Session 10: Wrap-up

At this meet-up we:

• discussed challenges we are facing with regards to our writing, and shared updates on our works-in-progress.
• talked about what topics we would like to see addressed or that various individuals might lead a discussion about. 

Writing obstacles we are facing:

• Getting from action scene to actions scene. The antagonist is a doer and not prone to introspection, yet the character and plot both require a moment of reflection to take stock and maintain the pacing. How to keep this from dragging and being boring? 

          One suggestion:
       
         -Think of your action scenes as dosing a reader. You want each dose (action scene) to have maximum impact so you're not numbing your reader. A break in the action not only preserves its potency, but allows the writer to pursue the MC's internal journey's and struggles which give the reader an "in" to connect with the protagonist and understand his or her fears/weaknesses/motivations.

• Getting feedback from Beta readers.

         Conclusion:
   
         -Perhaps sending to more readers doesn't ensure more feedback. In previous Beta reading cycles, writer had six readers and got six sets of feedback. This round, more than tripled the number of readers yet still only got six sets of feedback. If you've got a good range of readers that consistently provide quality input, adding more people may not yield better results.

• There was a general feeling that many writers would benefit from group writing sessions, to have accountability and the benefit of peer pressure to write and not... not-write.

And in victories, Sabine finished the first draft of her novel! Woo hoo!

Some suggestions for future meet-ups:

• All read a short story and have one person present on a particular story element
• All write to a prompt and then share the results
• A discussion or presentation on outlining and structuring, and the various approaches (painter/sculpter, plotter/pantser)
• Pick a format and discuss its  mechanics: long story, short short, poem, essay
• Discuss/present on detail accuracy and how much research, explanation, description is required 
• How nonfiction writing works and how much fiction and fictional elements play into this genre
• Scene setting during action scenes: providing context and a clear sense of space and movement while maintaining the intensity
• Protagonists and Antagonists

Session 9: Wrap-up

Instead of a traditional workshopping session, we spent the discussion portion of this meet-up analyzing self-selected published pieces of what each of us consider to be (nearly) flawless writing.

A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

Through careful use of language, symbolism, and imagery the author is able to assign multiple meanings to people and objects, such that when he talks about one thing, it evokes for the reader a deeper significance with multiple associations associations.

Thanh-Nu brought up the idea that every story is two stories, and when the narrative really works, those two stories collide and make magic at the intersection. Sometimes that second story comes entirely from the reader and has nothing to do with the author's intentions. In any case, this second story is often different from reader to reader. It's the individual reader's own perspective and perceptions that shape what they see as the secondary narrative and its meaning.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Economy of language is key to the author's ability to convey so much with very little description. This launched a discussion around the themes of show v. tell and the idea that less is more, especially in evoking horror in a reader (or viewer). Given a powerful suggestion, our imagination can spin more terror than any text or image might invoke. Jim posited idea of "writing as mind control," where a writer is carefully manipulating the reader to think and feel according to the writer's plan. We also talked about the pacing of McCarthy's storytelling, and how it not only allows you room to think and provide your own imaginings, but propels the story forward in tight, effective scenes.

Red Plenty by Frances Spufford

The use of language/word choice serves form and function, such that meaning is conveyed in a poetic way. Alliteration, repetition, rhythm, and motif create lyrical prose exploring--as Sabine put it--the tension between the ordained world and the natural one.

In and around these discussions of specific texts, we also hit on:

• getting to the root of why we, the writer, are writing what we're writing? It's a crucial question, and often difficult to answer. This subject stemmed from the more specific question of why an author will traumatize a reader. Is it a power/ego trip, or is there value in this? What's the purpose?

• the difference between eliciting an organic response from a reader versus trying to write to that response (making a reader cry, for example, versus *trying* to make your reader cry)

• how, in nonfiction, it can take years and years to get to the truth of a moment or experience and be able to write it as it was, uncolored by anger or other strong emotions that might disrupt the authenticity and effectiveness of the writing.

Giving and Receiving Feedback

For the last portion of the meet-up, Renée led a discussion on giving and receiving feedback. 
(See her notes below.)

We discussed the "sandwich" model of feedback, structuring your comments in a positive-negative-positive order, and how it is no longer a preferred model for giving input.  Instead, just giving positive feedback, followed by the constructive criticism, is a better approach. Renée also highlighted the SBU, SAID, DRIVE, and CARE models, which are detailed in her notes. Similar to the ineffective nature of the sandwich, using the word "but" in a sentence renders everything before that word null and void. "And" is a much better word choice. In a group setting like workshopping, ensure the group has continuity in their feedback approach.

Tips for receiving feedback:

• When you're ready, everything goes better. To mentally prepare yourself, consider all feedback—positive and negative—a gift, and thank the person giving it (no matter how hard it may be to hear what they have to say!). 

• Whether they are sharing a criticism or a flattery, you're likely to be triggered by it. Have strategies for dealing with your response. Do you reply to stressful situations with a fight or flight response? Do you get angry and combative, or shut down and want to run away?

• To buy yourself time (usually 90 seconds is needed) to move through your triggered reaction, have a pen and paper ready to write down what the person is saying. This serves two purposes: it allows you to do something productive and appropriate to the situation while the panic passes, and you are also keeping a record of what is actually being said instead of what you expect to hear or think they are saying. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing; when you go back and review your notes, you may be surprised to find that the criticisms weren't nearly as bad as you felt they were in the moment!

• Another tool to buy time is to ask clarifying questions: Can you say more about/describe that? Can you give me an example?

Tips for giving feedback:

• Make clear that this is your perspective on the situation, not a judgement of the person. These are the facts as you, the giver, sees it, and focus on the impact you've observed and what you'd like to see done about it (possible fixes and actions).

• Don't attack the person, make broad generalizations, or imply that everyone holds the same opinion (unless you have verified this is so, and even then, tread lightly to avoid a sense of ganging up on the recipient). 

• Don't be vague or unclear, or use judgemental language.

• Always go for frequent and thorough feedback versus infrequent and incomplete input.

• Focus on the behavior, not the individual.

• Report observations and stay specific.

• Put yourself in the other person's shoes.

Timing!

When giving or receiving feedback, ensure you have adequate time for the conversation. If you know you're going to be distracted or interrupted, reschedule. Ensure you're in the right mindset such that the exchange is productive. And when giving feedback, try to keep the input close to when the action or situation occurs.

Session 8: Wrap-up

We had so much fun with our exercise this week: to read and attempt to critique the Very Bad Prose that Lindsey posted for us, courtesy Dangerously Curvy Novels.

We are now fairly sure that, yes, it is terrible prose, and we all came away from it with extra determination to be aware of our reader's expectations, not only with how a text should look on the page (typos, breaking up paragraphs, punctuation etc.) but also that somewhere there needs to be a point. And if bad use of language and distracted narrative obscures the point ...? We'll likely chuck the book.

World-building

Thanks to Jerome for an informative and practical view into the art of world-building. 

Two key starting points, especially for writers of fantasy, that you can't go wrong with:

• geography
• magic  

Geography

A great place to start is by drawing a map of your world because this will inform the action, the history of the land and its inhabitants, the character of the people/creatures ... it can also kick-start great plot ideas (e.g. How exactly are they going to cross that mountain range in winter? What if the delta is flooded?).

Magic

A writer should always be aware of what exactly is possible to do with their magic (or new technology).

Say, for example, you have a box that can record people's thoughts. There are many questions you can ask about that box:

• From what distance does it work?
• What happens when there are multiple people in the same place?
• Does it need to be calibrated to a person, or does it work on anyone? 
• How big is the box? 
• And so on. 

You need to know the answer to all of these questions, and fix them!

If a technology (or magic) is very powerful, look at all your scenes and consider if the problems your character faces could be solved with it, because even if your characters don't remember, your readers still will!

Secondly, remember that all magic must come at a cost.

An exercise

Pick anything that could be the cost of your magic ...
e.g. What if the cost of casting a spell is a loss of air around the person casting the spell? What if you lose some hair when you use magic?

Now think about all aspects of that, and how this tension/friction will inevitably impact on the society's infrastructure, its culture, its religions, the world around the characters, the way those at either extreme would be treated, and so-on.

Session 7: Wrap-up

Our 'topic' this session was Point of View (POV), and we were able to incorporate some thoughts about POV and its importance into the workshopping session.

We also had a discussion about writing in a language that's not your mother tongue.

POV

We kicked off with our workshop piece, and referred to the first chapters of the submitted work-in-progress to look at two POV aspects in particular:

1. How we break up our narrative on the page, asking questions like: How can the visual design be a 'clue' for the reader about a change in POV?

For example, italics can signify that the narrative voice is switching from external to internal. Thriller novels use this technique, sometimes as a way to get inside the head of the protagonist or the antagonist. (e.g. Silence of the Lambs.)

Similarly, a paragraph break can be a clue that a new action is happening, or we are changing focus (or dialogue) to a different character, or perhaps a different train of thought is being tacked.

2. How we choose to position our narration. How much does the narrator know? Are they all-knowing? How much of what they say is reliable?

We discussed the advantages of having a narrator who doesn't know everything (who is not omniscient), because it can be easier to keep the reader 'in the dark' or 'guessing', so to speak.

And, on the other hand, with Memoir, for example, omniscience can be useful for painting pictures with broad strokes, especially when writing about, e.g., a global political climate, or events going on in a country at the time the story is set.

(We also talked briefly about The Martian, because about 2/3 of the way through (ish), the 3rd person narrative voice breaks into an omniscient voice ... for just one solitary chapter. It's weird, but somehow it works, perhaps because of the pace or timing, as up till that point it's a fairly intense, same-ish read, and the break-out chapter provides a change of sorts for the reader to take a breath. We're talking about the final frontier, after all!)

We talked about the excellent exercise of breaking down our narrative into dot points, in order to remove everything that isn't a straight-up description of action. (One of Libby's favourite activities. :)) This is good practice for learning to identify opinion and fact (or action), and how we use the interplay of these elements (plus description and our innate writerly magic of course!) in order to build narrative reliability (or not).

An 'unreliable narrator' can provide the reader with a 'game', where they must work out what's real and what's not, what's fact and what's narrative fiction. Fun!

Writing in a language that's not your mother tongue

In this session, Thanh-Nu kindly shared her experiences of writing in English (a third language), having first learned Vietnamese and then French.

An insight for all of us was that being able to write in our first language can be an advantage, but we can also be too 'close' to that language, and sometimes writing in a different language can give you critical distance ... as well as some turns of phrase that are very 'non-cliché' and even unusually beautiful.

Session 6: Wrap-up

This time, we:

• Share insights and questions regarding the Session 5 exercise
• Workshop a short story
• Hear from Jim, who is leading the discussion on beta readers

Examples of Antagonists

We discussed how antagonists don't have to be the Darth Vaders of the story; antagonists can be environmental catastrophes (Twister), war zones (War of the Worlds), cultural attitudes and expectations, illness, corporations ...

Within our group, we are writing about:

• A genetic disorder that shows itself in different ways and the people have different narratives around it and how it affects their mortality and lives;
• Opium addiction;
• The institution that’s doing mostly bad things;
• The man/revenge that is the personal level;
• The incidental side-kick who ends up being a ‘bad person’;
• Societal attitudes about career and motherhood;
• Internal conflict.

Important to remember that a story's man character—sometimes referred to as the hero and usually the most sympathetic character—isn't always all good, just as its villain or antagonist isn't always entirely evil. The best stories have complicated characters with shades of gray. A main character may be doing a good deed (saving the world/the girl or winning the war) for entirely selfish reasons. The antagonist may be an antagonist by pure dint of being the thing or person that stands in the way of our hero achieving his or her mission. A villain can absolutely have good intentions, but those actions/intentions still serve as a block or threat to our protagonist's journey.

Often the "villains" in a story are manifold, which keeps the dramatic tension nuanced and prevents the conflict from constantly being one showdown after another between the same two characters. For example, one story may have a human villain, an "evil" institution (which your human antagonist may be a representative or embodiment of), and then an internal conflict.

The internal conflict is often a battle between what a character wants and what is best for his or her own interests. This inner struggle can be applied to any manner of subjects: addiction, loving the "wrong" person, knowing you have to destroy the One True Ring but also feeling too exhausted and mortal not to succumb to its power ...


Beta Reading

Alpha Feedback is the ‘what do you think of this?’ broad strokes feedback.

Beta Feedback is great for honing the editing skills. Main goal being getting contextual feedback: characters, plot, flow, anything that might feel ‘off’ for readers.

Many beta readers will try to edit. Tell them no.

Personally: get in the right headspace first because it’s not a time for pats on the back, it’s putting yourself out there to get constructive feedback, sometimes rough but fair.

Pick the right readers: 4 minimum suggestion. You want eyes on the pages. Use the numbers to dictate how much of a problem something is. You can’t argue with numbers, so let the math do the work.

Give a deadline: about 4 weeks is good. 2 months is too long.

Who to choose: Allocate an aspect of the feedback to specific readers (you don’t have to make that the main purpose, but if you value someone’s specialised area, then choose them to get that POV). Choose an ‘end user’: the basic reader who reads for the heck of it, just to get a reading on the general appeal of the book.

Format matters: try to give it in a format that people can read.

Give context: what state is the manuscript in at the point the reader is receiving it?


Quote of the week

Accolades go to Jim, and I am paraphrasing here ...

There can be a million ways to fix a problem in your story but the real goal is to solve that problem.

The idea being that a fix is a patch or a shortcut—kind of a ta-daa! moment that comes out of nowhere and isn't necessarily in keeping with the plot or character development. A solve would be in keeping with both.

Session 5: Wrap-up

This session we covered:

• The writing exercise, in which we revisited what the main character wants more than anything and what he/she is willing or compelled to give up in order to secure it. 
• What obstacles still stand in the way of the character achieving this mission or goal.
• Which obstacle could be considered the antagonist/villain, and what manifestations this force or character takes.

Last session's exercise: Revisiting character wants/needs

We discussed the range of character wants and motivations, from subtle to more obvious, and how these can go hand in hand with the genre or style of the story being told. For example, I have been reading the novel A Little Life, a 700-some-page character-driven novel in which the main character's greatest desire is to be normal and safe. Compare such a subjective 'want' (normalcy) to a plot-driven story in which the character motivation is often (not always) going to be more tangible or active (getting the girl, finding a cure, climbing the mountain). 

Often a character will have multiple motivations, but they vary in size and urgency. It is the thing the character cannot carry on without having or doing that carry the story. Those secondary needs/wants will often drive the subplot.

The Antagonist or Villain

So what is preventing our hero from reaching his goal? As with the main character's motivations, the obstacles are likely manifold. These road blocks keep the story moving and raise the stakes for the main character. But just as you determined which of the many your character's primary motivation is, determine a hierarchy for the obstacles preventing the character from getting where he or she is going, from inconvenient all the way up to life-threatening.

These obstacles are not always human, or even living beings. While there will usually be contrarian characters in any story, the biggest issue for the main character could be something non-sentient of either internal (disease, phobia, poverty) or external (geography, a political regime, time) provenance.

We considered our own works with respect to obstacles and antagonists.

In Karl's nonfiction work-in-progress, he won't know yet he scope of the challenges until he starts hiking the trails he's researched and will write about. He and his companions could face treacherous weather, health-, geographical-, or animal-related obstacles, or perhaps they may even encounter some interfering humans, as well. (We hope not.)

Sometimes the biggest thing standing in the character's way isn't a traditionally bad thing. For example, in Jerome's work-in-progress, in the process of seeking revenge, the main character falls in love, and he must choose between this love or his original mission.

We talked about how Jim's hero is himself a bit of a villain, yet he is the villain we root for--the best of the worst.  Anf this main character is confronting the gamut of obstacles: internal (opium addiction, inhabiting a new body), as well as external human adversaries and the incompetence of his colleagues.

For my part, the baddie in my next work on nonfiction is a gene mutation, so... that gives you a nice wide range of villains to consider. (Lions and romance and genes, oh my!)

Think about stories in which a character's wildest dream comes true (insane wealth, power) and how that lottery-winning event is ultimately his/her undoing. What other unconventional iterations of an antagonist can you think of?

Obstacles within, obstacles without

 Instead of workshopping someone's writing this week, we did a check-in on our works-in-progress. In talking about the current status of our projects, we realized that just as there are narrative obstacles for our main characters, so are there narrative obstacles for us as the writers.

For my part, facility with research and medical writing will be a challenge, as well as getting "audience participation" since I'm compiling an oral and written history from members of one side of my family.

For Karl, the white-washing of the geographical and historical records he is researching both motivates his narrative (he's writing an indigenous history of the trails as a counterpoint to the Western explorers' accounts) and complicates his efforts to find information from native sources.

We had a very interesting discussion regarding Jerome's impulse to go back and fix what he has already written before going further. For him, this helps in not making the same writing mistakes again and again. The idea is to correct and carry on better than before.

Session 4: Wrap-up

This session we covered:

• The session 3 exercise, considering the setting of the inciting incident  
• The benefits of Beta readers 
• Dialogue across genres

Last session's exercise: The setting of your inciting incident

By first looking at how the setting of the inciting incident functioned is some popular films (https://screencraft.org/2015/09/08/10-strong-inciting-incidents-in-screenplays/) we looked at its function in our own works.

• What significance does that location have with relation to the theme and tone of the work at large? 
• Do the characters return to this location? 
• When, and why? 

The inciting incident works like a point of no return, a moment in which a fuse is lit, setting the story up for the climactic showdown later on and ultimately the resolution; as such, the place in which this action/moment/revelation takes place should be significant to the story.

How (and why!) to use Beta readers

We went wildly off script and discussed, instead, the benefit of Beta readers!

Megan talked about the type of Beta readers she has for her current project (balancing, for example, enough Carroll fans with the many Austin fans since her piece is Austin fan fic set in Carroll's Wonderland).

Jim offered that dialogue was an early flag by his Beta readers, and something he has since worked on to make it feel authentic. He also noted that in the sometimes dozen-odd drafts he writes per novel, he uses each draft to refine a specific component. For example, draft one could be dialogue, two might focus on setting, three for character, and so on. Can you relate to this approach?

Jim dropped some wisdom, pointing out that great storytelling does not equal great writing, and vice versa. Look at the writing in The DaVinci Code! Taught pacing and great intricacy ... terrible prose!

Dialogue across (and within!) genres

This prompted a conversation about the function of dialogue with regards to but not limited to genre. How different, for example, Austin-esque dialogue is from Carroll-inspired.

Look, then, at how period or fan fiction dialogue would differ from that in steam punk or sci-fi. Even within the genre of fantasy, the rhythms and style of dialogue can vary depending on the story. Look at the dialogue in Game of Thrones versus Lord of the Rings and how they handle explication, invented languages, and the world-building considerations of history and lineage.

We talked about reading drafts out loud, not just to hear the dialogue spoken, but also as a means of catching grammatical and continuity errors.

A final note on context

And finally, we ruminated on how the timing of the reading (in your life or with regards to current events) and perspective of the reader (pre-marriage or post-baby, for example) impacts your response to the work.

Lindsey mentioned reading Handmaid's Tale now and how it might've struck me differently if I'd read it back when it was originally published.

This opens up the subject of repeat readings.

• Do you re-read books?
• Do you have a new take upon the second (or third, or fourth) pass? 
• If you're a re-reader, what was the book and how did each subsequent reading differ from the first?

This discussion carried us through our workshopping of Megan's fan fiction chapter from the novel-length work Darcy in Wonderland.

Session 3: Wrap-up

Session 3 : Wrap-up

This session we covered:

• Session 2 Exercise: the Elevator Pitch prompt

• The Inciting Incident

• The Hero's Journey

Last Session's exercise: Elevator Pitch prompt

The elevator pitch prompt we posed as a warm-up exercise for this week proved challenging, whether trying to create an elevator pitch for an existing work (film/book) or our own.

We discussed Die Hard ("Why are all these people dying, again?") and the Fifth Element, before diving into our own elevator pitches.

Drawing from Blake Snyder's screenwriting book Save the Cat, we talked about how you can weave in the cause-and-effect verbs to create an information-packed and catchy sentence, perhaps even with a dash of irony.

See if your elevator pitch might fit into something like: Because of x, y must z before the villain blows up the world (or whatever else is putting pressure on the protagonist to get the job done!).

Inciting Incident

This elevator pitch exercise led us into the inciting incident (II), or the 'x' from the formula above.

The II is a moment/action/event that changes everything, from which there is no turning back. You could think of it as lighting the fuse—once that inciting incident has come to pass, the dynamite/canon/firework of your story's climax is bound to blow.

In examining the inciting incident from three movies, we learned that the main character's relationship to the II can be proactive or reactive. Has something happened coincidentally and the Main Character gets drawn in, or does the MC actively stage his or her own point of no return?

Let's look at the (truly head-scratching!) examples:

The Hunger Games: This was a great example because the inciting incident is twofold, and both proactive and reactive. Prim is selected as the tribute, which prompts Katniss to volunteer herself ... all within the space of a minute.

Titanic: Tricky, because this is a story within a story. There is Jack winning the hand—and the tickets to the Titanic—in a game of poker (without this event, the story wouldn't have happened) ... but that's nested within the larger framework of the elderly Rose discovering that her portrait was excavated from the wreckage of the Titanic, after which she decides to share her story. It comes back to the question: Whose story is it? And, ultimately, it's Rose's story.

LOTR: Also a meaty one. Is the inciting incident when Bilbo pulls his disappearing act, tipping Galdalf off to the presence of the ring? Or is it the moment Frodo receives the envelope? (The one containing the ring, after which he tells Gandalf what happens when he puts it in the fire.) OR is it in the voice-over preamble when the ring is created in the first place?!? Hmmmmm ...  Again, the purpose of the exercise is to get us thinking about it in terms of whose story it is and, in this case, it's Frodo's story. No ring=no adventure.

Inciting Incidents can be genre-specific (it's about audience expectation).

   Romance: the lovers meet
   Sci-fi: something malfunctions (think Passengers, The Martian) or is stolen
   Horror: something is unleashed or attacks
   Crime/Police Procedural: a body is found

Think of the II as the promise to the reader, that the ending will be a reasonable, inevitable, and surprising conclusion to what has kicked off beginning of the story.

Hero’s journey 

We didn't talk much about the larger flow of the Hero's Journey (as outlined by Joseph Campbell, good overview here from The Writer's Journey) as most people were familiar with it. Instead, we dived straight into the start of the adventure from the Ordinary World to the point of no return, thinking about the Hero, and what sustains them through the journey, because this is related to the inciting incident.

Good to ask: Who’s doing the action and why are they doing it? 
Asking this question also answers: What’s at stake?

The WHY is the driving motivation that will take them and compel them through the entire journey. It’s what they’re looking for, or DEFENDING. It will also give you the shape of what the character will look like (what they’ve learned) by the end, even if they don’t WANT to learn it.

It's easy to understand if we look at the extreme: if the 'why' is because the protagonist wants to stay alive. That's the ultimate driver.

But it can be equally driving if your goal is to 'save your wife from the hostages' (Die Hard) or 'bring down the powers that be' (Divergent).

If you don’t know:

Make a list of Wants / Needs and hierachy-ify it.

Then write it on a sticky note and stick it on your computer to refer to, because unsurprisingly (since it came out of your head) it will also give YOU, the writer, core motivation to drive the story from go to woe.

Next look at the things that will obstruct them from their goal.

This can be internal or external.

NB Genres have different weightings of this: e.g. James Bond traditionally (until the last 3 iterations, at least) has had literally NO internal obstacles. He only has external obstacles like: enemies of Britain chasing him or obstructing him, being captured or blown up, even his boss who tells him he's not supposed to be doing something. (Does he let this stop him? No. He's 007. He's a machine.)

Identifying what’s at stake.

What do you have to risk/sacrifice/give up?

In the survival adventure 127 Hours James Franco has to literally get to the point where he can decide to cut off his own hand. Nice. NB: in this case, the ultimate antagonist is a rock!

We discussed how the Hero’s Journey links into so many components. e.g. We can also look at the villain’s story and how that interacts with the hero. Is the villain's most pressing want or need in direct conflict with the hero's? Or do they want the same thing, and are thus in a competition with each other?

Often, when you set your antagonist level of 'badness' or 'evilness' at the highest possible level, it enables you to up the stakes to make it harder and harder for the protagonist. (Think Star Wars: You thought Vader was bad? How about The Emperor?!)

It's helpful to think of the Antagonist as the dark side of the Protagonist.

Session 2: Wrap-up

Getting Started & Story Mechanics

Short Feedback about last session's writing exercise

We noted that the 'write a paragraph without the letter 'e'' exercise was frustrating and slow, which was in part due to the lack of words available for use, and partly because writing in a second language can be challenging.

Doing these kinds of exercises are good because they help with distracting yourself from the fear of starting. At least you’re annoyed and not apprehensive!

1. Getting started

Ways to hack into your story, post-freewriting (or in place of freewriting)

• Write your character backstory. This could be anything from picking a year in their life—age 10, say—and profiling what their favorite things were, what they looked like, where they lived, pets, how they got along with their siblings, or doing a broader comprehensive profile (pretend you’re writing their match.com bio…) or something a little less flashy, like writing their CV

• Day in the life of your MC. What’s a Saturday like? Or Monday? How do they celebrate a particular holiday, or what would they do on their birthday?

• Write the weather report for your primary location/setting and/or a news report about something happening locally

• Dialogue practice. (write a conversation between your MC and... Dentist/boss/daughter/lover)

• The what-if game. What if your MC got fired/adopted a stray/won the lottery. What if your setting (the city/planet/etc) flooded/got bombed/hosted the Olympics?

• Pick a headline from the newspaper that corresponds to your setting and timeline and write a scene about your MC’s interaction with or reaction to it.

• Draw a storyboard or draw characters or scenes.

For nonfiction, particularly, it can be effective to write where you’re starting the chapter or essay and where you need to end up, and then listing all the things you want to include between those two points.

Chronology

In finding your way into the story, you’ll start to figure out whether you prefer to 

• write in order, from the start to finish of your work, or 
• jump around to the scenes or sections that are working for you, and then piece it all together later

Scope

You may also notice your limitations, i.e., how much you can write, or the length of story that feels comfortable for you.

Some writers feel 1,500 words (a short story) is their length. Some novelists feel they can't hold more than 65K words in their heads, whereas others will easily work with 120K words.

You may also become aware of how much time you think the story ‘deserves’ because—don't forget—this is about how much time the reader is willing to give to the writer!

2. Story Mechanics

Theme vs. Plot, Idea vs. Action 

In fiction and narrative nonfiction alike, there’s what happens to the characters, and what the characters do in their world (the action), and then there are the subjects or the ideas that the action represents or evokes (the theme). The theme gives meaning to the action.

We started by looking at a worksheet which allows us to break these threads down.

We looked specifically at Star Wars Episode 4 (fiction), and Into Thin Air (nonfiction).

Action or Idea Worksheet can be downloaded from Libby's website here.

We also talked about part of a chapter of The Lighthouse (literary fiction by Virginia Woolf), and discovered that in 3 pages of text, there were many ideas around the THEME of marriage, but the only pieces of ACTION were: 1. Mrs Ramsay looks at her husband; and 2. Mr Ramsay walks past his wife. (Yeah, not really in the action genre!)

Example: Man vs. nature

One common example across both genres is man vs. nature. (In fiction, think Jaws or Moby Dick.)

How it works in nonfiction:

Wild, A Walk in the Woods, Into Thin Air are three movies about hiking or mountaineering in which the characters set a challenge for themselves and set out to tackle it. Thus, the subject and theme are very similar.

Versus a different manifestation of man vs. nature in which the human character is confronted by nature imposing itself and he must rise above to survive. The Perfect Storm is a nonfiction example but this is also very popular in fiction (Jaws, Moby Dick), and Hollywood (natural disaster movies). Notably though, every title mentioned here has been adapted to film, and I like to think it is because the narrative ad thematic structures are so strong.

We talked about how the theme and subject matter of these hiking books were all similar; where it gets interesting, to me at least is what differentiates the. The characters and their motivations vary dramatically (a woman/former addict/divorcee hikes the PCT in search of healing (Wild) an aging writer and his friend attempt to complete the AT in defiance of their age and in search of natural beauty (Walk in the Woods) a writer accompanies an expedition to summit Everest with catastrophic results (Into Thin Air).

So not only are we in search of the representative idea of 'what happens,' but also who is performing this action, and why?

Session 1: Wrap-up

Writing: What and How?

1. We kicked off by talking about:

• What are your obsessions? (Put this away as a metric check for later.) 
• Why did you start writing? And/or why are you here? to start or continue writing? 

2. The in-class exercise was on Writing and Self-Awareness.

• Write a paragraph about a moment that you were surprised, or about some event/occurrence that surprised you. 
• Look at what you wrote and observe the way you wrote it: the words, the rhythms, the description, the topic, the emotions. 
• With your Editor's Hat on: does your writing remind you of a specific Genre of writing? Or even a particular writer? (This is an exercise in positioning, and also it will be helpful when you come to looking at what might be missing in your work, according to the genre norms.) 

This was a rich discussion, and we talked about:

• the challenges of setting an entire context for a surprise
• the expectation of a pay-off for the reader adds a layer of pressure to the writing
• do we think about the reader when we are writing?
• do we set the scene for the surprise with a long, detailed lead-up, or start with the surprise itself?
• do we really write what we mean as we strive to bridge the gap between what is in our heads and what comes out on the page?
• a style of writing can emerge that's not your usual style (e.g. using contractions, which doesn't fit with the preferred genre of historical fiction; some also noticed the blandness of their words and even the lack of words, when they first started)

The exercise becomes about not only what the reader finds out, but how they find it out, and when …

Across all genres, surprise is important, but it must also fit within the story. There is a tension between providing surprises to pique the readers’ interest and keep them engaged while making sure those surprises authentic.

We discussed whether people first write what they are going to write about, or whether they just begin writing (plotting versus pantsing). Even those who start with an outline can find that the outline itself is a daunting expectation to follow through on, or that they veer pretty quickly from the path they laid out.

What other tools, other than outlining, help reduce the pressure of the bank page?

3. We talked about giving feedback, with reference to our chosen guidelines, and there was mutual agreement that the guidelines serve as a great starting point for how we'd like to conduct our feedback.

4. We read a submitted piece and there was robust and respectful feedback given. We also observed that if you as 10 people ... you'll get 10 different responses! Good to bear in mind when you're getting feedback on your own work, because it's all about not taking it personally!

Quote of the week:

“The everything for you is the nothing for other people, and our job is to make it something for others.”  Thanh-Nu Leroy