An update from our sixty-eighth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, May 27 In the last workshop of our spring season, Conner outlines six ways a scene can fail. Number one: it starts too early. It’s better to start late, to skip greetings, and to start when the […]
Search Results for: writing workshop
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #67: Translation
An update from our sixty-seventh Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, May 13 We began the workshop by discussing the etymology of translation. Translation comes from the Latin phrase, “to be carried across.” Conner encouraged us to adopt a more “experimental view of translation.” He told us that […]
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #66: Ekphrasis
An update from our sixty-sixth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett and special guest Emma Catherine Hoff A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, May 6 This week, winner of the Stone Soup 2022 Annual Book Contest Emma Catherine Hoff instructed the workshop. To start, Emma told workshop participants that ekphrasis is “when you write […]
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #65: Long Sentences
An update from our sixty-fifth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, April 29 In this week’s workshop, we talked about long sentences. First, Conner showed us two paintings. The first one was Christ Breaking Down the Gates of Hell by Hieronymous Bosch and the second one was The […]
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #64: Voice
An update from our sixty-fourth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, April 22 Conner started off the workshop by asking the question, “What is voice?” Participants answered the question in different ways, but we eventually summed it up as a “poetics.” A voice differs based on diction, register, […]
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #63: Ways to Begin
An update from our sixty-third Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, April 15 In this week’s workshop, we talked about different ways to begin a story. Conner began by saying we often feel the need to start a story with exposition—to start with loads of background information. We […]
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #62: Spring
An update from our sixty-second Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, April 1 The workshop started with Conner showing us four paintings that all involved some element of spring—glee, excitement, flowers, calm, peace, etc. Before we began to read some examples of poetry about spring, we asked ourselves […]
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #61: Seven Narratives
An update from our sixty-first Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, March 25 To start the workshop, Conner told us about the book The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. However, before we jumped into what those plots were, we explored the meta-plot, which Booker argues every story […]
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #60: Tongue Twisters
An update from our sixtieth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, March 18 Conner began by asking the question, “What is the purpose of language?” Some of the answers were to communicate and to represent or describe things. Throughout the workshop, we learned more about what language is […]
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #59: Automatic Writing
An update from our fifty-ninth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, March 11, plus some of the output published below This week, we learned about automatic writing, a fun exercise and an effective strategy to overcome writer’s block. Automatic writing was born out of the surrealist movement of […]
