Start Your Story (or Get It Rolling)
Fall 2015Session Five
November 16, 2015
A Tutorial with Novelist Meredith Sue Willis
Session One
Session Two
Session Three
Session Four
Session Five
(Homework due Sunday night, November 22, 2015)For a reminder of how the class works, go to the bottom.
It is hard to believe we are at the final session of the tutorial. The older I get, the faster time seems to flow!
You have all been faithful with your assignments and encouraging in your private notes to me. Some of you have used the class to start or re-start your writing process, and I hope your momentum will continue. If you are concerned that without the assignments every week, you'll slow down, try looking around the Web for some of the many places that offer prompts--including my occasional free writing exercises.
Even better, try to find a group of writers to meet together, or a writing buddy. There are myriad ways to organize these get-togethers: some people gather at a coffee shop or library and don't talk at all, but simply sit together and write for an hour or two. This is often what writing buddies do too. Other writing groups critique one another's work, reading aloud or handing out work for critique a session in advance. Take a look at this article about what works in one person's writer's group. (By the way, this article is part of a new project of mine, which is a kind of ongoing online magazine of ideas for writers called The Practical Writer. Don't miss the piece by a member of this tutorial, Sarah Robinson!)
You might also take a look at my bibliography of books about writing. If you're trying to draft a novel, don't forget about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month--already halfway through for 2015).
But whatever you do, please find a way to regularize your writing and continue and finish some of the great stuff I've seen during this tutorial!
More on Character:
Creating Character from the Inside
Exercise 1: Choose one of the characters you have explored through physical description in these exercises or elsewhere. Write a monologue for the character. This could be a first person mulling over events and memories; it could be a character making a long speech in dialogue to another character; it could be a letter or email or a public speech. This is not back story, but actual internal thoughts, often an exploration of self.
Exercise 2: Monologues are especially good for exploring problem characters and minor characters. Read this, including the example, then try it one for one of your minor characters.
Exercise 3: Try a monologue in the form of a "confession," that is , one’s own plea for oneself. The samples below are two monologues from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein--first Dr. Frankenstein, then his Monster.Dr. Victor Frankenstein speaks:
His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as
beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath: his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips....
The Monster speaks:
But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death...
Exercise 4: Try a stream of consciousness for one of your characters. This is a very intimate first or third person point-of-view that doesn't go over the past, but rather tells sensations and impressions, usually as they are happening. It is especially useful for moments of stress or excitement.Here's a sample (in translation) from Tolstoy's Sevastopol Sketches:
"Who will it hit--Mikhaylov or me? Or both of us? And if me, whereabouts? If it's the head then I'm done for; but if it's the leg, they'll cut it off, and I'll certainly ask for chloroform and I may survive. But maybe only Mikhaylov will be hit, then I'll be able to tell how we were walking side by side, and he was killed and I was splashed with blood. No, it's nearer me... it'll be me." Then he remembered the twelve roubles he owed Mikhaylov, remembered also a debt in Petersburg which should have been paid long ago; a gypsy song he had sung the night before came into his head; the woman he loved appeared in his imagination wearing a bonnet with lilac ribbons; ...."But perhaps it won't explode," he thought, and with a desperate resolve tried to open his eyes. But at that moment a red fire pierced his eyes through his still closed eyelids....
Exercise 5 : Write an internal monologue for this face. (Find out below who it is, if you don't know.)
Story Structure and PacingWe've talked a little about process and a little more about using description as a way both to explore and enrich. In Session II there was an exercise about conflict, which is essential to forming any piece of writing, light or deeply serious.
Two more important things to think about in your writing are story structure and pacing.
There are many classic structures for stories. Ideally, you would write as you pleased, and the natural form would find itself. On the other hand, it is also possible to use the standard story structures as a starter, or a way to shape a story you are having trouble with.
Consider these ways a story can move:
* from problem to solution
* from mystery to solution
* from conflict to peace
* from danger to safety
* from confusion to order
* from dilemma to decision
* from ignorance to knowledge
* from questions to answers
Exercise 6 : Write a one-paragraph anecdote of an incident you witnessed or participated in. Keep first to the facts.
Exercise 7 : Now fictionalize the incident using one of the common story shapes from the list above. If the incident had a conflict, move it to some kind or peace, or, if you have a beautiful bucolic setting-- bring in a corpse!
Exercise 8 : Try another short incident or anecdote, fictionalized, starting with a mystery (this doesn't mean a detective has to find a body: it is really just a question raised). Then solve it.
Exercise 9 : Here are a couple of ideas for structuring longer works like novels or novellas. If you have already drafted a long story, does your work fit any of these patterns?
Exercise 10: Here's one of my favorite exercises. Take something you have a good start on from this class or anywhere else. It needs to be something not finished yet.
If it's a story, draft page 15.
If it's a novel, draft page 216.
The point is to imagine yourself well beyond where you've gone. What is happening to your character this far into the story/novel? What has been settled, who has been born or died? What insights have been had--and what dilemmas still remain to be dealt with?
Well, that is just about it. For a final farewell and send-off, go to this link and consider some tricks of the narrative trade.
Good luck, and stay in touch!
The Way the Class Works
Each week there will be between 5 and 10 writing assignments for you to try or ignore as you please. The assignments are exercises aimed at getting your narrative imagination in gear--and rolling forward. You don't have to write all the exercises, although if you did, you would amass quite a bit of work by the end of the tutorial.
Write as much as you can, but send me an average around 1400 words a week, with a limit of 7000 words for the entire five weeks.
As you know, the course is completely online and consists of the weekly assignments plus the personal weekly feedback from the teacher. With hard work and a little luck, a tutorial like this will give you several good starts on prose narratives-- stories, novels, memoir, etc. or, if you work on one project, up to 30 new or revised pages of a draft.
For those of you already engaged in a project, the assignments can enrich and add material. Also, if you prefer, you may substitute sections of the ongoing work for the assignments. You may send more or less each week, but keep in mind the total limit for the five weeks.
Send the homework to me at MeredithSueWillis@gmail.com by midnight of the due date— Session One homework is due by Sunday night, October 25, 2015. Send the homework attached to an e-mail as a Word or Rich Text file. If this is a problem for you, e-mail me, and we'll work something out.
What is the Difference Between a Tutorial and a Class?
My online classes have longer, lecture-style essays and more readings, and they cost more. These tutorial "lessons" are stripped down, primarily lists of starters and exercises. The focus is, as always, on your writing and my responses to your submissions.
Kentucky author Crystal Wilkinson
At the top of the page are Crystal Wilkinson and Mary Shelley.
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