Spring 2009
Novel II
Advanced Novel Writing Workshop
Good Luck in Your Writing! You Were a Great Group!
A Few Good Novelists... Do you know their work?
Toni Morrison Pat Barker Jeanette Winterson Jeffrey Eugenides Howard Fast Judith MoffettNYU X32.9357
New York University Spring 2009
School of Continuing and Professional Studies Norman Thomas 835A
Tuesdays: 6:30 PM - 8:50 PM 2/24/2009 - 5/12/2009 Instructor: Meredith Sue Willis
E-mail: MeredithSueWillis@gmail.com Instructor's homepage: Meredith Sue WillisUpdated 5-14-09
This Just In: THIS CLASS CANNOT BE EXTENDED.
THE LAST CLASS IS MAY 12.
ONE-ON-ONE CONFERENCES WILL MAKE UP THE TIME.
CLICK HERE FOR SCHEDULE.List of Presenters and dates -- NOTE CHANGES
No class 3/17/09, 4/7/09 , or 4/14/09
Tuesdays: 6:30 PM - 8:50 PM
Current assignments and updates
List of Scheduled presenters Novels recommended for reading/study by students.
Notes on Point of View Proof reader's marks
Some quotations about writing Marketing Information
Announcement of Summer Intensive at NYU
Novel II - Advanced Novel Writing Workshop
Syllabus--Schedule of Classes
The text for this course is the writing students produce and present to one another plus occasional hand-outs and online readings. The week before you are scheduled to present, please provide copies of @ 10 pages from your novel for each member of the class and the teacher. Also be prepared to discuss the work of classmates when they present. The weekly short assignments are optional and only for the teacher. They should be two to three pages long (a page is considered to be 250-300 words, one inch margins, double-spaced, one side only, using a font comparable to Times New Roman 12 point ). Everything counts toward the total of 50 pages to be reviewed during the course of the semester. All writing and presentations should be from the novel you’re working on . Please use conventional paragraphing, fonts, and layout unless you have some good artistic reason to do otherwise.
Homework Assignments are optional; feel free to substitute.
Keep count of pages you are submitting: up to 50 pages for the semester.1. 2-24-09 Bring a 1 page overview (introduction, summary, anything that would help us read your selections) plus a 1 page writing sample (the opening would be a good choice) with enough copies for everyone in the class-- 13 copies total.
Structure of the course and structure of the novel. Common vocabulary for talking about novels: show & tell, point of view; process and product, scene and summary; outlining, the market, etc. What can narrative prose do that movies cannot? How do we judge narrative prose? What kind of feedback do you find most useful?
IN CLASS: Essential importance of Point of View in novels.
SCHEDULE PRESENTATIONS.2 3-3 Assignment due: A short scene from your novel with an important conflict in it. More discussion of point of view, scene, and tense. See http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/materials.html#pov , http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/materials.html#povsamples , http://meredithsuewillis.com/materials.html#scene , and http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/materials.html#presenttense. Optional: Read an article in the New York Times about the future of book publishing. Also read the New York Times list of the best novels in the last 25 years.
IN CLASS: The Scene.
INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS. (See schedule below).3. 3-10 Assignment due: A group scene from your novel. This might be a party, a family event, a church supper, a crowded subway. Use the people as part of the setting:colorful clothes, or a mass of unfamiliar faces, etc Think about the point of view of this scene: is it being told by someone in the midst of it or from a great distance? Is it first seen in full, as a long shot? Or is it first seen up close, from one character's sense of being lost in the crowd? Reading: If you haven't read them yet, read the materials for session 2 above and my notes on minor characters .
IN CLASS: Pacing and styles of discourse.
INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS (See schedule below).No Class 3-17-09 (NYU Spring Break)
4 3-24 Assignment due: Write a scene in which you use physical description and action to explore a minor character. Reading assignments: Read the material on dialogue at: Dialogue Tags ; Types of Discourse ; notes on various kinds of publishing at Publishing Types and Print on Demand. Also take a look at the discussion of Memoir and Fiction by Keith Maillard and Carole Rosenthal in Books For Readers Issue #80. If you haven't read the material on scene yet, please read it as well as the samples of physical action in fiction. INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS
5. 3-31 Assignment due : Write a scene in which the minor character just introduced has a monologue--this may be spoken aloud or in the character's head, or expressed in some other way. Since it is unlikely that your novel is actually in this particular character's head, try having the monologue be spoken aloud or expressed in some other way that fits into your novel: a letter? an e-mail message? an acceptance speech at an awards ceremony? Reading: Excerpt from Trespassers. Also see these descriptions of minor characters. Just for fun, take a look at Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules for writers. In class: Brief Marketing Discussion. See links to information here. INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS.
No Class 4-7-09 (MSW has to be out of town)
No Class 4-14--09 (High Schools are closed)6.4-21 Assignment due: Write a scene that uses a technique that film also uses (establishing shot, jump cut, etc.). Also see samples of what I mean by close-up and long-shot in fiction
BEGINNING TODAY: ONE-ON-ONE CONFERENCES TO MAKE UP FOR MISSED CLASS
http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/materials.html#closeuplongshot and a little more on some useful film terms at http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/materials.html#filmterms INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS.7 4-28 Assignment due: Turn in a scene that emphasizes an especially novelistic technique such as memory, word play, flashback, interior monologue, etc. Read the information on flashback at http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/materials.html#flashback . More on Marketing, FYI: Sample query letters. ALSO CHECK OUT one literary agent's worst query letter ever! (You may have to scroll down to find it.).
8. 5-5 Assignment: A scene with a lot of Dialogue in it. Take a look at "Too Many Tags. Read: " Dialogue: The Spine of Fiction." (article by MSW about dialogue). A little on revising novels and "Too Many Tags."
9.5-12 Assignment due: Weather, in the atmosphere, and Interior. Write an important scene in your novel in which the weather or dreams play a part. See passage at weather. INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS . No homework will be accepted after this date. INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS. (See schedule below).
10. 5-19 CLASS CANCELLED-- SEE SCHEDULE OF ONE-ON-ONE CONFERENCES FOR MAKEUP.
Optional Readings:
Information on Marketing: Go to the resources page, and in particular to the links in the left hand column for: Agents, Articles of interest to writers, online places to submit fiction, Book Doctors & Private Editors, Book Publishers (small), Copyright , Literary Agents, Markets for Literary Fiction, Printers: Recommended book producers (not publishers), Publicizing Your Book , and more online resources for writers.
Virginia Woolf from "Killing the Angel"
Discussion of Memoir and Fiction by Keith Maillard and Carole Rosenthal in Books For Readers Issue #80.
Phillip Roth and RIchard Wright on writing.
Article on publishing in Salon: "20 percent of a [book's] budget... pays for paper, printing and binding..."
Article on how authors get paid
"The Business of Books, by André Schiffrin," reviewed by Meredith Sue Willis (the status of publishing)
Here is a funny poem by Billy Collins about workshopping poetry.
Notes on various kinds of publishing at Publishing Types and Print on Demand.
Online work by Meredith Sue Willis:
Sample from "Tara White" at Bloodroot.
"Tales of the Abstract Expressionists" at Tatlin's Tower;
"Recessional" at Coelecanth Magazine
"Scheherezade and Dunzyad" in The Pedestal Magazine
"The Business of Books, by André Schiffrin," reviewed by Meredith Sue Willis (the status of publishing)
"On Cutting," (article by MSW about editing and revising)
" Dialogue: The Spine of Fiction," (article by MSW about dialogue)
Notes on Pros & Cons of Present Tense in Fiction
Short Bibliography of How-to-Write Books
For proofreader's marks, go to Accurate.
For Information on Agents.
Notes on types of publishing
Notes on Print-on-Demand
People don't turn themselves over to writers as full-blown literary characters– generally they give you very little to go on and, after the impact of the initial impression, are barely any help at all. Most people (beginning with the novelist– himself, his family, just about everyone he knows) are absolutely unoriginal, and his job is to make them appear otherwise. It's not easy. If Henry was ever going to turn out to be interesting, I was going to have to do it.
– Phillip Roth in Zuckerman's voice in Counterlife
I don't know if Native Son is a good book or a bad book. And I don't know if the book I'm working on now will be a good book or a bad book. And I really don't care. The mere writing of it will be more fun and a deeper satisfaction than any praise or blame from anybody.
-- Richard Wright, "How ‘Bigger' Was Born"
Killing the Angel in the House
It was she who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her. You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her– you may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House. I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it–in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds or wishes of others. Above all– I need not say it– she was pure...And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered: "my dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure." And she made as if to guide my pen. I now record the one act for which I take some credit to myself, though the credit right belongs to some excellent ancestors of mine who left me a certain sum of money–shall we say five hundred pounds a year?– so that it was not necessary for me to depend solely on charm for my living. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defence. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing.
-- Virginia Woolf, From "Professions for Women," in The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970) 236-239.
One-on-One-Conferences with MSW
(Make up for missed final class)
4-21 5:30 Greg Roelants; 6:00 Sunny Carmell
4-28 5:45 Cleve Lamison; 6:105 Sharon Baird
These take place at Starbucks: if it was too crowded, we'll go down to the Guy and Gallard one block south.
5-5 5:30 Dolores McCullough; 5:50 Fran Alongi; 6:10 Dreama Frisk
5-12 5:30 Scott Hornsby; 5:50 Nicole Arbusi; 6:10 Milagros Garcia-Sobryan
List of Presenters
Don't forget: if you are reading one week, bring copies for the class the week before. Thus, if you are scheduled to read on October 22, bring copies for the class on October 15 (or earlier).
3-3 Nicole Arbuiso, Fran Alongi
3-10 Greg Roelants, Dolores McCullough, [Scott Hornsby]
NO 3/173-24 Cleve Lamison, Sharon Baird, [Milagros Garcia-Sobryan], [Dolores McCullough]
3-31 Scott Hornsby, Sunny Carmell [Fran Alongi] [Bring copies to distribute 3/24]
NO 4/7
NO 4/14
4-21 Dreama Frisk, Milagros Garcia-Sobryan, [Sharon Baird], [Cleve Lamison] [Bring copies to distribure 3/31]
4-28 Fran Alongi, Greg Roelants, Nicole C. Arbuiso
[Bring copies to distribure 4/21]5-5 Dreama Frisk, Dolores McCullough, Cleve Lamison, Sharon Baird, Scott Hornsby, [Sunny Carmell]
[Bring copies to distribure 4/28]5-12 Milagros Garcia-Sobryan, Dreama Frisk, Cleve Lamison, Nicole Arbuiso, Fran Alongi, [Greg Roelants]
[Bring copies 5/5]
Recommended by Advanced Novel Workshop Classes:
Cat’s Eye
Margaret AtwoodDistant Star
Roberto BolañoExiles in America
Christopher Bram " Great psychological drama– different points of view"Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte “Just perfect.”Thank You for Smoking
Christopher Buckley " Satire"Possession
A.S. ByattThe Emperor of Ocean Park
Stephen CarterThe Brass Verdict
Michael ConnollyBilly Bathgate
E.L. DoctorowDrown
Junot DiazThe Alchemist
Paulo Coelho "Different reinforcing messages over time"The Eyre Affair
Jasper Fford "This is just for fun if you love Jane Eyre"A Place of Hiding
Elizabeth GeorgeLord of the Flies
William GoldingThree Junes
Julia Glass
Love the One You're With
Emily GriffinThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
Mark Haddon " Great consistent voice"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Murakami Haruki " Freedom to be Imaginative."What I loved
Siri Hustvedt "Innovative book of ideas"Never Let Me Go "Exquisitely sad alternative world story."
Kazuo IchiguroThe World According to Garp
John Irving
The Poisonwood Bible
Barbara KingsolverWoman Warrior
Maxine Hong Kingston100 Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia MarquezA Game of Thrones
George R.R. MartinThe Road
Cormac McCarthyAtonement
Ian McEwanThe Senator's Wife
Sue MillerBlack Swan Green
David MitchellThe Time Travelers’s Wife
Audrey Niffenegger " Brilliant handling of flashforward and back"Coming Up for Air
George OrwellInvisible Monsters
Chuck PalahniukMy Name is Red
Orhan PamukDoctor Zhivago
Boris PasternakVernon God Little
D.B.C. PierreSpecial Topics in Calamity Physics
Marsha Pelils "Clever literary murder mystery"Lush Life
Richard PriceHarry Potter books
J.K. RowlingNine Stories
J.D. Salinger " Simplicity in setting up complex Characters"Blindness
Jose SaramagoKing Kong on East 4th St.
Jagna Wojcicka Sharff "Social study Lower East Side in 80's/70's"On the Waterfront (Shooting Script)
Budd SchulbergThe Secret History
Donna TarttThe Glass Castle (memoir)
Jeanette Walls "Powerful memoir."Oranges Aren't the Only Fruit
Jeanette Winterson
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Biography Blog Books for Readers Contact Home Kids MSW Info MSW's Books Online Classes Order Books MSW Online Resources for Writers Teens Workshops Writing Exercises
Biography Blog Books for Readers Contact Home Kids MSW Info MSW's Books Online Classes Order Books
MSW Online Resources for Writers Teens Workshops Writing Exercises
