"The Tell-Tale Heart," by Edgar Allan Poe & POV Exercise

This week in my classes we've been discussing "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. Great, classic unreliable narrator story. So short. Takes 5 minutes to read. Perfect for Halloween season.

Note how he addresses the reader-- trying to convince us of something. Are you convinced by the end? Note how he tells you one thing (that he's perfectly sane! sane, I tell you!) and shows another. 

Even though we are only seeing through his POV--and never through anyone else's POV-- he shows us something that he himself does not know. (How batshit crazy he is.) 

I can't emphasize enough how handy this is to remember when you are inside your character's POV: You can show us things your character does not know.

Exercise: Set the timer for 15 minutes. Writing from your main character's point of view, show us something your character is not aware of. 

The closest thing to a rule

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. 

—Somerset Maugham (probably)

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Some thoughts I wrote for a student recently:


If you ever feel your story going down a rabbit hole of wordplay, experimental formatting, layered storytelling . . . pull back and remember that while this can be fun, you don't don’t want it to eclipse the heart of the story. We turn the page because we want to know what happens to a character we care about. It really boils down to that. There really aren’t many rules for writing fiction, but this comes closest to being a universal rule: We turn the page because we want to know what happens to a character we care about.

Yes, there can also be a second and third character we care about.

We don’t have to always like the characters or agree with them. (Just as we don’t always like or agree with the people we care about in real life!)

The world in which they’re operating doesn’t have to be our world, or realistic, though we do have to know the rules of your particular world . . . so we can understand what’s happening to that character we care about.

The characters don’t have to be human: they can be nonhuman animals, spirits, mechanical beings . . .

But we have to believe in them, feel them as 3-dimensional so that it matters to us what happens to them.

Year of Your Book fiction class at Hudson Valley Writers' Center

New sessions starting 10/31 and 11/5


Year of Your Book
Hudson Valley Writers' Center
Wednesdays 10:15 to 12:15
Oct. 31 through Dec. 7
$320

This class is for fiction writers at all stages, including beginners, who are working on a short story collection or a novel. Everyone is welcome!


Advanced Year of Your Book
Hudson Valley Writers' Center
Mondays 10:30 to 12:30
November 5 through December 10
$320

This class is for fiction writers who have a draft, or most of a draft, of a story collection or novel. Must apply with ten-page sample. See link above for details.

Keeping Going: Next Session Starts Oct. 23

Keeping Going

Online Class

Assignments Tuesdays and Fridays 

Six weeks: October 23 through November 30

$300

For those who live too far away or whose schedule can't accommodate my Year of Your Book class at HVWC, Keeping Going is an online class with a similar format. It's for anyone working on a fiction project-- story or novel-- at any stage. We'll discuss goals, keep you accountable, and have twice-weekly short exercises focused on issues such as dialogue, point of view, handling backstory, character arcs, story beats, narrative distance, and other aspects of craft. Exercises are shared with the class and I respond to all of them. Click CONTACT ME on the right to ask me about or to sign up now! 

Keeping Going / Advanced

Online Class

Assignments Tuesdays and Fridays 

Six weeks: October 23 through November 30

$300

Same as above, but for those who already have most of a draft written. Must apply with a ten-page sample. Click CONTACT ME on the right for more information.

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NOTE: For those who can't afford these classes, I'll be posting a lot of our exercises and readings online. Watch this space! The difference is you won't get feedback on your writing. To discuss one-on-one feedback, please contact me.

Read: "A Manual for Cleaning Women" by Lucia Berlin

Once we made a pact… if things weren’t okay by 1976 we were going to have a shoot-out at the end of the Marina. You didn’t trust me, said I would shoot you first and run, or shoot myself first, whatever. I’m tired of the bargain, Ter.

"A Manual for Cleaning Women" is from the collection of the same title by Lucia Berlin. An amazing writer.

Some things to look at in this story:


Point of view

Notice how firmly we're located in the POV of this narrator, following her train of thought.


Backstory

Notice how the "now" of the story is organized (bus trips) and how moments in the present spark specific memories/thoughts about the past.

Notice how our understanding of the past (relationship with Ter) grows a bit each time it's touched on.


Arc

Also pay attention to the arc of the "now" story. At first glance this may look like a random listing of bus trips, but something is changing inside the narrator. She is in a different place emotionally by the end from where she was at the beginning. What has changed?

Exercise for the day: Nine-box visual outline

Here's an interesting method of outlining from Benjamin Hale, sent to me by a student in today's class: It's a nine-box visual outline which can be found along with some other thoughts on structure in

this blog post

Some people like to make outlines early in the process, some after a draft or several are already written and the structure needs visualizing/tweaking. The earlier in the process you do it, the more likely it is that your actual story, when you write it, will go off the grid. You can't use your intellect to come up with the perfect idea and then force your characters to follow this exactly. But an outline is a great tool to get a snapshot of the shape of your story as you understand it at the moment-- whether that moment is part of the first draft or the revision process. (I strongly recommend the latter! But everybody is different.)

Try this with your story. Don't let it eat up your writing time for the day. Set the timer for 20 minutes (or even 10), chart as much as you can, then move on.

Exercise for the day: Three Elements

This is a fun thing to do. Every issue of 3 Elements has a theme: three elements that have to be included in each story or poem. The current submission period is for the winter issue, and the elements are gristle, bolt, and kitchen table. Details here. Deadline 10/31/18.

Exercise for the day: Dialogue

Below is a passage with dialogue from "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor

Cast of characters:  

Mrs. Hopewell, genteel southern lady who approves of "salt of the earth" type "good country people" and loves platitudes. 

"The girl," Mrs. Hopewell's daughter, has a PhD, stuck living with her mother due to physical issues, perpetually snide and furious 

Mrs. Freeman, their salt-of-the-earth tenant who has two daughters of her own. One, Carramae, 15, married and pregnant, has morning sickness.

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“Well, Glynese is a fine girl,” Mrs. Hopewell said. “Glynese and Carramae are both fine girls.”

“Carramae said when her and Lyman was married Lyman said it sure felt sacred to him. She said he said he wouldn't take five hundred dollars for being married by a preacher.”

“How much would he take?” the girl asked from the stove.

“He said he wouldn't take five hundred dollars,” Mrs. Freeman repeated.

“Well we all have work to do,” Mrs. Hopewell said. 

“Lyman said it just felt more sacred to him,” Mrs. Freeman said. “The doctor wants Carramae to eat prunes. Says instead of medicine. Says them cramps is coming from pressure. You know where I think it is?”

“She'll be better in a few weeks,” Mrs. Hopewell said.

“In the tube,” Mrs. Freeman said. “Else she wouldn't be as sick as she is.”

--from "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor (read the whole story HERE)

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This is a great story for, among other things, its dialogue. Here are a few things to look for in the exchange above:

-Do the three people have distinct voices, ways of speaking? Can you tell them apart?

-Are they having the same conversation? Or are they having three different conversations? Are questions directly asked and answered, or is something more complex going on where everyone is maybe a little bit off in their own world?

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Exercise 

Set the timer for 20 minutes

Work on a scene in your story that includes dialogue. Let us hear how the characters have distinct voices and make us aware in some way--whatever way you choose--that they are coming to the conversation from slightly different places, with slightly different agendas.

Reading: "Stone Mattress" by Margaret Atwood

At the outset Verna had not intended to kill anyone. What she had in mind was a vacation, pure and simple. Take a breather, do some inner accounting, shed worn skin. The Arctic suits her: there’s something inherently calming in the vast cool sweeps of ice and rock and sea and sky, undisturbed by cities and highways and trees and the other distractions that clutter up the landscape to the south.

Among the clutter she includes other people, and by other people she means men. She’s had enough of men for a while.

Written in 2011, yet so timely. Also a such a pleasure: a master of the form at the top of her game. 

"Stone Mattress" by Margaret Atwood

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Things to notice in this story (besides everything) -- Look at the role of backstory/ exposition in this piece. This is a problem everybody wrestles with: how to handle exposition. How she do it here? How does the story of what happened in the past work as part of the present-time narrative? How do the revelations contribute to forward-moving action in the present?