and wrists puffed about their bony bodies, seemed like balloons ready to carry them off. From each of them a head, two arms and two legs protruded and they walked with a quicker and livelier step than their husbands. Their spare straight figures were wrapped in a scanty little shawl, pinned over their flat bosons and the heads were enveloped in a white cloth glued to the hair and surmounted by a cap. The short story from which this extract is taken is a piece of string by Gayati Mopasam. While writing a story if you wish to describe a character from an output perspective, you could give details of the character's dress, build, facial expression, movement and so on. However if you wish to describe what the character is essentially, in that case you could refer to qualities of the characters personality such as intelligence, courage, arrogance, honesty, nervousness and the alike. You could use outward details such as mesmerisms, action, relationships and speech as evidence of the character's internal traits or qualities while writing a story. Also you could want to concentrate on the dominant feature or describe several complementary features of the character in the story. Let's take another sample. Now let us look at a description of a scene as observed by a lady from a hotel window in Italy in this particular story by Ernest Hemingway. There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and the war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and clenched in the rain. It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in the long line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe our waiter stood looking out at the empty square. The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouching under one of the tripping green fables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be tripped on. Now the tech source of this particular extract is from the story Cat in the Rain by Ernest Hemingway. In the extract many concrete details are used to describe the young man. These details help you to form your views about the person's character. You are to go through this particular sample once again to get a better idea of the same. Now let's quickly come to questions to check your progress. Question number one, what are some of the aspects that you would highlight as a story writer if you are to provide only the basic highlights of a character? Question number two, what are some of the aspects that you would provide in details if you are to provide an essence of a character in a story? Question number three, develop each of the following outlines into a form of complete stories. If you notice here are the incompleted outlines. You have to complete the same. Starting with number one, a grandmother celebrates the birthday of her four-year-old grandson who is far away in America with his parents. Hosts of guests and relatives arrive. Meribund. Grandson brings up his father. Grandmother greets happy birthday. Guests depart. Grandmother breaks down in loneliness. Now here's the second one, three schoolboys run off to the nearby river for a swim. The strong current carries away one of the boys. The other two shot for help. A fisherman leaps into the water. The boy's saved. Fisherman refuses reward from the father of the rescued boy. So you have to complete these outlines of the stories using your own imagination and creativity. Here's a reference I hope you'd go through the BA English Graduate Self-Learning Material SLM, a foundation course in English, block 2 unit 15 semester 1. Thank you dear learners.