EXERCISE: Three Summer Treats

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 01:24:00 -0400

(another aging column...)

Three Summer Treats

Hot dogs grilling, corn on the cob, sweat and sunshine -- summer makes it very tempting to skip the writing and just enjoy the sensory splendor of the season.  But, if you have some time, here are three short exercises that can help you to keep the words flowing.  First, using memories to build your writing.  Second, looking at the transitions in your writing.  Third, some very special ads from the personals that your characters may want to answer.

Enjoy your summer -- and write!

Once In Every Childhood...

A quick, simple exercise that you can take as far as you like.  Although I've written it for a story, you could also use it for poetic fodder.  Enjoy, and keep those fingers moving...

1.  Pick your emotion.

Flip a coin.  And roll a die (okay, pick a number from one to six...)

Heads?  Your list is:

1.  Sadness  2. Distress  3.  Relief 
4.  Joy   5.  Hate  6. Love

Tails?  Your list is:

1.  Fear  2. Anticipation 3. Anger 
4.  Guilt  5.  Gratitude  6. Pride

2.  Remember.  Remember.  Rememb...is that record skipping again?

Sometime when you were a child, you experienced this emotion. Remember that time.  Roll back the years, let those wrinkles smooth away, and put yourself in those days of yore, with the laughing friends making you cry even harder over...or maybe the terror when you drove the neighbor's new go-cart and the pedal stuck so you couldn't slow down...or what about the anger you felt when you saw that someone else was in your favorite seat on the bus?

3.  Write it up.  You can push the details around, maybe make the air from the drunk's mouth stink even worse than you really remember, or have Freddie's braces have these enormous spikes that tore into your lip...but make us feel the emotion.  Make us jump in our seats, lean into the spin, call out her name as our favorite dog runs into the traffic and the truck hits...

4.  Now.  Take that same emotion and scene, but rewrite it so that your protagonist (or even the antagonist, doesn't matter) is experiencing it with perhaps slightly different (adult type) surroundings.  Instead of the go-cart whizzing around the vacant lot, maybe it's a militarized dunebuggy sliding around Las Vegas?  Or what if the daughter of the police chief darts into traffic and is crushed?

Write about what you know?  You certainly know how you felt...don't you?  Just remember.  Stare into the little whirling bits on the screen and remember...

Smoothing Out Joints

[Based on "St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing" by Robert Connors and Cheryl Glenn, ISBN 0-312-06787-9, p. 233...]

W. Ross Winterowd in a 1970 article "The Grammar of Coherence" argued that transitions (at the paragraph or "discourse bloc" level) are crucial to form and coherence, with coherence being consistent relationships among transitions.  His seven relationships and the terms that express such relationships are:

1.  Coordination - and, furthermore, too, in addition, also, again
2.  Obversativity - but, yet, however, on the other hand
3.  Causativity - for, because, as a result
4.  Conclusativity - so, therefore, thus, for this reason
5.  Alternativity - or
6.  Inclusativity - the colon
7.  Sequentiality - first, second, third; earlier...later, etc.

[Please allow me to express my extreme displeasure at such ugly labels - obversativity, indeed!  They could have used And, But, For, So, Or, Inclusion and Order, but no, they had to take a healthy word like Cause or maybe Causality and wring its little spine into Causativity?  Yech, poo, some English instructors should be tested for linguistic sensitivity and then fired!]

Okay.  The exercise assumes you have a piece of your very own sitting there in front of you.  It can be an essay, fiction, or poetry.

First, go through the piece and identify the "discourse blocs" - the chunks you have used in writing the piece.

Next, look at the transitions used to tie the pieces together.  Butt joints in writing, like those in carpentry and plumbing, need some finishing - a little smoothing and glue to help the reader across without splinters in their head from the edges.

So identify your transitions.  Consider whether they are the best for this part of your piece, or whether another one might be better suited.

Simple, right?  Just walk through your piece and make sure you have used transitions between the various pieces.

But...try it.  You may find that just making sure the transitions are correct helps make the structure of your piece coherent and well-developed, which makes the whole piece work better.  It's a little like the chiropractor manipulating your spine - get it right and everything works well, leave it crooked and nothing seems to fit.

The Personals

Short, and maybe sweet?

Pick a number from one to six.  Yes, you may use a die if so inclined.

(Did you pick a number yet?  We're waiting...okay?  Got your number, right?  Let's go!)

1.  "Come Home, Elvis!  Your grandson needs the target practice!  Call 555-9834 today."

2.  "Young woman urgently needed to save world.  Experience desirable, not necessary for the right person.  Will train.  Expenses not included.  Will contact you using Gjallarhorn via Bifrost."

3.  "Bodies Available.  Off-the-rack or custom, we have what you need at the lowest rate.  Come in and take one home today.  See Peter Wilton Cushing at 1235 Homunculus Row."

4.  "Redheads Needed for Photo Opportunity.  Come in, we snap, and you leave $25 richer.  The League, 221B Baker Street."

5.  "The World Ended Yesterday.  Why Are You Reading This?  Respond to Police Box 378, TARDIS Type 40."

6.  "Lost Pet Unicorn Found on 5th and Maple.  Owner - please call 555-1379.  Ask for Dab-Dab of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh."

In reading their friendly local newspaper this morning, one of your characters noticed this slightly unusual advertisement in the personals.  They react...

(Of course, if your character reads the news at lunch, sitting in an airport, or perhaps sandwiched between riders in the bowels of New York, that is your choice!)

Tell us about that recognition.  You may start with the ad if you like, then show us the scene, with the coffee slowly being poured over the pancakes as they stare at the paper, or...

Whatever happens in your story (poem, vignette, etc. at your election).

Tell it now.

EXERCISE: Goals and Conflict

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 22:31:00 -0400

Goals and Conflict

Sadistic Writing (Putting Stakes in Your Writing)

You've got a problem -- here's a character you want to write about, you know what s/he wants to accomplish (the goal, the motivation, that place they dream and scheme for), but you're not sure what to put in the middle.

The books say conflict.  But today we're going to do it real simple -- step-by-step, you might say.

Step 1.  Pick a character and goal.  While most goals are major, for this exercise it is all right if you just want the poor schnook to get to the other side of the road, buy some gum, or whatever.

Step 2.  Now make a list of at least ten (10!) things that could get in the way of reaching that goal.  Little things - somebody moved the road - or big - someone kidnapped the Pope, shot the dog and is threatening to blow up the world if your character achieves their dream... List them up.  Don't worry about how the character will get over, around or through them yet.

Step 3.  Pick five (5) things from the list (the classic number is three, but we're going to stretch a little).  Now, put these in order by the size of the stakes involved - how hard is it going to be for the character to beat them?  What is it going to cost to beat them?  Pay attention to the possibility that non-material costs are "bigger" than material costs.  The basic order should be cheap to expensive - start with some easy stakes, low costs to the character for LOSING.

For a comic relief, you might reverse the order - looking at loss of house and family, the boss threatening to take away executive parking privileges is a joke.  Such reversals in the rising stakes can be effective, but be careful not to make a mockery of the character (unless that's what you really want to do, of course).

Step 4.  Now expand your plot.  At each block until the very last one, the character is going to LOSE (that means NOT win).  Raise the price of getting to that goal every step of the way.

Step 5.  Write that sucker up.

Step by step, slowly I turned... as the sadistic, cruel author turned up the heat, whipped me, rubbed salt into the lashmarks, crushed my toes in a press, and at last, long last, put me where I needed to be, racked between the pillars of the temple.  With my last ounce of spinach-inspired power, I pulled the temple down on his head... well, I'm sure you'll do better than that.

He's off, and sliding back, being kicked, he's down, folks, he's down, and now he's on the ropes... and what a comeback!

That's the sadism that makes the character's victory meaningful - the writer put everything they could think of in the way, and that rascal just got better and better.

As will your story.

Getting To A Climax

1.  Start with someone (a character!) trying to do something (a goal!).  If you like, pick a number (between one and six--a single die will do you).

    1.  go on vacation
    2.  go to a movie
    3.  go shopping
    4.  get to work
    5.  go home
    6.  have a party

2.  Stop and think.  Make a list of problems that might arise. Natural disasters, governmental intervention (love your local cop, fireperson, or other crisis stirrer), mechanical failures, power outages, neighbors who don't understand (being arrested for breaking into your own house is embarrassing!), family that seems bent on revenge--or at least on achieving their own goals, coworkers, the list goes on and on...

Make your list of at least five and preferably ten items that could get in the way.  Pick some fun ones (my father-in-law used to tell the story of going to the movies the day of the Great Tokyo Earthquake...)

3.  Now ponder how your character might overcome those petty roadblocks--and why!  When the trashmaster gleefully eats the cake that has just taken four hours to bake and frost--does your character sink into a jellymold and quiver or decide to take out the kids' piggybanks and buy a leftover funeral cake?  What's so important to your character about this silly job, anyway?

4.  Rearrange the blocks and reactions.  Start with some easy ones, then up the ante.  Drop world war three interfering with the party (although several authors have used that...) and make the progression from an everyday event to serious life commitment a natural one.

5.  Write it up!  You can either start with "I was on my way to..." and slowly build to the fight of your life, complete with torn clothing and tight hard smiles of gritted teeth--or start with the torn clothing, then flashback to how simply and easily normal life turned into a nightmare on thursday the twelfth...right here on main street USA...in anyone's backyard...

Grow for it!  A podperson in the garage?  oh, my.  Or just the ordinary annoyances of everyday life--a flat tire, the ATM decided to eat the bank card, the voicemail system seems to have the hiccups, and my boss--my boss has just decided to go wrestle wild bears in Canada? What else can go wrong, just trying to get through the day--or across the road?

[Oh, yes.  The starter sentence crowd is muttering...how about this one?

"How could she..." he muttered, and washed his hands.

let the tension build, slowly, slowly...and WRITE!]