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, and rhythm, and is “how the narrator addresses the reader.” To illustrate why voice matters, we were asked to write down a few things you would think of if you were told to write a one-paragraph story about the Holocaust. Afterwards, we looked at a story about the Holocaust written by the chatbot ChatGPT and compared it to a piece of flash fiction about the same topic, but by a person: “On Waterproofing” by Anne Carson. While the ChatGPT story was generic, boring, and loaded with cliches, “On Waterproofing” had a real voice. This was the same for the other ChatGPT stories we read versus the actual versions—“A Mown Lawn” by Lydia Davis and “Give it Up” by Franz Kafka. After reading these stories, we were asked to think of our own prompts. Conner picked a few of them and asked ChatGPT to write one-paragraph stories based on them. They were just as lacking in voice as the stories we read earlier. Then, we picked one of the stories and rewrote it, but better—in other words, with a voice. Finally, we shared our work. The Challenge: Take a story written by ChatGPT and rewrite it, better. The Participants: Emma, Anushka, Seva, Philip, Stella, Rachel, Polina, Liesl, Ananya, Yueling, Aaron, Madeline, Nova, Josh, Samarina
writing workshop
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 looked at openings of various stories and novels and found that in fact, there are many other ways to begin. We looked at stories that start in media res, or in the middle, such as The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Other pieces, such as The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, introduce a tone. Some examples, like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are humorous, others poetic. In the first few sentences of Toni Morrison’s Jazz, we even found the entire plot! To sum up the presentation, we reviewed three ways to begin a work of fiction that don’t involve mere exposition: we can reveal something, establish a style (or mood), or establish a theme or conflict. The Challenge: Write five different openings. The Participants: Emma, Amaya, Anushka, Ellie, Rachel, Samantha, Aaron, Philip, Yueling, Seva, Josh, Madeline, Polina, Ananya, Samarina, Stella, Nova, Catherine, Liesl
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 what we think of when we think of spring. We summed up our ideas in a list that included hopefulness, warmth, and brightness. Then we read “After the Winter” by Claude McKay. It incorporated rhyme, imagery, and musical language to convey a feeling of spring. The next poem, “In Just” by E.E. Cummings was similar—it was fast, fun to read, and felt free and excited. We looked at two more spring paintings, both of them very peaceful. This is how most people think of spring. However, the three poems we looked at next were very different. In the first section of “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot called “Burial of the Dead,” April is referred to as “the cruelest month,” while in “In Perpetual Spring” by Amy Gerstler, a garden is portrayed as “a good place to sulk.” In “May” by Jonathan Galassi, there is a disgusting description of rotting leaves. All of these poems describe spring in a negative way—plants sprouting from the ground like zombies, puddles of mud, flowers with thorns. We then listened to twos songs—“Spring” by Antonio Vivaldi, which offers a lively picture of spring, and “The Rite of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky, which shows a different side of it. The Challenge: Write a poem about spring. The Participants: Emma, Amaya, Samarina, Stella, Sarah, Lilian, Rachel, Polina, Aarush, Lucy, Nysa, Anika, Amelia, Daniel, Lindsay, Anushka, Miya, Nathan, Aaron, Yueling, Lina, Eric, Anna, Georgia, Jacey, Alice, Seva, Madeline
