Stanford Continuing Studies Online Writing Program How to ... · Last week we looked for an inciting incident to help seduce our readers. It’s interesting to think about the architecture

Stanford Continuing Studies Online Writing Program

How to Seduce Your Reader

Instructor: Joshua Mohr

Week 1: First Impressions – Lights, camera, action! Introduction: “I hadn’t discovered yet what I would later find was an iron law of composition for me: the exasperatingly slow search among the words I had already written for the words which were to come, and the necessity for continuous revision…” William Gass This quote from Mr. Gass is a novelist’s “get out of jail free” card. In its emphasis of revision, a writer can find freedom, solace: suddenly, there isn’t as much pressure on our rough drafts, or any early exploratory drafts for that matter. As an author, it takes time to familiarize yourself with not only the story you are trying to tell, but the characters’ minds, hearts, bodies, and souls. Remember that a novel takes years to write, so don’t put any false pressure on yourself to produce beautiful prose right out of the gate. Let your work be messy, repetitive, incomplete, sophomoric, obvious, etc—aren’t these all byproducts of nascent discovery? Remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And once you accept those things, now we can lower our expectations and actually have fun writing! That’s one thing a lot of writers forget so it bears repeating: we’re supposed to have fun writing. Seriously, someone told me that… So here’s our class-mantra going forward: liberate yourself from quality. At least for the first couple drafts of your book. There’s plenty of time to deconstruct and overanalyze during the revision process, but for now, as you launch into the odd process of building a character and world from scratch, the lower our expectations, the more we set ourselves up to feel good about the work, rather than being bullied by unrealistic goals. We’re going to compartmentalize our discussions on early novel writing. For week 1, we’ll look at dramatic action. If the word plot is loosely synonymous with “what happens” in a novel, we are going to focus our attention on making sure something happens right away. We’ve all had the experience of getting bored in a book’s first few pages, and more often than not, this is a symptom of a lack of movement, things feeling static, ungrounded in specifics. Let’s use the phrase “inciting incident”, which emphasizes that the book needs an action that will incite the rest of the romp: or more plainly, in chapter one, we have to light the plot’s fuse, in order for things to gloriously explode in the book’s climax.

• What will your novel’s inciting incident be? • How will this action look to your reader? • How will it affect your main character(s)? • Is this image emblematic of the story to follow (suggesting a larger struggle to

come)? • Are you successfully seducing your reader? Have you written a beginning so

compelling that it’s impossible for them to put the book down? Remember to embrace the spirit of discovery and liberate yourself from quality! This is a safe space. Do not feel self conscious about sharing work that isn’t “perfect.” There’s no such thing in early drafts. What matters is progress, effort, establishing the necessary muscle memory to keep laboring away—and of course, hopefully have a bit of fun, too. To Read This Week: Handout on Plotting: “Why our Characters are in Charge” Writing Assignment: We’ve all heard the phrase “Lights, camera, action!” when talking about film. But the same can be said for the early pages of a book. Establishing an inciting incident is crucial. Get some danger on the page, some emergency, something wild or beautiful or sad. Write a scene—or the beginning of a scene—that establishes emblematic action. Let your imagination loose to do its worst! Limit 500 words. Supplementary Assignment: Let’s also do an exercise to get to know one another. We’re going to be sharing our artwork, which can be a vulnerable experience, so let’s really foster a community. We’ve all read author bios from book jackets. Write yours and send it to the group. Upload a Jpeg. Don’t take this too seriously. Have fun with it! The more we’re laughing while we’re learning the better our experience together will be. Discussion Points: 1. What is meant in the handout by the phrase “character-driven” plotting? 2. The Latin phrase in medias res means what? And how is it germane to story construction? Have you taken advantage of this option in your inciting incident? 3. What kind of writer do you want to be? 4. Did you learn anything about yourself having to write your first author bio?

Supplemental Resources: Chapter 1 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction” Final Thoughts: In the handout, I make the argument that plot is “a meaningful series of events.” So as you write this week, be conscious of how/why this opening action is meaningful to your novel. Week 2: First Impressions – Conflict & Character Introduction: A writer is a “subversive barbarian at the city gates, constantly challenging the status quo.” Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “What Is Poetry” Last week we looked for an inciting incident to help seduce our readers. It’s interesting to think about the architecture of our novel’s earliest pages—remember, we aren’t worried yet about quality; we’re concerned with the process of discovery, the zeroing in on the style of story you want to tell, identifying in the broadest senses how we will dole information to the reader. The big “chicken and the egg” question that a novelist grapples with as she sits down to start a new project is what to focus on first: should she dedicate herself to learning about her main character? Or should she try and get things happening on the page (plot)? This isn’t an either/or situation. In fact, they’ll inform each other. Each new plot point that a character navigates will illuminate something about her/his true nature. And each hypothesis—yes, we are guessing early on—a writer has about who the protagonist is will inform how she/he tackles obstacles. Our key word this week is duress. That is, what is the duress—either physical, emotional, or both—that you have introduced into your character’s life? What’s the immediate conflict affecting their world? Characters have to want something. Period. This isn’t a negotiable point. If your character doesn’t want anything, they aren’t emotionally invested in their story. And if your own characters aren’t involved in the story, why should a reader care? A writer’s chief pursuit is to illicit an emotional response in a reader: to make the reader feel something—more often than not, manufacturing that active, emotional involvement from the reader stems from the bond forged between reader and protagonist. A specific example: say this guy Marty really wants his ex-wife back. His inner-conflict is that he still loves her, yet she’s unsure of any reunion. His exterior conflict is that his

ex is thinking of moving across the country to take a new job, start fresh. The crisis becomes how/when/and in what way will Marty try to get what he wants. And of course, from there, he’ll have to adapt his strategies as his wife responds. You start to see how characters’ interactions can affect plot points—or more to the point: how duress can mutate into new duress, as the book continues on. Do you see these pressure points the author has placed on Marty? There are immediate consequences. The stakes are high. Will he win her back? Should he win her back? Does he deserve to? What will he do if she moves away? These questions all spring from the internal and external conflicts. Next week we’ll start specifically talking about characterization, but in a sense, we’re already talking about it. As you watch your character act, talk, respond to stimuli, etc, you are learning about her/him. Plot informs character and character informs plot. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, except in terms of our immediate goal, which is to identify dramatic conflict. A few bullet points to use as your guide for this week’s assignment:

• Narrative conflict is the collision between what your character wants and the obstacles you are putting in her/his path. (Marty wants his wife, but she’s moving across the country.)

• Great books have both internal and external conflicts. What will be your player’s internal one? What external pressures have you introduced into their lives?

• What duress are you assigning to your particular character? • How does this duress relate to the inciting incident? Can you find a way to tie

these things together into a cohesive image, moment, motif? Use these points as your guide, but remember that variety is not only the spice of life, it’s the flavor of reading, too. All of our books are different from one another because the authors’ imaginations are as unique as fingerprints. So seduce us with your version of a compelling opening conflict. There are no templates or formulas here. We watch our characters live, and the more we observe them in the wild, their story becomes clear to us. Observing them under duress will greatly enhance our understanding of who they truly are. To Read This Week: We’re talking about rather opaque concepts, so rather than look at a novel excerpt (something incomplete), let’s look at a short story, which has a complete beginning, middle, and ending. “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff Writing Assignment:

For this week, let’s let Wolff supply the prompt. Put your character in the bank robbery sequence from “Bullet” instead of Anders. Run the same choreography. How does the scene change based on who is responding to the threat(s)? For example, most people wouldn’t provoke the criminals as Anders did. How will your character respond to this immediate conflict? And then how does the middle of the story change? Will there be a brand new ending? Obviously, this exercise won’t make its way into your novel directly, but seeing how your character organically responds to this kind of mortal threat will greatly increase your understanding of who she is. Limit 500 words. Discussion Points: 1. What are Anders’ internal and external conflicts? What does he want? 2. Why do we care for him, giving his gruff, pretentious, prickly demeanor? Supplemental Resources: Chapter 2 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction” Final Thoughts: Conflict is the foundation upon which story is constructed. Let’s use the Wolff piece as a teaching tool and then import the lessons into our own project. Great books will have characters facing both internal and external conflicts. Do you know what yours are yet? Week 3: First Impressions – Your reader meets your main character Introduction: “How do I know what I think till I see what I say?” E.M. Forrester I love this Forrester quote because it emphasizes that spirit of discovery, that freedom we’ve been talking about: getting the story down on the page, and once it’s all purged, then we go back and clean things up. I had a teacher in grad school who used to say that writers should be like improvising musicians during the rough drafting process—free to explore the inspiration, riff,

meander, etc. Then in subsequent revisions, we employ more fastidious, organized, scrutinizing vantage points. But for that initial creative gust, go wherever your imagination takes you! So far we’ve focused on plotting and conflict, and now we’ll transition to talk about character. Who are these people that occupy our pages? How do characters become more than cardboard cut-outs? How do they breathe, think, yearn, feel, hate, and empathize, in ways independent from the writer? How do characters transcend the page?

I’ve never read a good novel that didn’t have at least one compelling character for me to follow through the text, cheer for, judge, lobby against, loathe. For without exciting characters, why will any reader invest his or herself in the plight(s) of our character(s)? How do we intrude so diligently into a stranger’s life that he/she picks up our book and can not put it down until knowing the outcome and legacies of our narrative?

Very simply, we engage them; we tickle their voyeuristic streaks; we arouse a curiosity by showing them worlds, lives, ethnicities, subcultures, political affiliations, social circles, cults, etc. that are unique and wonderfully rendered. A strong conflict is rarely enough to sustain a reader. For if conflict is a piece’s danger, then the next hurdle for a writer to leap is the creation of character, or a group of characters, that are being affected by the conflict. We’ve already discussed that a reader has to be invested in how the characters are being affected, or the reader will not be affected his or herself. To take that a step further here, conflict deepens character, and character dictates conflict: they inform each other: they propel each other; there is symbiosis. This week, let’s think about the very first impression between your reader and your main character, the opening paragraph. This is the first time a reader meets this protagonist. Great beginnings serve the subtext and direction of the story to come, tipping the writer’s hand ever so slightly as to the piece’s subtext. A solid introduction should indicate the stakes in a subtle way. An example from Raymond Carver’s “Why Don’t You Dance?”: In the kitchen, he poured another drink and looked at the bedroom suite in his front yard. The mattress was stripped… and lay beside two pillows on the chiffonier… Except for that things looked much the way they had in the bedroom—nightstand and reading lamp on his side of the bed, nightstand and reading lamp on her side. His side, her side. Notice that in this first impression, Carver uses several barbs to hook the reader. It’s an odd, compelling image: the bedroom set assembled in the front yard. We want to read on to see how/why the furniture is outside. Two, there’s immediate conflict because, well, bedroom sets shouldn’t be in the front yard, so we know something is off. Three, the final phrase—His side, her side—indicates subtext, that the two people who once shared this bedroom set have different versions of the facts, suggesting not only character but also history.

In one paragraph, Carver has used a nuanced image to generate momentum, while simultaneously the reader begins to collect the scattered bread crumbs of characterization. And their continued accumulation will lead a reader to formulate her/ his own interpretation of who the character is.

Now it’s your turn to write one scintillating paragraph. Don’t go over 100 words. Force compression onto yourselves. I’d also hope that you’ll rework this several times before sending it to the group. Just because the word count is lower on this assignment, you should put in equal work, maybe more work, as the first paragraph has such prowess in narrative construction. Are you reworking the same paragraph from an earlier assignment, or have you learned so much more about your main player that a brand new paragraph would work better?

To Read This Week: Handout on Characterization: “Building Vibrant Characters” Links to Amazon’s “Look Inside!” feature, so we can read the beginning paragraphs of several other novels, then discuss the tactics being employed by those authors:

• “Catcher in the Rye” • “Cruddy” • “Lolita” • “A Visit from the Goon Squad”

Writing Assignment: Write (or rewrite) the opening paragraph of your novel. Think about the issues of plotting, conflict, and character that have been discussed over our first 3 weeks. Also ponder the personality that you want to immediately establish on the page. Limit 100 words. Discussion Points: 1. From this week’s handout: how can a character characterize herself? 2. How can you use idiosyncratic language to make your character/narrator sound unique to the reader? 3. Of the published books we read the opening paragraphs of, which was your favorite and why? Which was your least favorite and why? Supplemental Resources:

Chapter 3 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction” This particular excerpt talks about chapter structure in novel writing. Begin thinking about your book’s architecture: the way you want to organize and dole information out to the reader. Sequence is vital. What if chapter five was chapter one? How would the change the overall effect? Final Thoughts: This is the first week we’re starting to weave plot and character. From here, we’ll discuss how these things are (or should be) nearly indistinguishable from each other. In your opening paragraph, which is sort of like a contract between author and reader: what are you emphasizing right out of the starter’s blocks? There are many ways to lure a reader into a book. What’s the seduction you have underway? Week 4: Characterization: useful “schizophrenia” Introduction: Finding the correct balance between thought process (interior life) and the mechanics of plot (external life) is one of the hardest things we do as authors. Rendering the emotional landscape of a character is important, as it thrusts the reader into the decision making process, helping to create psychologically “real” protagonists. Readers want to understand why characters do what they do; they want to see that there’s logic behind decision making, even if that logic is flawed, sociopathic, or deluded (faulty logic is more interesting on the page anyway). For our purposes this week, we’ll look exclusively at how to render a convincing consciousness, a thought process independent from the author’s yet one fully inhabited and brought to life. If our characters are to be convincing body-doubles for real people, they must walk and talk and feel a range of emotion; they must giggle and have allergies and chew with their mouths open and grieve and play the harmonica (or whatever your particular story has them doing). The point is that they occupy an ecosystem in such a way that a reader recognizes the authenticity of life experience, even in a life that only exists on the page. Of course, this idea of “useful schizophrenia” is an artifice, a dupe, a way for writers to dole more autonomy to the players. For if certain attitudes, biases, and crimes are assigned to the protagonists—rather than the writer—there’s a liberty to let the characters characterize themselves: they can stalk their habitats behaving however it is that they behave. The author is pardoned from the antics and can simply watch, channel, and document as the action unfurls.

This is the nascent stage of a character standing on her feet for the first time without the writer’s assistance. Yes, the author is always there, but the “useful schizophrenia” allocates thoughts, actions, and motives to the protagonist, letting them buoy the story. It’s a shift of emphasis in which Dr. Frankenstein sees the monster’s eyes open and turns it loose to live. Once, the character begins to fend for herself, this is where unreliability becomes such a useful tool. Because, let’s face it, humans are ridiculous beasts when it comes to our own thoughts, actions, and motives. These delusions and rationalizations are at the core of compelling narrative, or what I’m going to categorize as Narrative Stockholm Syndrome (NSS) going forward. According to the OED, an unreliable narrator is someone whose “account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted.” Let’s look at these juicy adjectives—“faulty”, “biased”, “distorted.” The writer in me sees these and immediately smiles. There’s freedom in their implied liabilities; there’s the possibility to forge a protagonist who has a nuanced vantage point, one with her own faulty, biased, and distorted consciousness. Each of our minds is these things—every human has a thought process that tumbles with varying levels of haze (faulty), sometimes intentional and others unintentional. We also have varying levels of narcissism coating our days (bias). And of course, our memories are flexible, contradictory, often trussed up contortions that bear little resemblance to other people’s renditions of the same set of “facts” (distortions in interpretation). There are facts in the world. 2 + 2 = 4. There’s a force called gravity. If my heart stops beating I’ll die. But in terms of narrative construction, for writers looking to bring their characters to life on the page, the idea of NSS can be a powerful weapon to have in our arsenal. Here’s a very elementary and probably incorrect synopsis of Stockholm Syndrome: It’s a phenomenon that can occur when a hostage begins to feel for her captive. She understands their motives—why they’re doing what they’re doing—even if it’s malicious, violent, etc. Maybe she even defends them after the fact. How does Stockholm Syndrome translate to narrative construction? Well, one pleasure of reading is being imbedded in the main character’s thought process, ensconced in a different worldview. When a reader sees life through a new lens, the character’s consciousness, she is in a place she’s never been before. Even in realist modes of storytelling, the protagonist’s psyche is a NEW WORLD. This reminds me of the John Gardner writing exercise to describe a river from the point of view of somebody who’s just fallen in love, and then render the same setting from the perspective of one who has committed a murder. Are they seeing the same place?

Literally, the answer is yes. But when we think about how the contextual details of their situations colors the milieu, they are witnessing very different places. For a lover, the river might seem ripe with life, the water a sign of hope, cleansing, etc. Yet the murderer, perhaps racked with guilt and denial and self-hatred, doesn’t see this optimism in the scene’s setting; no, rather than seeing possibility, she sees nature’s cruelty, the water crashing the rocks, slowly eroding them, gnats swarming, overcrowding, a nearby tree leers like an accuser. Here’s the heart of NSS: when a reader is thrust into a consciousness, camaraderie develops between the protagonist and the reader (much like captive and captor). Assuming that the author has done her job right and constructed a convincing logic system and thought process, the “friendship” stems from the reader being privy to the mechanisms of decision making. They see how/why our characters do what they do, and empathy develops, even if these characters are behaving badly. We can think of this as the kiss between psychological realism and motive, and if we take the time to dote on this prospect, it will involve our readers more intimately with the characters, and thus, up their affinity with the story as a whole. To Read This Week: “The Sisters Brothers”: pages 1-75 Writing Assignment: This week, you will (or your character will) write a rationalization. Let the reader see the main character defend a decision, an action, an inaction, a moral stance. If they’ve done something appalling, they probably think they had a cogent reason. What is it? Can you make a convincing argument for a character’s prerogative that you personally disagree with? Discussion Points:

1. How is DeWitt letting you get to know the book’s narrator, Eli Sisters? 2. Do you like Eli? 3. Is it important to like a narrator?

Supplemental Resources: Chapter 4 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction” Final Thoughts: A convincing consciousness is instrumental for clear characterization. Remember, too, that during the course of writing a rough draft, your character is going to mutate as you learn more about her/him. That’s to be expected. The important part is that you remain

open to changing your original schematic, as the book (and the protagonist) tells you more about herself. Week 5: Character con’t – Dissonant notes Introduction: When I build characters’ psychologies/decision making mechanisms, I always imagine my readers to be leaves floating on a stream. In this example, the stream is the character’s consciousness, the logic system. The reader, while captive in this foreign landscape, just floats along, observing, witnessing, and after awhile, understanding how a character is hard-wired, even if that character is vastly different than the reader herself. Maybe it’s in this space that literature can perform its most important function: maybe it can teach empathy. Maybe looking through the perspective of someone who challenges or belies our moral coding can help open our minds to the experiences of others. Don’t we want these characters to think and act differently from us? They’re telling their remix of history. We as readers are the nosy neighbors peeking in and gobbling up the “facts,” even when we know the facts are contorted, slanted. Besides, where would the fun be if things weren’t all gummed up, biased, and wonky? That’s the humanness, the “us.” We recognize ourselves in well rendered characters because they have a point of view, a vantage point, a voice, a heart, strengths and weaknesses. That’s not only what makes them real people on the page, it’s what brings us to life as well. It also gets back to one of our working theses in this course: the importance of intertwining characterization with plotting and image. Last week, we wrote a rationalization. Now let’s play with the relationship between rationalization (internal) and scene (external). We all know the platitude: actions speak louder than words. How can this cliché be useful to novelists? Let’s think about dissonant notes, the thing that makes the harmonious chord sound “off.” For our purposes, the dissonant note will be the discrepancy between what we see a character do in scene (some action) and contrast that with what they’ve been telling us about their behavior (motive, rationalization, trigger point). Here’s an example:

• Derek loves his girlfriend, Mired.

• He would never hurt her. • One night, she gets drunk and publicly humiliates him in front of their friends. • She’s so drunk, in fact, that once they get home, he has to carry her up the front

stairs. • Mired continues to berate him as he carries her. • Derek loses his temper and intentionally drops her down the stairs, breaking her

wrist and knocking her front teeth out. • But she’s so drunk that she doesn’t remember what happened. • Will Derek tell her the truth?

As an enlightened reader, we immediately judge Derek for this inciting incident (which is the beginning of my novel “Termite Parade”); however, he thinks he has a reason for doing what he did. She pushed him with caustic words. She kept pushing, kept insulting, barbing, and he couldn’t take it anymore. Why should he tell her the truth? What good can come from that? Derek will try to convince himself, and thus the reader, that he’s doing the right thing by staying silent. His guilt, though, has other ideas… The dissonant note, then, is the discrepancy between what we witness as a reader versus what the character her/himself tells us. To Read This Week: “The Sisters Brothers”: pgs. 76-155 Writing Assignment: We’re really getting to the fun part now where we can start combining some of the skills we’ve been working on. Write a scene in which your protagonist does something of questionable morality, yet she/he defends or explicates their rationale to the reader via thought process. From our earlier example, how would Derek explain what he did to Mired? Limit 500 words. Discussion Points:

1. Was it hard to make a convincing argument for your character’s dubious action? 2. How does this excerpt from “The Sisters Brothers” complicate how you were

feeling about the novel? Eli himself? Is he changing as the book goes on? Supplemental Resources: Chapter 5 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction”

Final Thoughts: I’ll make the argument that getting to know the things that embarrass or humiliate your characters about themselves, the deeper you will understand what to dramatize. We need to know the dark secrets of their hearts, and from there, we can construct scenes, images, metaphors to apply the necessary pressures to force these characters into action. Week 6: Dialogue – how do I make my characters sound unique? Introduction: Dialogue can be one of the most informative tools at a writer’s disposal, yet it’s also probably the hardest to master. We have to not only figure out what we want our characters to say, but how to phrase it. Our diction, the pacing of our dialogue, its layout on the page, these are all problems that can be solved in many ways, and we’re here to hone your unique style of tackling these issues. Remember, writers ranging from Gabriel Garcia Marquez to James Baldwin to Aimee Bender to Alice Munro, etc., would all solve these dilemmas in their own nuanced ways. We’re here to further illuminate what your nuances might be. Dialogue is such an indispensable tool because it allows our readers to draw her/his own conclusions about a character. They hear the words coming directly from a character’s mouth, without any narrative filters; thus, the reader gets to determine for herself: is this character forthright, earnest? Are they lying, omitting some facts, manipulative? Are they making a suspect decision, but doing the best they can to get by? Are they being taken advantage of? Are they taking advantage of someone else? Are they angry, sad, brokenhearted? And how can we use dialogue to convey these emotions without ever having to tell our readers how the characters are feeling? The big thing we want to work on this week is building diction or syntax grids for each of our main characters (maybe some secondary characters, too). I assign a stable of specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives to each of my players. Let’s make one for John: Nouns Verbs Adjectives John: robots slurp icky hens ogle luscious mongoloids slide delectable All people have certain words that they use more often than other people in casual conversation. So on John’s diction grid above, you have nine words that start to help him

sounds a bit more nuanced, especially if your other characters have their own systems of diction—each grid bolsters characterization. Remember, calling a woman either “pretty” or “pulchritudinous” means basically the same thing. But what might each imply about the character? I do the same exercise for punctuation, creating a syntax grid unique to each player.

Sentence Structure Punctuation ticks John: speaks in run-ons never uses semicolons talks with gerunds You have to paint with a light brush here, or you risk your characters sounding like demented mad-libs. But a dollop here, another there, and suddenly, your reader starts to see a realized player, one who speaks in a nuanced, intimate way. To Read This Week: Handout on Dialogue tactics: “The Art of Putting Words into Someone Else’s Mouth” “The Sisters Brothers”: pgs 156-234 Writing Assignment: Make a diction and syntax grid for your main player(s). Then write a scene in which two or three people talk. Don’t use dialogue tags and see if it’s clear who is speaking simply based on diction and syntax. What’s the conflict in the scene? Is the action loaded with subtext?

• Please note: this will be the last assignment we have that’s exercise-based. From here on out, we’ll be working directly on the beginning chapters of your book.

Limit 500 words Discussion Points: 1. How did you start the process of selecting language for your characters? 2. Do your characters stand as individuals with this new emphasis on word choice? 3. In this week’s excerpt from “The Sisters Brothers,” would you call this an exciting book? Is it compelling you to keep flipping pages? How? Why? Supplemental Resources: Chapter 6 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction”

Final Thoughts: From here on out, we are diving directly into your novels-in-progress. I’m excited to see how you compile these lessons into one cohesive conceit. Another reminder that this is supposed to be fun! Are you having fun? Week 7: Assembling the pieces Introduction: Here comes the crazy part, as we start to compile all these varying facets of narrative construction. To recap, so far we’ve discussed:

• Inciting incidents • General tactics in plotting external actions • Narrative conflict: what does your character want? What are their obstacles? • Characterization via thought process and rationalizations • Characters characterizing themselves (they dictate the action) • Manufacturing dissonant notes between what characters say and what they do • Tactics for making idiosyncratic dialogue via diction and syntax grids

We’ve also been doing prompted writing exercises to help these independent tentacles “sink in.” For the remainder of our weeks, we’ll be working explicitly on your books and workshopping the material—each of us having the ability to read the give feedback on the work of your peers. Perhaps, you already had a few chapters written before signing up for this class. Maybe you’ve been clacking away during our first weeks together. That’s fine, and honestly, that’s what I’d expect. But I’m challenging you not to just hand that work in. I’m challenging you to go back into these documents, read through them, and ask yourself: have I learned things over the first 6 weeks that can improve this section? Use these five questions to guide you as you implement changes (or work from scratch on the book):

1. What is the inciting incident to launch the book? 2. How does this incident illuminate something central about your main character? 3. How is the language in the book unique to the story you’re telling? 4. What’s the overall plot of chapter one? 5. Does it have a beginning, middle, and ending? Does it dangle intrigue that will

force your reader to keep flipping pages?

Take the time to clean these things up. Make changes. You have the whole week with no other writing assignment for the class. To Read This Week: “The Sisters Brothers”: pgs 235-325 Writing Assignment: Earlier, I mentioned that writers should feel free like improvising jazz musicians as they work through the rough draft. Really put that axiom to the test this week. Free your imagination and go absolutely nuts on the page. The assignment: write the most compelling, exciting, scintillating, macabre, violent, beautiful beginning to your book that you’re capable of writing right now. Note that the word limit has increased. For some of you, 750 words will be an entire chapter. For others, this will be an excerpt. Everybody’s book will have its own architecture, so if it cuts off mid-scene, we understand why… Please take the time to read one another’s beginnings. This will really help foster the idea of community that’s so important to working writers, as we’re forced to spend so much time sequestered off and pecking away at our manuscripts. Note: I’ll send a separate handout specific to the kind of feedback I expect during the workshopping process. Limit 750 words Discussion Points:

1. What was your reaction to “The Sisters Brothers” as a whole? 2. How is the process of workshopping your writing? Is there anxiety in not only

receiving feedback but of giving it? Supplemental Resources: Chapter 7 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction” Final Thoughts: I’m excited to see the beginnings of your book!

Week 8: Imagery Introduction: “The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.”

-TS Eliot

In this quote, Eliot mentions the symbiotic relationship between the external symbols and the emotional landscape, which is one of a writer’s greatest challenges in story construction: selecting the “right image” (or “mapping image”). First, let’s begin with a working definition of what I mean by “right image.” How can an image, which is by definition subjective to a reader’s/ viewer’s interpretation, be considered “right”? Stringently speaking, of course, it can’t. But for our purposes, for a writer’s purposes, the word “right” here means that the image, something external, something that exists outside the mind or symbolic-heart of any character, modifies the story’s emotional stakes. Let’s look at an example: Rebecca Brown’s story “Forgiveness,” from her collection “The Terrible Girls.” (Read the piece before continuing to read down…) This is a surrealist, post-modernist interpretation of the objective correlative. Here, Brown has brought the story’s arching metaphor to life, as the aged cliché I’d give my right arm for (insert commodity)… functions on a literal plane. One character cuts off her arm for another and gives it as a “gift.” In Brown’s dissection of power dynamics in domestic relationships, the organic and violent force of her image (the severing of one’s own limb) imbues the text with a formidable pulse and challenges the reader’s notions of plausibility. An undercurrent throughout the piece (and the subtle power of her objective correlative) is the peculiar way people compromise in relationships on a daily basis, the ways in which the process of acquiescence can thrust affinities into dark, often irreparable places. Certainly, (hopefully) we don’t cut off our own arms; however, don’t people prosaically sacrifice too much of themselves, for the “betterment” of a relationship? Brown’s surrealist metaphor subverts our understanding of inter-relational limitations, and in so doing, uniquely modifies the banal predicament of compromise.

Try to work an objective correlative into the next 750 words you submit. Ask yourself: is there an external symbol that can map to my character’s—or one of my character’s—internal conflicts? To Read This Week: Rebecca Brown’s “The Terrible Girls” Writing Assignment: Continue to seduce your reader and send us the next 750 words, emphasizing the importance of pushing plot and furthering characterization at the same time. Don’t underestimate the importance of these things happening simultaneously: writing a novel would be a lot easier if we just got to alternate, but more often than not, these two birds must be killed with one stone. Limit 750 words Discussion Points:

1. How is your understanding of your book changing as your write more? 2. Did you learn anything about your character that you didn’t previously know? 3. Were you surprised by a plot twist you hadn’t planned?

Supplemental Resources: Chapter 8 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction” Final Thoughts: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. Doctorow Week 9: The Water Balloon: how much is enough? What’s too much? Introduction: Imagine yourself preparing for a water balloon fight. First thing you need (besides an adversary) is ammunition, the water balloons themselves. There you stand at the faucet, filling the first. You watch as it gains size, quantity, but you worry about letting it swell too big. Let’s say with the first one you play it overly cautious and take it off before it gets amply filled. In twenty minutes, without the right quantity of water to properly

stretch the balloon for optimum splashing, it won’t rupture when you heave it at the opposition: it merely bounces off of them and lands innocuously on the lawn. With your next attempt, having learned from your previous mistake, you try to cram as much water as is possible into the balloon, and it doesn’t even make it off the spigot, exploding right there from being over-inflated, drenching you. You are no fool, though, and with your third and final attempt, you hedge your bets: you fill the balloon with neither too little nor too great a quantity of water. It is round and plump and will detonate on impact. Victory will be yours! Building a scene in storytelling works much the same way. Early attempts will often lead to each end of the spectrum, leaving you with moments in your narrative that aren’t doing enough work to earn their space or perhaps they’re chock full of so much cogent information, that you’re asking the reader to retain an impossible amount of details. So how do we go about finding that proper amount of information? How do we decide what’s a robust, rich scene squirming with vibrant details versus one that isn’t yet functioning as an ideal unit in our story? Here are some suggestions to help you determine if indeed the scene (or chapter) in question is either too puny or too stout. The balloon that contains too little to be dangerous:

• I use a simple exercise to help me answer this question. I make myself

write a simple, declarative sentence about each chapter’s role in the book’s plot. So let’s say I’m doing this exercise for chapter eight of a new novel. The declarative might be: “This chapter complicates the story by introducing Jamie’s ex-wife is actually his current wife.” Or: “This complicates the book’s action because we learn Maggie has a body in the trunk of her car.” Or a quieter example: “The plot is pushed along because Jeanie decides to visit her estranged father.”

• Now, we have to be willing to be honest about this. Say I’d written down about chapter eight, “This pushes the book because we see Jasmine’s thoughts about her family.” Or: “This complicates the story because Paul and his roommate cook breakfast together and the reader hasn’t yet met the roommate.”

• I’d argue that these last two examples aren’t yet doing enough in the story

to be their own chapters. Perhaps, they can be rebuilt, reinvigorated with more juicy details to earn their space. You don’t necessarily have to cut them outright. Maybe the answer is to take it from a six-page sequence to a one-page sequence, alerting the reader that it isn’t that important.

Maybe you can conflate it to another moment located somewhere else in the story.

Or maybe the whole scene does need to be chopped. That’s part of what we do as writers: we exchange the wrong moments for the right ones. It’s a transaction inherent in the revision process: finding and zeroing in on the sequences that most contribute to the book succeeding—a book is always a sum of its parts—and letting those moments that aren’t working land on the cutting room floor. The overfilled balloon that blows up in our face at the faucet: We’ve all reread chapters in our early drafts and thought to ourselves: yikes, there’s so much going on here, I’m not sure what to hold onto. The problem becomes what to do if we determine that all the material present is germane to the story. How do we edit, pare, shape stuff that’s crucial to the narrative? Say that I write a chapter. It’s 17 pages. I reread and recognize that it’s too cluttered, that a reader might leave this moment confused about what’s important, where her attention should be, etc. So I make a hierarchy of information.

• Things a reader has to remember leaving this chapter (no more than 3 pieces of info; 2 is better)

• Things I’d hope an astute reader would pick up on before leaving chapter (3 pieces)

• Things only a stellar reader would pick up on (anywhere from 3-5)

Now that you’re approximately 10 pages into your book, ponder the way you’re assigning value. Are you emphasizing the right details? Should certain things be louder, others quieted, still others muted entirely? To Read This Week: Chapter 9 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction” Writing Assignment: Continue to seduce your reader and send us the next 750 words; continue to read and provide thoughtful feedback to your peers. Limit 750 words Discussion Points:

1. How is your understanding of your book changing as your write more?

2. Did you learn anything about your character that you didn’t previously know? 3. Were you surprised by a plot twist you hadn’t planned?

Supplemental Resources: N/A Final Thoughts: “The Chief Enemy of Creativity is good taste.” Pablo Picasso I love this quote because it reminds artists to disregard what’s popular: we don’t follow trends, we set them!! Week 10: Revision Strategies Introduction: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some tactics for what comes next, not only in finishing the rough draft, but of what to expect and how to plan to finish subsequent revisions. I want you to leave our class feeling somewhat prepared for that day when you do complete the first draft, with at least a basic understanding of how to continue to work on your creative project. Revision will be the driving force that shapes your narrative. As I've LOUDLY advocated, your rough draft—along with everyone else who has ever written a book—will be terrible. Shitty. A disaster. In all honesty, even your own family members who have to like your writing will only be pretending to have enjoyed this “literary” experience, and once you walk away, they’ll purse their lips and silently pity you. But that’s okay. It’s expected. We’re prepared for this. We were ready for the rough draft to be sloppy and incoherent at times, with characterizations oscillating all over the place and plot points contradicting one another. We knew our imagery might not map through the whole story; we anticipated rushing through some sequences and rendering others at such a glacial pace we almost nod off ourselves. Most importantly, though, we know the most important detail: that our true goal with the rough draft was simply to finish it—to sculpt a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Now the really exciting part starts... like a sculptor, we have our mass of clay and now we start to carve out the art. For our last assignment, let’s squeeze a scene, pare it back, and test out some of the revision skills we’ll need to maximize at a later date.

To Read This Week: Handout on revision strategies: “How to Un-hideous Our Babies” Writing Assignment: Even though we’ve intentionally liberated ourselves from quality and are writing recklessly, let’s do a revision exercise, just for the sake of practice. Take any 500-word moment in your book that feels flabby to you and cut it in half. Limit 250 words Discussion Points:

1. How is the scene better now? 2. Why is it better? 3. Are there other places in the book where you’re over-explicating?

Supplemental Resources: Chapter 10 from “Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction” Final Thoughts: Even though we’re talking about revision here, your responsibility is to write forward. Don’t worry about any problems you’re identifying in the manuscript right now. Hold on to our mantra and “liberate yourself from quality” for the entire rough drafting process. Yes, the first few chapters of a book is the seduction process; it’s also incredibly difficult to nail down. None of my first three books ended up having the beginning I used for my rough draft. But that doesn’t matter: what matters for you now is to truly embrace that feeling of discovery and dig around in your novel’s world as much as you can.