Homework for Wednesday

• Bring in your Character Sketch revised (About 1 paragraph) to share with the class. What did you work on with the character; who was real template for the character? 

• Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" and mark the points in exposition and dialogue where "magical realism" exists. In essence, mark the places where the world and its physical rules are defined without being over-explanatory.

• Read Eudora Welty's "Why I Live at the PO" and note the differences in Welty's use of narrator/POV, dialogue and tone from both Marquez  and Hemingway.

Character Sketch

Exercise: Working on our own Characterization Skills

• First, pick a local setting: imagine that place, and what detail you need to clarify setting. Write down:  1. One sound that takes precedence.  2. One image that your character might turn their attention to at some point.  3. A smell a character might notice in this place

• Second, chose the plot point. Write down: 1. Why are they at this place? 2. Are they here with someone, alone, etc.?

• Third, provide the physical description:  1. Gender, height, age, skin tone, body type.  2. One to two body parts that represent this personal’s overall character well.

• Fourth, how does your character react to having to come to this place? Write down the one main thought that comes into your characters brain.

• Fifth, what is your character’s favorite word or phrase? Write this down.

• Sixth, how does your character act in public, around people? Write down: 1. What is his or her physical reaction the first time they meet someone.  2. How do they react to someone they dislike? 3. What is their main defense mechanism for dealing with conflict?

• Seventh, imagine a second, minor character that your character does not like! Write down only their name and the main reason they have a problem with this person.

• Eight, now you can spend time focusing on crafting your character and how you want readers to see them by using the above information to draft a brief scene (around 2-3 paragraphs?) …

The Art of Fiction: Chapter 2

1. Grammar is important. Master the basic rules of the English language.

2. What should "Write what you know" really mean?

• Gardner: write the type of story you know and like the best.
• To add to this: 

• use your personal experiences to better understand human actions and human interaction. 
• use your personal experiences to tap into different emotional and psychological reactions humans have to different situations.

• Nobody needs to equate "Write what you know" to personal biography. That's too reductive of a lesson. That phrase means: If you have lost a love one under X type of circumstances, you better understand loss of any kind than someone who can only imagine types of grief. What your experiences give you is emotional knowledge of the human condition, which is invaluable to the writer. You can empathize!

3. Verisimilitude! The ability to be consistent in the world you create, and to make that world plausible -- even if the world is surreal or absurd or in some other way extraordinary.

• Truth doesn't make the story. Characters and events must be interesting and convincing.
• Use foreshadowing details, flashbacks, and other clues in the plot to keep us reading.
• Use concrete images based on your study of human behavior and physiology. 
• Vivid imagery: detail, detail, detail. 

4. Again, you can't be experimental if you don't know what is traditional. Good, fresh writing comes from a need to study what's already been written--and how it was.

Read Chapter 3, "Interest and Truth," for Wednesday's class.

56 Best Worst Analogies & HW for Monday, 3/31

As we transition from writing poetry to writing fiction,  let's practice by starting a short short of about half a page to one page, single-spaced, based on one of the "56 Worst/Best analogies of high school students." 

Scour this list for an analogy that inspires the beginnings of a plot to you. Focus on using the analogy to extend -- and demonstrate -- the five elements of plot.

Also, consider the humor (for some, accidental) inspired by the writing style used by the high school author. Try to mimic the analogy's sentence structure (syntax) in drafting your story, as well as the overall voice created by the analogy. For some (only some) clarity, look at these examples

Examples:

9. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.  --> This writer mocks, or satirizes, the "her" for a lack of eloquence with, like, "California Girl" dialect!

10. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. --> The humor in this analogy is different from the above in that the writer does not mock, but does use a hyperbolic and grotesquely inappropriate image. In short, the image is a negative way of "growing" on someone -- which I don't think the HS writer intended!

Reading Homework for 3/31: Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants."    (Also, same story is linked here in a different format.) We will use EH's story to discuss more fiction elements. Answer the following questions:

·      What are our characterizations of The American and the girl?

·      How does Ernest Hemingway use exposition to help shape his characters?

·      Where does most of the action take place in story? What about the lack of physical action is significant to our understanding of these characters?

·      What are some of the ways the reader finds meaning in the dialogue – both what is said and how the characters speak to each other?

The Art of Fiction: Chapter 1

1. "Art depends heavily on feeling, intuition, taste."

2. "There are no rules of real fiction.... There are techniques...--that, like carpenter's tricks, can be studied and taught; there are moral and aesthetic considerations every serious writer must sooner or later brood on a little....There are common mistakes...."

• Techniques
• Moral and aesthetic considerations
• mistakes (in the logic of the world we create, in consistency of character, etc.)

3. "Invention, after all, is art's main business...."

4.  A writer's authority: 

• "sane humanness"
• trust in ability to judge writing and the world

5.  We want to practice techniques so that they become "second nature."

6. Great art comes from an education in the arts. To Gardner and you I say: how can you write something fresh, something experimental, if you don't know what the world has already provided?

• "No one can hope to write really well if he [or she] has not learned how to analyze fiction--how to recognize symbol when it jumps at him [or her], how to make out theme in a literary work, how to account for a writer's selection and organization of fictional details."

7.

Empathy and Literary Fiction

Literary fiction, by contrast, focuses more on the psychology of characters and their relationships. “Often those characters’ minds are depicted vaguely, without many details, and we’re forced to fill in the gaps to understand their intentions and motivations,” Kidd says. This genre prompts the reader to imagine the characters’ introspective dialogues. This psychological awareness carries over into the real world, which is full of complicated individuals whose inner lives are usually difficult to fathom.

The Virtues of Poetry: Revising

1. Refrains have a higher purpose: tone, meaning...

2. Verb Tense Shifts: intending them can add experience to a poem, making the poem not just about what is said but how it is being said and who is saying it...

3. The Sound of Thinking:

• The meditative
• The calculative

4. Parallel Syntaxes

• we came unwanted, we saw materials, we delivered measals

5. Using asides to integrate emotional mindset of speaker

6. The power of detail--restrain from emotion and saying by focusing on description of what can be see, heard, smelled, etc. (Bishop and Lowell)

7. Why do we write poems? Why did I write this poem?

Brian Russell's white space no space example

Emergence and Emergency (by Brian Russell)

It was a simpler time then when  

We were simple things   alone in the world we  

Performed the rote tasks of our singular

Existences   once a week I walked a block

To the laundromat with my sad sack

Of used clothes while you pushed a sorry cart

Piled high with frozen food   

We were two planes on the same path at

Different altitudes   we were two trains leaving

Union station at 3:17 on different tracks bound

For the dusty towns of someone else’s past 

We weren’t meant to meet but did

My hand already charting a careful course

Up your blouse   you warned me

This is going to get complicated

You were right

I don’t know what’s going to happen

To you next   I hardly

Sleep   I can’t

Develop a routine   I want you to live

Forever or at least longer than

Me   which is the only child

Of forever   I don’t regret

Anything   our complexes   our love

In the face of certainty.

Richard Siken's poem

Scherahezade

White Space No Space Poems (students)

Dreams Gone Away

Tell me about the dream

                     Wherewepullthebodiesoutofthelake

And          Dress them in warm clothes again

Howitwaslate,      and     no one

Could sleep,         The horses running until they forget

That they are horses.

           It'snotlikeatree

          Where the roots have to end somewhere,

It's     more     like     a song

                                      On a policeman's radio,

Howwerolledupthecarpet         So er could dance,

And          The days were brightred,

                                                  And everytime we kissed

There        was another apple

                                   To slice into pieces.

Look at the light through the window pane

                                                        That means it's noon,

                                         That means we're inconsolable.

Tellmehowallthis,        And           love too,

Will            Ruin            Us.

                                         These,

                                                 Our bodies,

                                                               Possessed by light

Tellmewe'llnevergetusedtoit

Storytime

Tell me about the dream

where we pull the bodies out of the lake

and dress them in warm clothes again.

How it was late, and no one could sleep,

the horses running until they forget

that they are horses.

It’s not like a tree where the roots

have to end somewhere, it’s more like a song

on a policeman’s radio, how we rolled up the carpet

so we could dance, and the days were bright red,

and every time we kissed there was another apple

to slice into pieces.

Look at the light through the windowpane.

That means it’s noon, that means we’re inconsolable.

Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.

These, our bodies, possessed by light.

Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

Our Bodies Inconsolable

Tell me about the dream

Wherewepullthe    bodies    outofthelake

 And dress them in      warm     clothes again.

How it was late,

And no one could sleep,

The horses running

Until they forget

That they are horses.

It’s not like a tree

Where the roots

Have to end       somewhere,

It’s more like a song

On a policeman’s radio,

How we rolled up the carpet

So we could dance,

And the days were          bright    red,

And    every    time    we kissed

There was another apple

To   slice   into pieces.

Look at the light

Through the windowpane.

That means it’s noon,

That means we’re inconsolable.

Tell me how all this,

And love too,

Will ruin us.

These,

Our bodies,

Possessed by light.

Tell me

We’ll never get used to it.

 ---------------------------------

Science Says

It was a simpler time then

When we were simple things

Performing a                      limited

Set of functions and tasks

We were independent

Of each other

Things have a                     tendency

                                                                To change

You said

There’s a theory               for that

For everything

For that matter

You believed in science

And I in nothing

I trusted the thinkers

Who trusted no one

Who questioned their own questions

Into silence

Things have changed

You warned me

You said               science says

If             you and me        become we

This is going to get                           complicated

You were right

I don’t know

What’s going to happen

To you next

I hardly sleep

I can’t develop a routine

I want you to live forever

Or at least longer than me

Which is the only child

Of forever

I don’t regret anything

Our complexes

Our love

In the face of certainty

The Science Of We

It was a simpler time then

                                   When we were simple things

Performing        A limited set of functions and tasks

We were          Independent         Of each other

                                 Thingshaveatendencytochange

You said           There's a theory       forthat

                                                               foreverything

For that matter         You

                                        Believed in science

And I            In nothing

                                    Itrustedthethinkers

                                                                   Who

Trusted       No one

       Who questioned their own questions into silence

Things        Have changed

                                          Youwarnedme

You said           Science says

                                             If you and me become we

Thisisgoingtogetcomplicated

                                               You        Were

                                                                               Right

I       Don't know      What's      Going to happen to you

                                                                                Next

Ihardlysleep

                    Ican'tdevelopearoutine

                                                         I       Wantyou

                                                                              To live

Forever

            Or at least           Longer than me

Which       Is the only child of forever

                                                          Idon'tregretanything

Our complexes         Our love

                                                In the face of certainty

Organic Chemistry

It was a simpler time then

when we were simple things performing

a limited set of functions and tasks

we were independent of each

other things have a tendency to change

you said there’s a theory

for that for everything for that matter

you believed in science and I in nothing

I trusted the thinkers who trusted no one

who questioned their own questions into silence

things have changed you warned me

you said science says if you and me become we

this is going to get complicated you were right

I don’t know what’s going to happen to you next

I hardly sleep I can’t develop a routine I want you

to live forever or at least longer than me

which is the only child of forever I don’t regret anything

our complexes our love in the face of certainty

Revision of Schedule for March 10th and 12th:

Dear Students,

I have also e-mailed you this schedule change, with the two handouts attached. 

First, I apologize for Wednesday's last-minute cancellation; I was stuck in traffic and the earliest I would have made it was half the class late. I also apologize for not getting you the revised schedule up sooner.

The college already had extended the academic semester an entire 3 days prior to Monday's cancellation. We wouldn't have needed those extensions because we hadn't missed a class meeting; however, because this week's trials against Titan and traffic, we can use that extra Monday (and possibly Wednesday) to hold class.

Having thought about it over the last day, here is the course of action I would like us to take so that we can attempt to do some workshopping next week. 

First,  Assignment 5 wildcard is attached to the message in your school e-mail (I left the original due date, but you can have until the Wednesday if you need). Also, I attached the "How to workshop" handout so that you can get started on reading it. 

Second, as for how we handle getting everyone's revised poem for workshop. Instead of having until only tomorrow as I had originally written in the latest blog post, if you can send me an e-mail with the poem you want to workshop, please do so by Sunday night. If you want me to read and give feedback on your Elegy or Ode prior to Monday's class, send that poem through e-mail as soon as you can. Please note whether you intend for this to be your workshop poem. My goal is to be able to distribute a packet of each of your poems on Monday so that we can begin workshop on Wednesday. 

I will be scanning your Sonnets as soon as I can, just in case you wanted to use them for the workshop.

My goal for class on Monday is:  Discuss your elegy/ode and annotations, discuss the White Space options (a few of you e-mailed me your versions of those poems), and to discuss Mimicking the Writer 1.

My goal for Wednesday's class: Workshop 2-3 students as a class; provide my written feedback to the other 2-3 students who aren't workshopped until the Monday after spring break.

The Midterm will be pushed back a little, as we will use the first Monday back from spring break to finish workshop. Then, we will transition to fiction writing on that Wednesday. 

I know that is a lot of information, so please e-mail me with any concerns or confusions.

With regard,

Professor A.