I'm so honored to be the recipient of a 2021 Sustainable Arts Foundation Award! This funding will be a great help as I complete my current novel-in-progress. A huge thank you to the Sustainable Arts Foundation!
Friday, May 14, 2021
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
What We're Doing in Class: Why every good narrator is "unreliable"
Here's a sample of what we're doing in my classes with the Hudson Valley Writers' Center. This session of the yearlong Year of Your Book series focuses on tuning in to the voices in your story.
Below: Why every good narrator's voice is "unreliable," with some short prompts to explore this in your own narrator or point-of-view character. What do they know? What don't they know? How can your story tell more than their voice is able to say?
Tuning in to the voices in your story: Week 3
The Unreliable Narrator
There are various possible/useful definitions for this term, which was coined by Wayne Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction in 1961.
In the most narrow sense, it means a first-person narrator who lies or tells a clearly distorted version of the truth. That’s the definition that was first conveyed to me in graduate school.
One of my favorite examples of this type of obviously unreliable narrator is the protagonist of Poe’s “The Telltale Heart.” His first words to the reader are: “True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”
Right away we’re made aware of the existence of a “you” who says the narrator is “mad,” which holds us in the tension between his insistence that he’s sane, and the knowledge that someone else thinks he isn’t. That only lasts about a minute: he quickly starts sounding so out of touch with reality that most readers will judge for themselves that he’s “mad” by the end of the second paragraph. (And things just get crazier from there as the story goes on.)
There are other types of obviously unreliable narrators: those who lie or leave things out on purpose, which we may discern right away or not learn until the end of the book. (E.g. the narrator of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk.) Those who are meant to be read as naive or limited in understanding. (Huckleberry Finn.) Those whose points of view are meant to seem abhorrent (the speaker in Eudora Welty’s “Where is the Voice Coming From?” — see below.)
But, as I’ve looked at this question through the years, I’ve come to think the idea of a narrator’s “unreliability” is a useful lens for almost every story— that the voice of almost every well-drawn, three-dimensional narrator is, in their own way, “unreliable,” which is to say they are fallible and human, and the narrative consciousness of the story holds this knowledge of their fallibility, and conveys it to the reader.
To explain this, let me explain what I mean by “narrative consciousness” versus the point of view of the narrator.
In Welty’s “Where is the Voice Coming From?”, we only hear from the first-person narrator. In fact, we never hear a non-racist voice in the whole story, not even secondhand through something that someone else says within his hearing, for example. So the point of view of the narrator is pure racism. But when you get to the end of the story— even though his is the only voice you heard— you don’t feel that racism is good. You may even see it as more evil and insidious as before. The narrative consciousness of the story is aware that racism is an evil, and that is what it presents that to you. The narrative consciousness of the story is larger than the small, bigoted consciousness of the POV character, who can’t see that his actions are wrong.
But this principle, of the narrative consciousness of the story being larger— giving you more information— than the narrator can give themselves, is at work in almost every good story. An favorite example of Frank Conroy’s (late head of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop) was a moment from The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The dignified narrator doesn’t tell us what he’s feeling about his father’s death--he talks only about attending to the details of his work— but then he notes that his employer, Lord Darlington, “Stevens, are you all right? . . . You look as though you’re crying.”
Here, the narrator doesn’t tell us that he’s feeling grief. The narrator only tells us he cares about his job. But the story tells us that he’s crying. The narrative consciousness is aware that he’s attending to his work with extra concentration to avoid breaking down. It passes that awareness to us. Even though the narrator may lack it, and even though we’re only seeing the story through the eyes of the narrator.
This makes the story three-dimensional. It makes it feel complex and nuanced in a way that it would not if the narrator were completely “reliable” and just stated everything exactly the way the story wanted to present it. To do this, the narrator would have to somehow be able to be objectively right about everything. That sort of voice doesn’t feel real, because it isn’t. Everyone is an unreliable narrator because they have their own particular way of seeing things and expressing things, impressions they want to make, things they want to hide from others, from themselves. This is true of us humans and so it’s true of good fictional characters, too.
The one sort of narrator that is really meant to be reliable is the omniscient narrator. This voice is presented as having no particular prejudices, secrets, peculiarities, or personality. The consciousness of the story cannot be larger than the narrator’s voice because the narrator’s voice is all-knowing. It is infallible.
I think this is a problematic concept. But that’s another discussion!
It might be worth noting, though, that if you’re trying to write in an omniscient voice and the story isn’t working, then getting closer into your character, and finding their personality— the things that give them a particular and unique point of view—their “unreliability”-- can often make the story come alive in new ways.
It’s also useful to think about the unreliability of all point-of-view characters, not just first-person narrators. The protagonist of Emma Cline’s “White Noise” (discussed last week) is a clear example.
Exercises:
1) Think of a scene in your current work. Maybe one you’re working on now, or would like to revise. Think about what that scene looks like to the point-of-view character.
Set the timer for five minutes and list three things that are happening in the scene that the POV character doesn’t know, or can’t admit to themselves.
— (If you come up blank, try this: write the scene from a different person’s point of view, making sure to show something they see that the original POV character does not.)
Set the timer for ten minutes, and start to write/rewrite the scene, holding this knowledge. Let it work its way into the scene in whatever way it naturally does.
2) This one is really simple: Set the timer for ten minutes and write a scenario in which someone walks up to your POV character and tells them how they look. That’s it.
-Does this tell you anything new/useful about your main character?
-How did your main character take this? Do they agree or disagree with the other person’s assessment of them?
Just bringing your attention to these issues can help broaden your perspective and show you where it’s possible for you/the story to see things beyond the borders of your POV character’s knowledge.
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Optional readings:
“Where is the Voice Coming From?” by Eudora Welty.
We hear the story only through the voice of the first-person narrator.
“Only hate has a voice in this story; morality is silent. The burden of judgment is imposed on the reader. The story is haunting because that burden is still ours; these views still haunt our country,” writes Casey Cep in The New Yorker.
“Sweetness” by Toni Morrison
Using the concept of “unreliability” in the broader sense discussed above—meaning the story is telling us things beyond what the narrator states, that the story’s consciousness holds knowledge that the narrator may not—do you see that principle operating in this story? How? Does your perception of the narrator change as the story progresses? If so, how?
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Classes June and July 2020 - and HVWC Scholarships for Writers of Color
NOTE: There are now two scholarships available for writers of color in each Hudson Valley Writers' Center class, as a way to begin to address the racial imbalance that exists in our writing classes and others of this type. See registration link for details.
June 10 through July 15
The Hudson Valley Writers' Center
Wednesdays 10:15 to 12:15 on Zoom
June 8 through July 13
The Hudson Valley Writers' Center
Mondays 10:15 to 12:15 on Zoom
June 14 through July 16
June 27: one day
The Hudson Valley Writers' Center
Saturday June 27, 12 to 2 EST on Zoom
July 7 through August 18
The Connecticut Literary Festival
Tuesdays 2 to 4:30 EST on Zoom
Feel free to contact me for more information on any of the above classes.
Saturday, May 9, 2020
Online Novel-Writing Workshop through the CT Literary Festival
I hope this post finds everyone safe and well. As you may know, the Yale Writers' Workshop, where I usually teach in June, won't run this year. But I'm happy to be able to offer a seven-week novel writing workshop on Zoom in May and June through the Connecticut Literary Festival.
With a small class size, chances to share up to 9,000 words of your novel-in-progress, and opportunities to revise and generate new material, this course promises to be intense and fun.
That said, there is no expectation that the material you share has to be "done," "polished," or even "good"! The atmosphere will be supportive and exploratory. Bring your work, but also your challenges, frustrations, thoughts and questions about the writing process--and let us work on them together as a group. The aim is to leave you inspired and energized as you close in on the home stretch of finishing your novel.
Please feel free to ask me for more details about the course (use the "contact me" form to the right) or sign up here. Starts May 19.
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Online Class - Starts Saturday March 14
Most of us will spend more time at home in the coming weeks. Here's something you can do for yourself-- a six-week online fiction writing course to add a sense of community, support, and continuity for your writing.
The Scene in Fiction
Six-Week Online Class
March 14 through April 18
Saturdays 2 to 4 Eastern Standard Time
Price: $275
Sign up: Use CONTACT ME form on the right
We'll use the popular platform Zoom, which allows easy online meeting with video. It's simple and intuitive to use, either from your browser or the free app. We'll spend a few minutes getting comfortable at the start of the first class.
The focus of this writing class will be the scene. What is a scene in fiction? What are the elements of a good one? What different forms can scenes take? We'll read and discuss excerpts from stories and novels.
Each week, you'll send us, and read aloud via video, 1,500 words from your current work for discussion by the class. There will be an optional focus (e.g., opening scenes), but if you're moved to send something different, that's always fine too. The core of the class is sharing your work and listening and responding to others'.
Open to all levels. Your writing each week can be from a single work-in-progress, more than one, or from project/s you come up with during the course period.
Feel free to write to me with questions! Use the CONTACT ME form on the right
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Note: All Hudson Valley Writers' Center courses have gone online for the near future, and I'll continue to offer my regular HVWC Year of Your Book classes via Zoom until they resume meeting in person. Check here for upcoming HVWC classes: Advanced Year of Your Book Session III starting 4/20 and Year of Your Book Session III starting 4/22.
I'm also available for private consultation or to edit your manuscript or work-in-progress. Write to me for more information!
Saturday, February 8, 2020
The Tarot Card Exercise
The "Tarot Card" Exercise
I developed this exercise at the Yale Writers' Workshop around 2015. It contains no actual tarot cards, but it does use physical cards when I do it in class, and, like a tarot spread, it encourages you to make connections among elements that are not obviously related. To do that, you have to engage your subconscious, your intuition-- the part of your mind that writes stories, which is the same part that gives you hunches, dreams, and visions.
The Exercise
Get three random numbers between one and sixty. Go to the list below and write down the words or phrases associated with your numbers.
Set the timer for fifteen minutes and write without stopping. Write whatever comes to mind. The only rules are: The first word or phrase must go in your first sentence. The second word or phrase comes anywhere after that. The third must be included in your last sentence.
If it feels strange or difficult, don't worry, just keep your pen moving. The end result does not have to be "good" writing or even to make any sense at all. Just follow the rules and see what emerges.
1. a premonition
2. torrential rain
3. a very hot night
4. mysterious lights at night
5. a stain that won't come out
6. eggs
7. an unexpected inheritance
8. inappropriate laughter
9. crickets
10. an angry outburst
11. the taste of salt
12. stairs
13. a stranger
14. a foul odor
15. a ship
16. something buried in the earth
17. sweat
18. an ancient custom
19. a castle
20. a drunken argument
21. something sticky
22. a curse
23. a small door
24. a woman's arm
25. a sudden realization
26. something sharp in the dark
27. a death
28. a cellar
29. a man's leg
30. a reunion
31. sand
32. a windowless room
33. a fan
34. the wrong body
35. feathers
36. children singing
37. sparks
38. a repetitive noise
39. a weapon
40. very, very sweet
41. a bout of dizziness
42. echoes
43. claws
44. stars
45. the smell of smoke
46. cold water
47. startled awake
48. a small animal
49. glittery
50. shivers
51. something burning
52. ticking
53. the scent of gardenias
54. whispering
55. the sound of someone crying
56. utter darkness
57. the smell of winter
58. a swarm of beetles
59. an empty theater
60. artificial snow
I developed this exercise at the Yale Writers' Workshop around 2015. It contains no actual tarot cards, but it does use physical cards when I do it in class, and, like a tarot spread, it encourages you to make connections among elements that are not obviously related. To do that, you have to engage your subconscious, your intuition-- the part of your mind that writes stories, which is the same part that gives you hunches, dreams, and visions.
The Exercise
Get three random numbers between one and sixty. Go to the list below and write down the words or phrases associated with your numbers.
Set the timer for fifteen minutes and write without stopping. Write whatever comes to mind. The only rules are: The first word or phrase must go in your first sentence. The second word or phrase comes anywhere after that. The third must be included in your last sentence.
If it feels strange or difficult, don't worry, just keep your pen moving. The end result does not have to be "good" writing or even to make any sense at all. Just follow the rules and see what emerges.
1. a premonition
2. torrential rain
3. a very hot night
4. mysterious lights at night
5. a stain that won't come out
6. eggs
7. an unexpected inheritance
8. inappropriate laughter
9. crickets
10. an angry outburst
11. the taste of salt
12. stairs
13. a stranger
14. a foul odor
15. a ship
16. something buried in the earth
17. sweat
18. an ancient custom
19. a castle
20. a drunken argument
21. something sticky
22. a curse
23. a small door
24. a woman's arm
25. a sudden realization
26. something sharp in the dark
27. a death
28. a cellar
29. a man's leg
30. a reunion
31. sand
32. a windowless room
33. a fan
34. the wrong body
35. feathers
36. children singing
37. sparks
38. a repetitive noise
39. a weapon
40. very, very sweet
41. a bout of dizziness
42. echoes
43. claws
44. stars
45. the smell of smoke
46. cold water
47. startled awake
48. a small animal
49. glittery
50. shivers
51. something burning
52. ticking
53. the scent of gardenias
54. whispering
55. the sound of someone crying
56. utter darkness
57. the smell of winter
58. a swarm of beetles
59. an empty theater
60. artificial snow
Sunday, January 5, 2020
2020 Classes!
Yale Writers' Workshop 2020
Monday January 6 is the last day to apply for my Alumni Fiction Intensive in June 2020. Must be an alum for YWW. Click here for an application.
If you're not an alum and would like to check out the program (highly recommended!), click here for info. General applications open January 20, 2020.
Classes at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center
for the current winter session:
Year of Your Book: Fiction
Wednesdays 10:15 to 12:15, January 15 through February 19
This course runs through the year in six-week sessions. Sign up for the year if you can; or, join when you're able. This course is for anyone who is in the process of drafting a novel, anywhere from the planning stage, to having a partial draft. Click class title to register.
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Year of Your Book: Fiction | Deep Revision
Mondays 10:15 to 12:15, January 13 through February 24
(Optional "soft opening" generative/fun class meeting 1/6)
This course runs through the year in six-week sessions. Sign up for the year if you can; or, join when you're able. This advanced course is for anyone who has a complete draft, or most of a draft, of a novel and is ready to revise. Please contact the office to inquire about this class which requires an application.
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"I Am [Not] a Real Writer"
Saturdays 10:00 to 12:00, January 11 through February 22
Runs through the year in six-week sessions. This course is for anyone who's ever wanted to try a writing class but worried that they're "not a real writer." The atmosphere is supportive, generative, experimental. Join us! Click class title to register.
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One-day intensive: January 25, 12:30 to 4:30 p.m.
In this popular one-day class we'll explore the mechanics of plot and apply the ideas to your current project. Whether your novel is in the planning stage or fully drafted, this class will help you think about how to strengthen plot and structure your narrative. Click class title to register.
Or schedule a private tutorial at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center anytime. (Call first to confirm availability and times).
Private Editing and Consulting in 2020
Happy new year!
Do you have writing goals for 2020? Do you want to make some?
In the coming year, I'll continue to be available for private consultation and editing. Our work together is tailored to your needs, and can range from my serving as a private editor for your completed novel draft, to helping you generate ideas and plans in weekly one-on-one meetings. There's no required level of experience or commitment -- my job is to meet you where you are, learn where you want to go, and help you get there.
I'm an award-winning novelist with over 25 years of experience as a fiction writing teacher and editor, including my current positions as instructor at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY, and resident faculty at the Yale Writers' Workshop in New Haven, CT.
My current rate is $100 an hour, or $100 per ten manuscript pages (double-spaced pages, or 250 words/page, whichever comes out less expensive for your ms).
To schedule an initial consult, contact the Writers' Center at 914 332-5953 | ask@writerscenter.org. Or use the CONTACT ME link on this page.
Make 2020 the year you set and reach your writing goals!
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
What We're Doing In Class: "I Am Not a Real Writer"
Today in "I Am Not a Real Writer," the class for people who don't think they're real writers--yet somehow always discover they are :)--one of the things we briefly discussed was "All Rivers" by Amos Oz.
Besides being a great story, "All Rivers" is structurally interesting in that it might appear to be all flashback, but if you really look, there is a clear present-time progression of action: the action is the narrator sitting at his desk, remembering. It's not him statically sitting there, and then the camera switches to a news report about events that occurred earlier, and then we come back to find him sitting in the same position. (Which is how people too often try to do flashback.) Rather, it's him at his desk actively engaging with the process of memory. This is an important thing to note for memoir too. It's nearly always about more than "what happened in the past;" it's also about the act of attempting to remember.
This touches on themes that come up often in class. What constitutes "action" vs "flashback?" Can a memory be written one way as flashback, another way as exposition, and another way as present action (as in the Oz story)? When writing memoir, what do you do with the fact that memory is imperfect--or rather, that it is its own living, personal thing, and not a recording device you can take back to a fixed past?
✨✨✨Things to think about.✨✨✨
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
What we're doing in class: Advanced Year of Your Book
John Truby, who writes about screenwriting, has a theory that a scene should be shaped like this:
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| From Truby, The Anatomy of Story |
In yesterday's class, we talked about the beautiful "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez.
Look at the first paragraph, which is also a complete scene. Does it have that shape?
Also notice how much it does in 166 words. As novelists we can be tempted to think we need whole chapters to get the reader located in terms of time, place, what matters to the characters, and what the central themes and problems will be. I would argue GarcÃa Márquez does that all in this one paragraph:
On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.
From "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez.
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| Odilon Redon, Aged Angel, 1903 |
What we're doing in class: "I Am Not a Real Writer": Some short memoirs
The title of my Saturday class, "I Am Not a Real Writer" at HVWC, is meant to bring in people who THINK this about themselves. The truth is everyone who writes is a writer, and if you're writing about things that really matter to you-- whether it's in the form of memoir, journalism, or stories about aliens-- then you're doing something worthwhile.
This one has turned out to be sort of a memoir class, because that's what the people in it are interested in. As promised, here are some more short pieces we've been talking about.
Marlon James, "One Day I Will Write About My Mother"
Dylan Thomas, "A Child's Christmas in Wales"
And here's a good recent list: "15 Short Memoirs"
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This past Saturday, we spent a bit of time on "My Family's Slave" by Alex Tizon, and talked about approaching subjects around which we as writers feel guilt, shame, or conflicted emotions. Class members brought pages of their own writing to read aloud, dealing with this theme.
Saturday, March 9, 2019
What We're Doing in Class: "I Am Not a Real Writer"
"I Am Not a Real Writer" is for people who've wanted to take a writing class but have been concerned about knowing how to do it "right."
Unsurprisingly (to me) everyone in this class is writing wonderful stuff. They are all 100% real.
They're leaning towards memoir, and we've been exploring this prompt. It involves being assigned a random phrase and using it as a jumping-off point for a memory. The phrase/image doesn't actually have to be part of your memory, as long as it brings it to mind. For example, one person got the phrase "half a cake" which brought up a memory of someone who temporarily disappeared-- even though there was no actual cake present at the time. Try it!
We're also reading some short memoirs, which I'll post over the coming days. I usually teach fiction, so it's a pleasure to explore this form.
Here's one for today: "One Day I Will Write About My Mother" by Marlon James. This shows how the difficulty in writing about a particular subject can become part of the piece itself-- one of the things it's about.
Unsurprisingly (to me) everyone in this class is writing wonderful stuff. They are all 100% real.
They're leaning towards memoir, and we've been exploring this prompt. It involves being assigned a random phrase and using it as a jumping-off point for a memory. The phrase/image doesn't actually have to be part of your memory, as long as it brings it to mind. For example, one person got the phrase "half a cake" which brought up a memory of someone who temporarily disappeared-- even though there was no actual cake present at the time. Try it!
We're also reading some short memoirs, which I'll post over the coming days. I usually teach fiction, so it's a pleasure to explore this form.
Here's one for today: "One Day I Will Write About My Mother" by Marlon James. This shows how the difficulty in writing about a particular subject can become part of the piece itself-- one of the things it's about.
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| Mikhail Vrubel, Pencils, 1905 |
Monday, February 4, 2019
Mapping the Plot: February 10
Mapping the Plot
The Hudson Valley Writers' Center
Sleepy Hollow, NY
⊱✿:✿⊰
Sunday February 10, 12:30 to 4:30
Take an afternoon to be with your book (whether it's planned or already drafted), standing back to look at the structure; getting in close to look at the building blocks that make it up; looking at how they fit together; and getting an overview of where and how you can enhance, streamline, and clarify your plot.
The afternoon will begin with snacks, coffee, seltzer, a table covered with brown paper, and a lot of magic markers. We'll do some low-stress, fun exercises to break the ice and start visualizing your book from different angles. Next, we'll look at possibilities for mapping arcs and storylines, then different ways to delineate acts and scenes. We'll start building a plot map for your book with trifold boards divided into act sections, and sticky notes denoting scenes and plot points. At the end of the luxurious four hours spent elbow-deep in your book and its structure, you'll take the trifold boards home with you, along with ideas for continuing to fill in the sticky notes, and for taking your book to the next stage.
Feel free to contact me for more information. Hope to see you there!
Mapping the Plot
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| Map of the World, Gerona Beatus mansucript, c. 975 |
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Mapping the Plot: February Edition
Mapping the Plot
Saturday, February 10
12:30 to 4:30
Hudson Valley Writers' Center
Sleepy Hollow, NY
Spend an afternoon with snacks, coffee, markers, index cards, and poster board at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center, mapping out a plot for your novel.
Whether you're in the revision stage and want to find the structure in your story, or are in the dreaming stage and want to lay down a blueprint for your novel-to-be, this class will give you the tools and time to do it.
Participants will leave with a physical plot map constructed during the afternoon, plus exercises, readings, and a personalized timetable with deadlines for the next stage of your writing/ revision.
Friday, January 18, 2019
I Am Not a Real Writer
I Am Not a Real Writer
One-day class
Saturday, January 19
12:30 — 4:30
The Hudson Valley Writers' Center
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Did you make a new year's resolution to write in 2019? This fiction writing intensive is for everyone who is concerned about having what it takes, whether the issue is “not being a writer,” “having no good ideas,” or anything else. No experience required. Through exploratory exercises, light readings and discussion, this class will help you find some of the stories that (spoiler alert) are definitely hiding inside you.
Sign up here
or use the contact form on the right to ask a question ->
Sign up here
or use the contact form on the right to ask a question ->
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| Basket of Sprouting Bulbs, 1887, Vincent Van Gogh |
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Year of Your Book 2019
Make 2019 the year you write your book!
Year of Your Book
The Hudson Valley Writers' Center
Sleepy Hollow, NY
Wednesdays 10:15 to 12:15
.. Starts January 16 ..
.. Starts January 16 ..
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Year of Your Book is a yearlong course in six-week sessions. You are encouraged to take all the sessions, but it is possible to drop in and out as well.
This course is open to anyone interested in writing a novel or story collection. Whether you have a partial draft, or just a dream, this class will help you take your manuscript to the next level.
Winter Session: January 16 through February 20
Some things we'll cover:
How do I even start?
Planting seeds: characters, places, situations, complications
The basics of getting a draft going: a daily practice, permission to be messy, a spirit of exploration, permission to be vulnerable.
Spring I: March 6 through April 10
The middle of the draft: Structure, sketching a plot map, deepening the characters, exploring relationships, getting serious (with a sense of playfulness).
Spring II: April 24 through May 29
The home stretch: getting to the end of the super rough draft. Sketching some endings. Considering the "shadow story." Allowing themes and structure to reveal themselves.
Summer Session
The summer session is designed to be easy to drop in and out of, to accommodate vacation schedules. Assignments will be low-key, fun, and experimental. A great chance to gain a fresh perspective and let some fresh air into the draft you just finished and start to think about how you'll shape and revise it.
Fall I: September through October
Beginning revision: The big read-through! The pink pen: Being your own editor. A revision checklist. Various fun maps and diagrams.
Fall II: October through December
The trifold board and sticky notes. Dissecting scenes. Winding up the first revision. Looking back and looking forward.
SIGN UP HERE
More upcoming classes
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| Book of Doves, Nicholas Roerich, 1911 |
Monday, January 7, 2019
New Classes
Advanced Year of Your Book at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center starts January 14
Year of Your Book @ HVWC starts January 16
"I Am Not a Real Writer!" @ HVWC one day: January 19
Applications are open for the 2019 Yale Writers' Workshop where I'm excited to be teaching a new ten-day "Work-in-Progress" intensive in June. My intensive is open to YWW alumni only, but the whole program is great, with a range of workshops in different genres, on the beautiful Yale campus.
Year of Your Book @ HVWC starts January 16
"I Am Not a Real Writer!" @ HVWC one day: January 19
Applications are open for the 2019 Yale Writers' Workshop where I'm excited to be teaching a new ten-day "Work-in-Progress" intensive in June. My intensive is open to YWW alumni only, but the whole program is great, with a range of workshops in different genres, on the beautiful Yale campus.
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| Edouard Manet, Woman Writing, 1863 |
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Filling in the Sticky Notes: Act III: The Final Battle
Previous posts in this series:
Act I HERE
Act II part 1 HERE
Act II part 2 HERE
Act II part 3 HERE
Act II part 4 HERE
ACT III: THE FINAL BATTLE
In Act III, we're getting off the boat for the stone mattress viewing tour, and this is where Verna will kill Bob . . . or our world has gotten more and more restricted, till the whole family is in the kitchen, food and cigarettes running out, and the radio stations have stopped broadcasting . . . or we're confronting the witch in her own castle . . .
This is where the Final Battle takes place.
In some cases this is really close to the end, with not much occurring afterwards. For example, in "The Birds" you could argue that the very Final Battle actually occurs after the end of the story. We pretty much know what's going to happen, but we don't see it-- we're just left knowing that it will happen, which in a way is worse.
In The Wizard of Oz, though, the final battle with the antagonist-- the Witch-- happens well before the end, with lots of twists and turns following, as we get the broom back to the Wizard, then learn the Wizard isn't who he says, then he teaches everyone a valuable lesson, Dorothy thinks she won't get back to Kansas (Wizard has no magic), then she thinks she will (but he has a balloon!), then she thinks she won't (the balloon leaves without her), etc.
In Stone Mattress it's pretty much in the classic place going by Freytag's triangle, at least the way I was taught it in graduate school, with the climax coming quite close to the end, and then a short denoumont tail coming after that.
(source)
Verna kills Bob, then there are just a few paragraphs about how she tidies things up and arranges to hide his absence. I would argue that this story ends low on the "falling action" slope, leaving us to wonder about the resolution: Will Verna will get caught or not?
This is a classic and (to me) satisfying type of short story ending, which leaves us, not completely in the wilderness, but with one or two definite, but divergent, paths that the character might take after the last line of the story. In this case, Verna eiter will or won't get caught.
However, not all endings work that way. "The Birds" leaves us with basically one possibility for what will happen after the end, and that's effective too; and The Wizard of Oz tells us very little about what will happen next; it just leaves us with a general sense that things are tied up and okay now, in a way they weren't at the beginning of the story: Dorothy's restlessness is solved. We have gone all the way into the "resolution" stretch of Freytag's triangle. So there are many ways to handle Act III.
The classic movie ending is essentially a happy ending, with the character's basic problem solved. Often, they may not have gotten what they Wanted, but they have gotten what they Needed, but didn't realized they Needed until the story's adventures taught them. This is what happens in the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy wants to leave home in the beginning; soon this changes to wanting to be back home, but it's only after she's proven herself through many adventures that she has the power to really go back and inhabit that world, and feel satisfied to be there. She Wanted to escape to a world over the rainbow. She Needed to see that home was where she belonged all along. (And only by going over the rainbow could she truly learn that.)
This basically happy ending does not exist at all in the short fictions by Atwood and DuMaurier. What does happen is that things have come to a head, and a change, an irrevocable change, has occurred in the main character's life. They have gone on a very definite journey and have wound up in a different place than they were in the beginning. Although they may or may not have solved their initial problems, movie-style, we know this narrative is truly a story because a significant change has occurred.
Looking back at Hemingway's "Indian Camp," we also see an un-movie-like ending, but different from the other short-story endings. After the climactic passages, in which we as the readers really feel the the unnamed woman's pain and its impact on others in several different ways, we end with falling action (finishing up, leaving), then the last line, which feels so powerful every time I read it. We learn that these experiences, which have changed us just through reading about them in a very short story, have not really touched Nick after all. He still sees the woman essentially as an other: female, "Indian," living on an island apart from where Nick lives. He doesn't really get it. Yet. I think it's that sense of "yet" that makes the ending so effective, that seems to leave me at the edge of a cliff after that last period.
TO DO:
Bring your character to the Final Showdown. Whatever you have promised or planted earlier in the story should bear fruit now. If you have shown us a gun in Act I, this is where it has to go off. By the time you write the climax, you'll probably have a pretty good sense of what needs to happen between there and the end--what shape you want the end to take.
Next comes the really fun part: revising with a knowledge of the shape of your plot. If you find you want a gun to go off in the Act III climax, don't worry about whether you've shown it to us yet. Have it go off. Then go back and revise: plant it in the beginning, and make sure we glimpse it a couple more times before the payoff in Act III.
--
Act I HERE
Act II part 1 HERE
Act II part 2 HERE
Act II part 3 HERE
Act II part 4 HERE
ACT III: THE FINAL BATTLE
In Act III, we're getting off the boat for the stone mattress viewing tour, and this is where Verna will kill Bob . . . or our world has gotten more and more restricted, till the whole family is in the kitchen, food and cigarettes running out, and the radio stations have stopped broadcasting . . . or we're confronting the witch in her own castle . . .
This is where the Final Battle takes place.
In some cases this is really close to the end, with not much occurring afterwards. For example, in "The Birds" you could argue that the very Final Battle actually occurs after the end of the story. We pretty much know what's going to happen, but we don't see it-- we're just left knowing that it will happen, which in a way is worse.
In The Wizard of Oz, though, the final battle with the antagonist-- the Witch-- happens well before the end, with lots of twists and turns following, as we get the broom back to the Wizard, then learn the Wizard isn't who he says, then he teaches everyone a valuable lesson, Dorothy thinks she won't get back to Kansas (Wizard has no magic), then she thinks she will (but he has a balloon!), then she thinks she won't (the balloon leaves without her), etc.
In Stone Mattress it's pretty much in the classic place going by Freytag's triangle, at least the way I was taught it in graduate school, with the climax coming quite close to the end, and then a short denoumont tail coming after that.
Verna kills Bob, then there are just a few paragraphs about how she tidies things up and arranges to hide his absence. I would argue that this story ends low on the "falling action" slope, leaving us to wonder about the resolution: Will Verna will get caught or not?
This is a classic and (to me) satisfying type of short story ending, which leaves us, not completely in the wilderness, but with one or two definite, but divergent, paths that the character might take after the last line of the story. In this case, Verna eiter will or won't get caught.
However, not all endings work that way. "The Birds" leaves us with basically one possibility for what will happen after the end, and that's effective too; and The Wizard of Oz tells us very little about what will happen next; it just leaves us with a general sense that things are tied up and okay now, in a way they weren't at the beginning of the story: Dorothy's restlessness is solved. We have gone all the way into the "resolution" stretch of Freytag's triangle. So there are many ways to handle Act III.
The classic movie ending is essentially a happy ending, with the character's basic problem solved. Often, they may not have gotten what they Wanted, but they have gotten what they Needed, but didn't realized they Needed until the story's adventures taught them. This is what happens in the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy wants to leave home in the beginning; soon this changes to wanting to be back home, but it's only after she's proven herself through many adventures that she has the power to really go back and inhabit that world, and feel satisfied to be there. She Wanted to escape to a world over the rainbow. She Needed to see that home was where she belonged all along. (And only by going over the rainbow could she truly learn that.)
This basically happy ending does not exist at all in the short fictions by Atwood and DuMaurier. What does happen is that things have come to a head, and a change, an irrevocable change, has occurred in the main character's life. They have gone on a very definite journey and have wound up in a different place than they were in the beginning. Although they may or may not have solved their initial problems, movie-style, we know this narrative is truly a story because a significant change has occurred.
Looking back at Hemingway's "Indian Camp," we also see an un-movie-like ending, but different from the other short-story endings. After the climactic passages, in which we as the readers really feel the the unnamed woman's pain and its impact on others in several different ways, we end with falling action (finishing up, leaving), then the last line, which feels so powerful every time I read it. We learn that these experiences, which have changed us just through reading about them in a very short story, have not really touched Nick after all. He still sees the woman essentially as an other: female, "Indian," living on an island apart from where Nick lives. He doesn't really get it. Yet. I think it's that sense of "yet" that makes the ending so effective, that seems to leave me at the edge of a cliff after that last period.
TO DO:
Bring your character to the Final Showdown. Whatever you have promised or planted earlier in the story should bear fruit now. If you have shown us a gun in Act I, this is where it has to go off. By the time you write the climax, you'll probably have a pretty good sense of what needs to happen between there and the end--what shape you want the end to take.
Next comes the really fun part: revising with a knowledge of the shape of your plot. If you find you want a gun to go off in the Act III climax, don't worry about whether you've shown it to us yet. Have it go off. Then go back and revise: plant it in the beginning, and make sure we glimpse it a couple more times before the payoff in Act III.
--
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Filling in the Sticky Notes: Act II, Part 3: The Midpoint
Previous posts in this series:
Act I
Act II part 1
Act II part 2
ACT II, PART 3: THE MIDPOINT
Act II is long, and the Midpoint is a kind of climactic point right in the middle of it. Usually, stakes are raised in re: the overall goal.
In Stone Mattress, I think it could be the line " It was Bob who’d turned her into—why not say the word?—a murderer." We've been with Verna, as worse and worse memories about Bob surface-- as she processes the information because he has returned to her life. Up until this point in the story, although she admits to herself she has eased the way to death for a few husbands, she hasn't used that word in reference to herself. Once all the awful memories have surfaced and been given to the reader, we go from knowing that Verna wants to turn the tables on Bob somehow, to learning, at the same time as she herself has the realization, that she wants to kill him. This is a definite raising of the stakes.
In "The Birds" this might come on page 9 where we learn the birds have been acting strangely all over the country. Basically, the tension in this story escalates so continuously that I'm not sure there's one clear Midpoint raising-the-stakes moment. Even once the birds' strange behavior is acknowledged as a national problem, many people aren't taking it seriously. And yet this is the point when people stop trying to claim that it's simply the weather, or Nat's imagination: this is when even the news announcers admit that there is a real, widespread issue and nobody--from regular folks in their homes like Nat, to the military and the government-- knows the cause or the solution.
In The Wizard of Oz, this could be when Dorothy finally reaches her original goal-- the Wizard-- but it turns out he won't help her unless she accomplishes something else: getting the Witch's broom. She's gone through a lot to get to the Wizard but the stakes are raised here because she'll have to go into really hostile territory to get hold of the broom.
Let's look for a moment at how this escalation in stakes relates to your character's Want from early in the story.
In Stone Mattress, Verna enters the story with this Want: to be surrounded by enough padding that no one can ever hurt her. However, that protection is breached when she runs into Bob and the original hurt returns. Her new Want, then, becomes to get the better of Bob in some way. The Midpoint is when that way turns out to be murder. It's still basically the same Want from the beginning of the story: to triumph over that event that changed her life at 14.
In The Birds, we learn in the second paragraph that Nat has "a wartime disability" and we learn that he likes solitary, predictable part-time work on the farm. From this I get the feeling that Nat's Want is to have a steady, quiet life after the chaos of his wartime experiences. As in Stone Mattress, Act II is about how his quiet life is threatened. He continues to want basically the same thing-- safety and security-- but that gets harder and harder as the threats from outside increase. From the moment the birds attack his kids, protecting his family is his one big Want, and that doesn't really change throughout the story.
In The Wizard of Oz, interestingly, Act I is about Dorothy wanting to get away from Kansas, into some better, more colorful place, but as soon as she's there, all she wants is to go home. That's a big change, but after that, her Want stays the same through the end of the story. In one way, you could say her longing throughout is for "home," for the place where things are right, are the way they should be. The process she goes through in the story is figuring out what that really means to her. She actually realizes that the farm with Aunt Em-- who is worried about her and loves her-- is where she wants to be, before she gets to Oz, as soon as she sees Em in the crystal ball during the tornado's approach.
TO DO:
Think about what your character's Want is early in the story. Is it the same now, as you get to the middle of Act II? Is it at least related?
What might the Act II Midpoint be in your story? Jot it down on a sticky note and put it at the bottom of the first Act II column, or the top of the second column.
Act I
Act II part 1
Act II part 2
ACT II, PART 3: THE MIDPOINT
Act II is long, and the Midpoint is a kind of climactic point right in the middle of it. Usually, stakes are raised in re: the overall goal.
In Stone Mattress, I think it could be the line " It was Bob who’d turned her into—why not say the word?—a murderer." We've been with Verna, as worse and worse memories about Bob surface-- as she processes the information because he has returned to her life. Up until this point in the story, although she admits to herself she has eased the way to death for a few husbands, she hasn't used that word in reference to herself. Once all the awful memories have surfaced and been given to the reader, we go from knowing that Verna wants to turn the tables on Bob somehow, to learning, at the same time as she herself has the realization, that she wants to kill him. This is a definite raising of the stakes.
In "The Birds" this might come on page 9 where we learn the birds have been acting strangely all over the country. Basically, the tension in this story escalates so continuously that I'm not sure there's one clear Midpoint raising-the-stakes moment. Even once the birds' strange behavior is acknowledged as a national problem, many people aren't taking it seriously. And yet this is the point when people stop trying to claim that it's simply the weather, or Nat's imagination: this is when even the news announcers admit that there is a real, widespread issue and nobody--from regular folks in their homes like Nat, to the military and the government-- knows the cause or the solution.
In The Wizard of Oz, this could be when Dorothy finally reaches her original goal-- the Wizard-- but it turns out he won't help her unless she accomplishes something else: getting the Witch's broom. She's gone through a lot to get to the Wizard but the stakes are raised here because she'll have to go into really hostile territory to get hold of the broom.
Let's look for a moment at how this escalation in stakes relates to your character's Want from early in the story.
In Stone Mattress, Verna enters the story with this Want: to be surrounded by enough padding that no one can ever hurt her. However, that protection is breached when she runs into Bob and the original hurt returns. Her new Want, then, becomes to get the better of Bob in some way. The Midpoint is when that way turns out to be murder. It's still basically the same Want from the beginning of the story: to triumph over that event that changed her life at 14.
In The Birds, we learn in the second paragraph that Nat has "a wartime disability" and we learn that he likes solitary, predictable part-time work on the farm. From this I get the feeling that Nat's Want is to have a steady, quiet life after the chaos of his wartime experiences. As in Stone Mattress, Act II is about how his quiet life is threatened. He continues to want basically the same thing-- safety and security-- but that gets harder and harder as the threats from outside increase. From the moment the birds attack his kids, protecting his family is his one big Want, and that doesn't really change throughout the story.
In The Wizard of Oz, interestingly, Act I is about Dorothy wanting to get away from Kansas, into some better, more colorful place, but as soon as she's there, all she wants is to go home. That's a big change, but after that, her Want stays the same through the end of the story. In one way, you could say her longing throughout is for "home," for the place where things are right, are the way they should be. The process she goes through in the story is figuring out what that really means to her. She actually realizes that the farm with Aunt Em-- who is worried about her and loves her-- is where she wants to be, before she gets to Oz, as soon as she sees Em in the crystal ball during the tornado's approach.
TO DO:
Think about what your character's Want is early in the story. Is it the same now, as you get to the middle of Act II? Is it at least related?
What might the Act II Midpoint be in your story? Jot it down on a sticky note and put it at the bottom of the first Act II column, or the top of the second column.
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