An update from the thirtieth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday March 5, plus some of the output published below We began this week’s workshop with an exercise; first, we chose a character from a story or novel we had been writing and then made up a new character in our minds. Once we had this new character envisioned, we wrote 3-4 sentences describing this character. From there we entered into a discussion centered around the question, “how does description work?” The answer: when a writer transforms a physical or psychological reality into written language. Our first literary example was the novel Anna Karenina as it is a classic example of a well-wrought character, however based on the book What We See when We Read by Peter Mendulsund, we found that even with a plethora of character descriptions it is difficult to create a true image of the character. This observation led us to our first basic “rule” of character description: behavioral descriptions are more effective than physical ones. We then read a few specific examples including this sentence, from Don Delillo’s White Noise, “He moved with a loser’s hunch.” Other examples came from Anna Karenina, East of Eden, and The Sound and the Fury. The second “rule” was that minimal description makes for easier visualization, that a good description withholds as much as it reveals. One such example of this came from Jonathan Safran Foer in the sentence, “He looked like nothing special.” Another, from Barbara Kingsolver: “There she was. Her elbows stuck out like wings.”The third and final “rule” of the day was that good description teaches us how to pay attention, best exemplified in this sentence from Guy de Maupassant: “He was a gentleman with red whiskers who always went first through a doorway.” The Participants: Zar, Penelope, Nova, Emma, Sophia, Alice, Josh, Amelia, Ellie, Gwynne, Chelsea, Quinn, Anna The Challenge: Write a full scene in which you describe the character(s) without naming his/her physical traits. To watch more readings from this workshop, like Sophia’s below, click here. Sophia, 12
Writing Workshop
Writing Workshop #59: Rhythm and Cadence
An update from our fifty-ninth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, February 19th, plus some of the output published below In this workshop, William emphasized the importance of rhythm in pieces of writing. The participants looked at pieces that utilize iambic pantameter and other well-known rhythmic standards. William also touched upon the comparison to music, and how reading a piece and stopping for breath is not dissimilar to playing an instrument and having to stop to breathe. The writers then went into a small writing exercise where they were challenged to write something in the vein of the famous opening line from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The Challenge: Write a piece that focuses on phrasing with arcs, the rise and fall of speech, repetition, and heart-beat rhythm. The Participants: Liam, Agatha, Yueling, Kelby, Lauren, Peri, Elbert, Kate, Lena, Rachael, Anya, Iago Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA Heart Leaps, Heart Sinks Peri Gordon, 12 Alarm. Ding! Heart leaps, leaps, leaps as I bound out of bed in a hurry, ready for a brand new day. School. Remember? Heart sinks, sinks, sinks as I slide down the stairs. Scent. Pancakes! Heart leaps, tongue licks lips. Sound. Bus! Heart sinks, feet spring into action. Scurry scurry after bus—it sails away. Heart sinks lower, feel its absence in my chest. Feel my heart in my throat, feel it in my stomach, feel it in my legs. Legs run faster, time slows down. Streets seems longer, I seem shorter. Need to relax. Breathe, breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Deep breath in, deep breath out. I inhale, I exhale. Slowly, calmly, I evaluate the situation. Cars zip by on the street next to me, so much faster than I. Sounds of horns blarethrough my ears, and sounds of wind soothe them. Tons of noise melts into white noise all at once. My heart leaps as the familiar sight of my home fills my vision, and sinks as I realize my parents have already left for work. The sun smirks at me. I have dreams, dreams of becoming an astronaut, dreams of soaring through space and viewing the sun up close, but how can I reach the blinding ball of fire in the sky when I cannot even reach school? The white noise hardens, jeering at me, and I cover my ears. Stop. Just stop worrying? I don’t know. You can’t get to school, you won’t. You won’t, you won’t, you won’t. You can’t. Heart sinks, sinks, sinks. Feel its absence in even my legs.
How Stories Work: Writing Workshop #29: Writing Dialogue
An update from the twenty-ninth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday February 26, plus some of the output published below To begin today’s workshop, Conner showed us the opening sequence from the 2001 film adaptation of Waiting for Godot, asking that we notice what made the dialogue good—specifically to notice how the dialogue works, how the two characters respond to each other, how the dialogue is simultaneously funny and mysterious, notice its indirectness and opacity, and how it opens itself up to various kinds of communication. One of the most important observations from this scene was that the characters didn’t spend time explaining the situation to each other. After we discussed each other’s desires for writing dialogue like Emma’s tendency to omit implied filler words such as “hello, or goodbye,” and Amelia’s desire to portray the character’s as human and non-robotic through realistic conversation, we moved on to Conner’s “seven tools for writing dialogue,” not rules, starting with the suggestion that dialogue should be realistic, but not too realistic. The rest of the tools were as follows: 2) use dialogue to differentiate characters; 3) avoid small talk; 4) avoid the “information dump”; 5) gestures are more communicative than words; 6) have your characters talk to each other while simultaneously doing something else (as in the 2013 Pulitzer Price winning play Disgraced); 7) use indirect dialogue. The Participants: Emma, Sophia, Nova, Amelia, Ananya, Alice, Josh, Zar, Samantha, Ellie, Chelsea, Quinn, Penelope The Challenge: Write about 2-4 characters who are having a conversation while struggling to build a bird house. The instructions for building the bird house are provided below: Rinse out the milk carton with dish soap and warm water. Cut out a 1/2 to 3 in (3.8 to 7.6 cm) hole on 1 side of the carton. Poke small drainage holes into the bottom of the carton. Punch a hole at the top so you can hang the birdhouse. Glue 3 in (7.6 cm) sticks to the top of the carton to make a roof. Paint the carton’s exterior with water-based paint. Tie string or yarn through the hole at the top of the carton. Place small rocks or sand at the bottom of the carton to anchor it against the wind. Hang the birdhouse at least 5 ft (1.5m) off of the ground. To watch the rest of the videos from this workshop, like Lina’s below, click here. Lina, 11
