An update from our seventy-first Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, October 15, plus some of the output published below This workshop covered stream of consciousness, a journey through a character’s mind in which their thoughts shift through free association, constantly transitioning from one topic to the next. These thoughts go off in different directions, taking a path that feels disorganized. William emphasized the difference between a story with a beginning, middle, and end and an impression of a character’s thoughts that isn’t meant to advance the plot—stream of consciousness being the latter. The participants drew inspiration from the abstract portrait The Fisherman by Max Weber, Fernand Léger’s avant-garde art film Ballet Mécanique from the Dada Art Movement, and a piece written at a May 2020 Stone Soup writing workshop about stream of consciousness. As a mini-challenge, the participants had five minutes to write a quick visit into a character’s thoughts. The Challenge: Write a stream of consciousness piece for 30 minutes. This journey follows a path that is set down by the mind you are portraying in your story. That mind might, itself, not know where the ideas are coming from. Become your character, and let her take you on a journey into her mind. The Participants: Anya, Ava, Celia, Crystal, Greta, Liam, Nami, Nova, Pearl, Rachael, Yueling, Zar Sprinting Pearl Coogan, 10 I can do it. I can win. Win the race. Beat the high schoolers. People are cheering for me, cheering for me, of all people. My four good friends are jumping up and down, shouting encouragement. But the finish line seems a million miles away. Wait, are there even a million miles on Earth? They are winning. The high schoolers. They are beating me. This isn’t right. Just like how it wasn’t right when a mean boy stole my ginormous Kit-Kat bar I had gotten on Halloween. Or was it a Twix bar? I like Kit-Kat bars better. But all chocolate bars are good. I should’ve practiced more, spent more time on the track. But being on the track is so tiring, and then I go to bed early, and then I don’t have time for homework, and then I get bad grades. Just because I ran. But there is no going back, just like how there is no going back after you turned in homework and realized that it had been wrong after you left school. Once that happened to me and I had panicked on the bus. Everyone had laughed at me. I hate homework. I need to go faster, as fast as the wind or as me and my friends during lunchtime on Taco Tuesday. I like Taco Tuesday. Especially the shrimp tacos, although the school doesn’t always have them, even on Taco Tuesday. Not having the best kind of tacos on Taco Tuesday! Unbelievable. Some of the high schoolers are behind me. Some are in front of me. Some look angry. Some even look amused. Amused? Doesn’t that mean like, funny? I’m not sure. I’ve never been good at vocabulary. I’m better at running and athletic stuff then actual school subjects. But even though I’m an eight-grader doesn’t mean I’m not fast. Oh, I’m as fast as those snobby high schoolers. Wait, are they really snobby just because they’re high schoolers? I don’t think so. Maybe some of them are. I mean, there were snobby kids in second grade. Once one of the snobby kids teased me at Christmastime because I was wearing an ugly sweater because my family wears ugly sweaters around Christmastime. I like Christmas but I don’t like ugly sweaters. They itch. What would an Olympic sprinter be doing? Probably running faster and focusing on the finish line. The Olympics seem really stressful. Who would willingly put themselves in so much stress? The finish line is closer, not a million miles away anymore. More like ten miles. There’s a lot of places within ten miles of my house. Like the ice cream place. I like ice cream. Especially chocolate ice cream. It’s so irresistibly creamy. Once I had vanilla ice cream I hated it. Just hated it. I’m going to make it. The high schoolers are behind me now. Oh no, one just passed me. I always beg my mom to pass slow cars on the highway. But she never does. My mom can be so annoying. The finish line is so close. But so far. But I’m only a millimeter away from the winning high schooler. Wait, how short is a millimeter? The finish line is right there! I need to get to it first. Maybe I should leap to it. I’m good at leaping. Really good at it. Leaping seems like a good idea. Well, no time to think. I’m leaping. I’m leaving the high schooler a millimeter, however short that it, behind. People are cheering. For me or for the high schooler? I’m not sure. Probably some of both. But I like when people cheer. It makes me think of happy things like roller coasters. I like being happy.
Writing Workshop
Writing Workshop #70: Point of View
An update from our seventieth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, October 8, plus some of the output published below During today’s workshop, we discussed one of the most fundamental aspects of creative literature: point of view! We kicked things off with a brief five-minute diary reading in which Nova, Ava, and Pearl shared their brilliant work. The students learned all about the different classifications of ‘point of view,’ from the omniscient third person to the limited first person, and we studied both classic and modern samples of this concept in action. Some examples included The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and Olivia Lee’s story “The Note,” featured in last month’s issue. The students were first challenged to write from either the limited perspective of a single character or from the all-knowing perspective of an omniscient outside narrator. Pearl, Reethi, and Ava shared. Finally, we were challenged to the task of writing a single story from two distinctly different points of view. The participants were given 15 minutes to write from one perspective, and then 15 minutes to write from a different point of view. Pearl, Yueling, Reethi, Peri, Rachael, and Ava all read their fantastic work. Scroll down below to see what the young writers came up with! The Challenge: Write a single story with two points of view changing after 15 minutes. The Participants: Ava, Pearl, Peri, Anya, Celia, Crystal, Greta, Yueling, Nami, Nova, Rachael, Reethi Blame the Squirrels Peri Gordon, 12 Eleanor: It was a summer day, but a dreary summer day, when my older sister, sixteen-year-old Priscilla, came home with a pear and made the dreary day a thrilling one. The sun, a constant cause of misery, was worth it when the light met the fruit, allowing it to glow like the beacon of hope that it was. We had been living off of no more than bread and water for so long I had stopped keeping track, and the prospect of something smooth and sweet on my tongue wasalmost more than my mind could handle. I didn’t know where my sister got this juicy, green treasure, but I knew her intention was to keep it for herself, as that’s surely what I would have done in her situation. In fact, she was smiling to herself, just waiting to devour the treat. I knew that if I didn’t intervene, I might never get to bite into a pear; I might starve to death before I could. So that night, with only the stars awake to witness my treachery (the stars are mischievous themselves and will certainly approve, I thought), I crept into the dragon’s den: Priscilla’s room. It was too easy, the prize lying exposed on my sister’s desk. I sank my teeth in. Then I opened the window, so my sister would wake up and blame the squirrels. Nobody would have to know. Priscilla: It was a summer day, a beautiful summer day, because my English teacher rewarded me with a pear for my exceptional essay, and I could give the pear to Eleanor, my younger sister and greatest joy. The plan was to make it a birthday present, as she would turn seven in two days, but as I walked through the door, I knew from the look in my sister’s eyes that she saw the object I was holding behind my back and would not wait to bite in. I smiled to myself, knowing what Eleanor would do. She was young and impatient, and she had stolen many times before. And that was alright with me. It was our parents’ job to teach her not to steal, not mine. So that night, I stayed awake in bed, wanting to see her take that heavenly first bite. I saw her tiptoe in on her tiny feet, a little mouse with golden hair. I saw the utter bliss on her face as the taste of the pear sank into her mouth. Then she opened the window, thinking I would wake up and blame the squirrels. It was adorable, really, how she was oblivious enough to think that I was oblivious.
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #44: Writing Dialogue
An update from our forty-forth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, October 8, plus some of the output published below This week’s workshop, Conner began with the caveat that these tools for writing dialogue, while strict, are just his opinion, and that we are free to write dialogue however we like. Conner’s “eight tools for writing dialogue,” not rules, started with the suggestion that dialogue should be realistic, but not too realistic. For example, even though most people overuse the word “like,” we don’t need to pepper our dialogue with these phrases. The rest of the tools were as follows: 2) use dialogue to reveal characters (differentiate characters, show a character’s personality, make character’s seem real, only write down interesting, essential, and surprising dialogue). As an example we read an excerpt of dialogue from Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God. 3) Start dialogue late, and end dialogue early. In other words, forget about hello and goodbye; jump into the dialogue at the moment the dialogue is essential, and end before the dialogue gets tedious. 4) Avoid the “information dump,” situations in which the characters are presenting each other with information they already know, but that the audience doesn’t. This information should be placed in summary. 5) Gestures are more communicative than words. As an example, we revised the sentence “‘I can’t believe it,’ he shouted, covering his mouth in disbelief” into “he covered his mouth.” 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, or when characters speak past each other with their own agendas. We used an example from Hemingway’s story “Hills Like White Elephants,” wherein the man wants to talk about their relationship, whereas the woman wants to talk about literally anything else. But you don’t want to get too indirect to the point of using non-sequiturs. 8) Avoid synonyms of the “to say” verb. They often end up being redundancies. Let the reader infer the mood rather than explaining it. The Challenge: Write a poem or short story entirely in dialogue, in which the characters are doing something else—walking, building something, making dinner, writing a letter, playing a game, telling a story—while talking to each other. The Participants: Emma, Anna, Alice, Russell, Savi, Anushka, Arjun, Allie, Robert, Aditi, Benedetta, Tate, Ella, Josh, Samantha In the Kitchen Emma Hoff, 10 “And she brought along all of her friends… I swear, people flit to her like moths to a lamp!” “Moths… horrible things.” “And I simply had to sit there and take it all, trying to pull her over to the side to tell her that I’d never invited any of these people without seeming rude!” “They make holes in clothes, you know that? Well, they’ll never get near any of my clothes… they’ll have to meet my swatter first!” “And then she insisted that they were ‘ever so kind,’ and ‘wouldn’t I let them stay?’ and I had to say yes. She makes me so angry sometimes!” “I would never invite her to a party… she’s just as bad as one of them moths!” “And then she said, ‘oh, Jerry, you’re ever so kind to let them stay!’ and then bustled about, trying to help, but she didn’t do anything at all! She isn’t even interesting to talk to!” “Parties are such a waste of time… oh, look, I’ve burned the potatoes! Stop distracting me with your talk of insects.” “But I’m not talking about insects… here, let me help you, you’ve gone and covered the whole counter with potato skins, how many did you use?” “Don’t tell me I didn’t hear you… you were talking about insects! Female insects, who do nothing but buzz in your ear all day, who you, for some reason, invite to your parties.” “Well, it was definitely a mistake… I’m serious, how many potatoes did you use? And you’re not planning on using all those green beans, are you?” “I’m not planning on wasting my time looking at that silly recipe… I trust my cooking instincts. You can never have too many potatoes.” “This is absolutely ridiculous!” “Maybe you can invite that bug and her millions of friends over to finish our leftovers.” “Stop calling her a bug!” “Why? I thought you didn’t like her.” “I simply don’t believe in calling people bugs.” “Phooey… Myrtle called Janet a nosy fly all of yesterday… of course, I won’t tell her that I agree with her, I would never live it down…” “That many green beans is quite enough…” “You know, Myrtle was telling me earlier that I should go to a nursing home somewhere, where someone can take care of me… I told her that I had my son to take care of me, if you weren’t always away at your parties…” “You can stop glaring at me, you’re exaggerating… and don’t dump all the green beans in!”
