Homework for daydreamers:
Locate the precise spot in the university library where your novel or collection of short stories could be shelved someday, when you write it. Photograph it, if you can. Who would your neighbors be there? Would you be in good company? Print the photo out and stick it on your refrigerator, to remind yourself in the mornings where you want to go, eventually.
Locate the precise spot in a good bookstore where your novel or short stories would be shelved, when you write it. Who's there? Living or dead? How are they different from you? Take a picture of this also, and use it for a bookmark to remind you of your destination.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)
--FO’C is considered to be one of the sternest, most independent, and most powerful visions of all American writers.
--Stricken with lupus, she published two novels and two collections of stories during her life. Her Collected Stories, published posthumously in 1971, won the National Book Award for fiction.
--FO’C is known for her uncompromising perspective on an individual’s relationship with God. A staunch Catholic, she viewed the modern world as having turned away from the doctrines of faith and salvation. In their place she believed people had adopted superficial and commercial values, worrying more about their appearance and profits than their souls. FO’C not only viewed the modern world as a spiritual wasteland, but she also believed that people were complacent in their distorted and selfish values. They are blinded by sin, ignorance, and selfish pride.
--FO’C used her fiction to attack complacency. She used violent and grotesque characters and situations to shock and unsettle readers.
--Her writing is theological at its center, but the characters and plots are often secular. Yet FO’C claimed that she wrote about extraordinary moments of God’s grace, when even the most grotesque characters confront the possibilities of their salvation.
“When I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it’s because we are still able to recognize one.”
--Flannery O’Connor
“Everywhere I go, I am asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
--Flannery O’Connor
“Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I am writing and I am never more completely myself than when I am writing.”
--Flannery O’Connor
“No matter what form the dragon may take, it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws, that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell, and this being the case, it requites considerable courage at any time, in any country, not to turn away from the storyteller.”
--Flannery O’Connor
--FO’C is considered to be one of the sternest, most independent, and most powerful visions of all American writers.
--Stricken with lupus, she published two novels and two collections of stories during her life. Her Collected Stories, published posthumously in 1971, won the National Book Award for fiction.
--FO’C is known for her uncompromising perspective on an individual’s relationship with God. A staunch Catholic, she viewed the modern world as having turned away from the doctrines of faith and salvation. In their place she believed people had adopted superficial and commercial values, worrying more about their appearance and profits than their souls. FO’C not only viewed the modern world as a spiritual wasteland, but she also believed that people were complacent in their distorted and selfish values. They are blinded by sin, ignorance, and selfish pride.
--FO’C used her fiction to attack complacency. She used violent and grotesque characters and situations to shock and unsettle readers.
--Her writing is theological at its center, but the characters and plots are often secular. Yet FO’C claimed that she wrote about extraordinary moments of God’s grace, when even the most grotesque characters confront the possibilities of their salvation.
“When I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it’s because we are still able to recognize one.”
--Flannery O’Connor
“Everywhere I go, I am asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
--Flannery O’Connor
“Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I am writing and I am never more completely myself than when I am writing.”
--Flannery O’Connor
“No matter what form the dragon may take, it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws, that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell, and this being the case, it requites considerable courage at any time, in any country, not to turn away from the storyteller.”
--Flannery O’Connor
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Each one of the people below recently stole something. What did they steal and why?
Ray Finster, 39-year-old accountant, married, three children, lives in Cleveland, Ohio
Mary Adams, 18-year-old Tarleton State college student, has a miniature French poodle named Barbie
Carl Himmelwright, 89-year-old retired plumber, lives in Sunshine City, Arizona
Denise Trout, 31-year-old forest ranger, has one daughter, lives in Ketchum, Idaho
Thelma Treetop, 53-year-old Colorado State college student, has 7 grandchildren
Ray Finster, 39-year-old accountant, married, three children, lives in Cleveland, Ohio
Mary Adams, 18-year-old Tarleton State college student, has a miniature French poodle named Barbie
Carl Himmelwright, 89-year-old retired plumber, lives in Sunshine City, Arizona
Denise Trout, 31-year-old forest ranger, has one daughter, lives in Ketchum, Idaho
Thelma Treetop, 53-year-old Colorado State college student, has 7 grandchildren
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Advanced Fiction
Helpful Hints
1. share your work frequently
2. write ideas down
3. use all 5 senses—use sensory detail
4. show, don’t tell—especially with emotions
5. use metaphors and similes
6. you don’t always have to be human
7. don’t stop for the perfect word
8. get to know your character
9. get to know your audience
10. read a lot
11. edit and revise—a lot
12. know your dialect and voice
13. keep details balanced
14. don’t be afraid to evolve
15. take care when introducing your story
16. vary your sentence structure
17. silence the critics in your head
18. write every day
Helpful Hints
1. share your work frequently
2. write ideas down
3. use all 5 senses—use sensory detail
4. show, don’t tell—especially with emotions
5. use metaphors and similes
6. you don’t always have to be human
7. don’t stop for the perfect word
8. get to know your character
9. get to know your audience
10. read a lot
11. edit and revise—a lot
12. know your dialect and voice
13. keep details balanced
14. don’t be afraid to evolve
15. take care when introducing your story
16. vary your sentence structure
17. silence the critics in your head
18. write every day
The Iceberg Technique.
Write a descriptive paragraph without specifically or directly mentioning the emotion and/or situation you are writing about. Use one of the following examples. All of these examples require you to describe a river, and you are required to use the physical description to convey the mood and the situation. I suggest that, to select details, you visualize the Trinity River just down the road, or another river that you can see in your mind’s eye, and consider how one of the characters below would describe what you are seeing. In addition to physical description, this is an exercise in tone and perspective. Obviously someone sad is going to describe a scene differently than someone happy, even though they might be standing in the same spot.
--describe a river as seen by a young woman who has just learned she is pregnant three days after her boyfriend broke up with her. Do not mention the pregnancy or her ex.
--describe a river as seen by a young man (or woman) about to meet his parents to tell them that he has been expelled from the university for cheating on a final exam. Do not mention cheating or the expulsion.
--describe a river as seen by a young man or woman who was recently in a terrible car accident and survived , although another passenger was killed. Do not mention death, the accident, or the other passenger.
--describe a river as seen by a young man who has a diamond ring in his pocket and who is waiting for his girlfriend to propose. Do not mention the ring, becoming engaged, or marriage.
Consider the time of year and day, the weather and temperature, and the specific details of the images you want your readers to focus on.
Write a descriptive paragraph without specifically or directly mentioning the emotion and/or situation you are writing about. Use one of the following examples. All of these examples require you to describe a river, and you are required to use the physical description to convey the mood and the situation. I suggest that, to select details, you visualize the Trinity River just down the road, or another river that you can see in your mind’s eye, and consider how one of the characters below would describe what you are seeing. In addition to physical description, this is an exercise in tone and perspective. Obviously someone sad is going to describe a scene differently than someone happy, even though they might be standing in the same spot.
--describe a river as seen by a young woman who has just learned she is pregnant three days after her boyfriend broke up with her. Do not mention the pregnancy or her ex.
--describe a river as seen by a young man (or woman) about to meet his parents to tell them that he has been expelled from the university for cheating on a final exam. Do not mention cheating or the expulsion.
--describe a river as seen by a young man or woman who was recently in a terrible car accident and survived , although another passenger was killed. Do not mention death, the accident, or the other passenger.
--describe a river as seen by a young man who has a diamond ring in his pocket and who is waiting for his girlfriend to propose. Do not mention the ring, becoming engaged, or marriage.
Consider the time of year and day, the weather and temperature, and the specific details of the images you want your readers to focus on.
Hemingway’s Prose Style:
Most critics agree that Hemingway’s fame depends as much on his prose style as on his content and subjects. His early style is lean, laconic, and devoid of strings of adjectives and adverbs. Lacking excessive modifiers, his sentences tend to be simple or compound declarative clauses; conjunctions are coordinating, rarely subordinating, so that items are arranged spatially or sequentially (not by cause or logic—Hemingway’s world is ruled more by fate and luck than by cause and effect and logic). The prose depends on nouns (many monosyllabic) for concrete imagery. There is a poetic use of repetition (learned in part from the Bible and in part from Gertrude Stein) and a concentration on surface detail, on suggesting character through things said and done rather than through authorial asides and psychological analysis. Like his Imagist contemporaries, especially Ezra Pound, Hemingway sought the concrete detail that would capture the essence of the moment and convey its emotional content to readers. His bare-bones style is in part a reaction to the over-ornate Victorian prose and to the political rhetoric surrounding World War I. Obviously influenced by the techniques of journalism, it is also an attempt to strip away all that is false, misleading, and unessential. Among the elements that Hemingway shares with other Modernist writers are alienated characters and their rejection of conventional moral standards, a manner of presentation that, in its incomplete and fragmented manner, echoes the sense of a pervasive social disintegration. Often cited is Hemingway’s “iceberg” technique, where vital elements of a story are left out in order to force greater reader engagement (even rereading). The actual text read by readers is only the tip of the “iceberg”: readers are left to ponder what lies beneath.
Hemingway on his iceberg technique:
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows, and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have the feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer has stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.
I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg.
The Myth of Antaeus:
Antaeus was the son of Poseidon and Ge (mother earth). He was a giant who wrestled Hercules. Whenever he was thrown to the ground, he arose stronger than before from the contact with his mother. Perceiving this, Hercules finally lifted Antaeus into the air and crushed him to death. The myth of Antaeus simply refers to anyone who is replenished, and restored by returning to nature. As a romantic notion, the myth is used to refer to a process of revitalization whereby an individual, once oppressed and overwhelmed by society, seeks solace in nature. Hemingway’s characters often seek such restoration in nature through the simple rituals of hunting, fishing, and camping.
Most critics agree that Hemingway’s fame depends as much on his prose style as on his content and subjects. His early style is lean, laconic, and devoid of strings of adjectives and adverbs. Lacking excessive modifiers, his sentences tend to be simple or compound declarative clauses; conjunctions are coordinating, rarely subordinating, so that items are arranged spatially or sequentially (not by cause or logic—Hemingway’s world is ruled more by fate and luck than by cause and effect and logic). The prose depends on nouns (many monosyllabic) for concrete imagery. There is a poetic use of repetition (learned in part from the Bible and in part from Gertrude Stein) and a concentration on surface detail, on suggesting character through things said and done rather than through authorial asides and psychological analysis. Like his Imagist contemporaries, especially Ezra Pound, Hemingway sought the concrete detail that would capture the essence of the moment and convey its emotional content to readers. His bare-bones style is in part a reaction to the over-ornate Victorian prose and to the political rhetoric surrounding World War I. Obviously influenced by the techniques of journalism, it is also an attempt to strip away all that is false, misleading, and unessential. Among the elements that Hemingway shares with other Modernist writers are alienated characters and their rejection of conventional moral standards, a manner of presentation that, in its incomplete and fragmented manner, echoes the sense of a pervasive social disintegration. Often cited is Hemingway’s “iceberg” technique, where vital elements of a story are left out in order to force greater reader engagement (even rereading). The actual text read by readers is only the tip of the “iceberg”: readers are left to ponder what lies beneath.
Hemingway on his iceberg technique:
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows, and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have the feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer has stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.
I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg.
The Myth of Antaeus:
Antaeus was the son of Poseidon and Ge (mother earth). He was a giant who wrestled Hercules. Whenever he was thrown to the ground, he arose stronger than before from the contact with his mother. Perceiving this, Hercules finally lifted Antaeus into the air and crushed him to death. The myth of Antaeus simply refers to anyone who is replenished, and restored by returning to nature. As a romantic notion, the myth is used to refer to a process of revitalization whereby an individual, once oppressed and overwhelmed by society, seeks solace in nature. Hemingway’s characters often seek such restoration in nature through the simple rituals of hunting, fishing, and camping.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Story Suggestions
Do not make your story overly complicated or overly long. If you are aiming for a ten-page story, you do not need multiple settings and multiple characters. Keep your length and general structure in mind. Ten pages is really not much. I would suggest only one or two main characters and one or two settings. You do not need a long sequence of events. You do not need a long complicated plot. Keep it simple.
Focus on your main character[s]. Picture the character in your mind. Get to know this character. Then set this character in motion. I suggest your story be character-driven (as opposed to plot driven).
Rather than try to invent an exotic setting, develop something familiar. This is a real short cut, since you can see imaginatively what you need to describe. A dorm room? A scene at a party or at a club? A street scene? In a classroom? If you set your story in a far away exotic place, Tahiti or Peru, you will have to do some background research to gather descriptive details.
Rather than try to invent exotic character types, develop something familiar. You do not need international assassins or dope smugglers. Use familiar characters and/or familiar personality types. You might even use people you know, and possibly yourself, as models for your characters.
Keep your tone in mind. Is your story going to be sad, funny, or ironic. Consider how you want your readers to feel at the end of the story. Be consistent in your tone. A funny story ordinarily would not suddenly become a tragic story.
Be descriptive. Use visual details to allow readers to see your characters and settings. Don’t say “a car.” Rather, say that the car was a mud-splattered dark blue Ford 150 pickup truck with a broken taillight.
Consider how your story will build tension and reader expectation, and then how it will resolve this tension, satisfying reader expectation.
Consider how and why your story will hold reader attention. Is there relevance? What is interesting enough to keep the reader from stopping halfway through the story?
Consider what point of view will work best for you. First person? Third person? You might try to begin the story in one perspective, and then restart the story in the other. Which seems to work best?
Show, don’t tell. If a character is sad, or happy, don’t just say that he or she is sad, or happy. Use description to dramatize how the character is sad, or happy. “Jane screamed with delight when she saw Brad step off the train.”
Do not make your story overly complicated or overly long. If you are aiming for a ten-page story, you do not need multiple settings and multiple characters. Keep your length and general structure in mind. Ten pages is really not much. I would suggest only one or two main characters and one or two settings. You do not need a long sequence of events. You do not need a long complicated plot. Keep it simple.
Focus on your main character[s]. Picture the character in your mind. Get to know this character. Then set this character in motion. I suggest your story be character-driven (as opposed to plot driven).
Rather than try to invent an exotic setting, develop something familiar. This is a real short cut, since you can see imaginatively what you need to describe. A dorm room? A scene at a party or at a club? A street scene? In a classroom? If you set your story in a far away exotic place, Tahiti or Peru, you will have to do some background research to gather descriptive details.
Rather than try to invent exotic character types, develop something familiar. You do not need international assassins or dope smugglers. Use familiar characters and/or familiar personality types. You might even use people you know, and possibly yourself, as models for your characters.
Keep your tone in mind. Is your story going to be sad, funny, or ironic. Consider how you want your readers to feel at the end of the story. Be consistent in your tone. A funny story ordinarily would not suddenly become a tragic story.
Be descriptive. Use visual details to allow readers to see your characters and settings. Don’t say “a car.” Rather, say that the car was a mud-splattered dark blue Ford 150 pickup truck with a broken taillight.
Consider how your story will build tension and reader expectation, and then how it will resolve this tension, satisfying reader expectation.
Consider how and why your story will hold reader attention. Is there relevance? What is interesting enough to keep the reader from stopping halfway through the story?
Consider what point of view will work best for you. First person? Third person? You might try to begin the story in one perspective, and then restart the story in the other. Which seems to work best?
Show, don’t tell. If a character is sad, or happy, don’t just say that he or she is sad, or happy. Use description to dramatize how the character is sad, or happy. “Jane screamed with delight when she saw Brad step off the train.”
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