A friend sent me the video below, which made me think of how some of the best writing can come out of making two very different characters interact in a scene.
What happens? Will there be conflict? Friendship? Humor?
Add to the mix, make one or both of the characters be a “fish out of water.” The uncomfortable feeling in an unlikely setting can add to the humor and/or conflict.
* Place a cowboy and a circus performer in a fancy ballroom with a king and queen. Why are they there? What happens next?
*A gang of thieves kidnap a Hollywood actress and a Harvard professor. Why? What happens next?
*Or write about the unlikely friendship in the video below. Why did they become friends? What happens next?
I attended a writing conference this past weekend. Here are some quotes, tips and techniques I feel anyone any age may appreciate:
Caldecott winner author-illustrator David Wiesner:
(quoting someone’s name I didn’t get – – sorry!)
“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work . . . All of the best ideas come out of the process. Something will occur to you, and then another thing will occur to you . . .”
Agent Josh Adams made some distinctions between award winners and bestsellers. (Some of them fall into the same categories.)
Award Winning Books: beautifully crafted, indelible voice, lingers in your memory, creates emotional connections, are life-changing
The White Darkness, Bad News for Outlaws, and Rules are some titles that fit in this category.
Best Selling Books: high concept, thought-provoking, page-turning, suspenseful, a fun read
Charlie Bone and the Red Knight, Sabotaged, and Kiss are high concept sellers.
Author Alexandria LaFaye
If you have a better access to your subconscious, you are a better writer.
(See! Me here. What do I keep telling you about dreams and using the moments as you wake from sleep?)
Triple D: Every time you use a detail it needs to develop setting, character and plot.
Center ourselves in the world our characters inhabit. Our characters should have a distinctive world view. It should sound if they are describing their world. Not us describing it. Figure out how to explain things from the view of the main character. The character talks about it in relationship to what else is going on in his life.
Characters can only draw figurative language from their own personal experience.
How can you write more metaphors and figurative language in your writing? Read poetry. Good poets she suggested were Nancy Willard, Cynthia Rylant, Gary Soto, Pat Mora, Janet Wong. Poets who write adult poetry: Gary Snyder, Louise Glook, Emily Dickenson, Sylvia Plath.
Poetry is about what’s not on the page.
Cynthia Lord
Newbery Honor Winner Cynthia Lord’s words were so powerful the audience gave her a standing ovation and many of us had tears in her eyes when she talked about the story behind the story of Rules.
What happens when you write a book based on your life?
What should you write about?
Write a book on challenging personal experiences. She said that every message in the book, Rules, is a message for her.
What to consider as you write your book:
- What do I owe the other people whose lives are also tied up in this moment? (Minimize the impact on their lives.)
- Am I willing to “go there” on schedule? And for years?
- Am I ready to be honest?
- Any important moment will have a contrasting emotion in it.
- Write what you know.
- If you don’t know, ask yourself, when have I ever felt the same way as that character?
- Details don’t have to match, just the feelings. To help herself remember, she surrounded herself with objects from that town and she saw her handwriting from that time.
Description: Write what you know through settings and objects using your senses. Set places where you can visit. Go and see real things. What does the air feel like?
***What surprises you? This question is gold in the description.
She acted out a scene in rules where the main character pushes a boy in a wheelchair in a parking lot. She pushed her suitcase in a parking lot.! Lord realized there’d be pinecones, holes, cracks, etc and this made her write with more depth.
Find the one feeling of the story and everything revolves around this feeling.
Watch these amazing animal videos. Then choose one of these animals. What’s his/her secret career? Describe this animal with specific details.
What are his feelings and his thoughts?
Use dialogue with other animals to show his character.
Use your senses to draw us into his story.
What does he/she want more than anything in the world?
What stops him from getting it?
What is his weakness?
How can he overcome his weakness to get what he wants?
An Awesome Deer Doggie Video!
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Last night as I drove in darkness along a city street, two bright lights attached to a large vehicle turned directly into MY lane.
Holy hot fudge. My foot slammed onto the break.
Unwavering, the lights barreled forward, without slowing in momentum.
At my right, pedestrians walked. On my left, cars whizzed by. A head-on collision flashed before my eyes.
What was this driver thinking? Was he drunk? Drugged? Confused?
I leaned on the horn.
At the very last second possible, he turned into a driveway to his left leading to a church.
I gasped. Weakness spread me; my arms felt as though I could barely hold the steering wheel.
He saved himself a few minutes of waiting in traffic by driving on the wrong way of the street at night, in order to sneak into the church parking lot. If I hadn’t been paying close enough attention and braked I wouldn’t be writing this blog right now.
Writing Prompts:
1. As writers and readers and people of the universe, we need to pay attention to everything. Write about a time in your life where someone wasn’t paying close attention to their surroundings.
2. Write about a time where you weren’t paying close attention to what was happening to you or others around you.
3. Take 15 minutes of your day to practice “slow-down-the-moment.” Pay attention to every sense you experience. Walk outside into nature. What scent do you smell? How can you describe it with words on paper? What do you see? Hear? How does your skin feel in the weather at that moment? Touch tree bark, a plant, an animal or an object. How does the texture feel?
4. Practice gratitude. At the end of each day, think of three things you are grateful for in that very day. Had a lousy time of it today? Then think small. Did your breakfast cereal have a good crunch? Your teacher or friend give you a smile? Or think big. You had breakfast, unlike many homeless people. Write about the act of gratitude in a poem.
5. Ever have a heart-thumping life-threatening moment? Write about it or them in detail. Show how it made you feel. And make this moment a learning experience. How can it help you in your every day life?
I’ve just read a great book called The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield.
Writes Pressfield:
Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that the enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.
What do you do to avoid your writing? How can you help yourself get unblocked?
Recently, I began a large project that overwhelms me. So I broke the huge jobs down into tiny pieces. I’ve discovered that this way I feel more in control. Yes! I can write one letter or complete one interview. Yes! I can write one scene or chapter.
What can you do to conquer your fear with your art? Do you do any avoidance techniques? Mine: I do the laundry, visit the kitchen for snacks, and gaze out of my window to keep track of the wildlife.
So instead, I reward myself after each and every job I check off my list. I walk my dog, check e-mail, or write something for fun instead of writing something I have to write.
Writing Prompts:
1. Today make a list of projects/goals you’d like to accomplish.
2. Make a list of small rewards you’ll give yourself when you finish a project or goal.
3. Practice the fine art of meditation and other relaxation techniques. Listening to music, talking with other writers and artists, and living in the moment may be helpful ways for you to break through fear and embrace your art.
Wow. In our wildest dreams, we are able to fly. And when you’re stuck in a traffic jam, you wish you and your car could fly above it all. Now one man has designed a car that can fly now.
http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=635469588001
Writing Prompts:
1. You are in this flying car. Write a poem or story with you in this vehicle. Use your senses to make us feel like we are actually with you on your adventure.
2. Invent an object to improve our lives. What will it be? Write its description. Create an ad campaign for it. Write a commercial advertising it. How will it change our lives for the better?
3. Take a person from the past and plop him into our world today. Write a story featuring him or her as a major character.
Can you believe it’s the end of the year already? The holidays have wooshed by and New Year’s Eve is days away. (Do YOU ever make up words like I do? Wooshed is only one of many of my typical words. Maybe I should create a dictionary?)
What are your best memories of the past year? What have been the incredible books you’ve read? The memorable movies you’ve seen? The most delicious meals you’ve eaten? An interesting person you’ve met? An animal that made an impression upon you? A funny moment that may have made you smile? A touching scene that brought you a sigh?
Writing Prompt:
1. Write for ten or twenty minutes quickly about one or any or all of the above. Next, review what has popped into your head. Now take time and choose the most vivid scene or anecdote of the year to recreate. Use your emotions and senses to write a story, essay or poem.
2. Share your writing with a friend. Share your other thoughts and ideas of the past year with your friend or a group of people. Other writing projects may occur to you as words fly by.
On Friday, a friend took me to lunch and out shopping in Berkeley for a belated birthday outing. It all felt so scrumptious . . . sneaking off during the week to play. Abandoning our work, our chores and our to-do-lists, we got a chance to talk about the minutiae of our daily lives, our art, our dogs, and solve the problems of the world. Well, maybe not quite all of that, but it did seem like anything was possible on that glorious day of freedom.
Our lunch at Bette’s Diner, a crowded little enclave filled with scents of corned beef, pancakes and good coffee, was eclipsed by their bakery next door. I brought home a piece of the best lemon cake my husband and I have ever eaten and a brownie to swoon over. What a lovely way to celebrate my birthday.
Some people my age don’t care for birthdays, as they see it a sign of getting older and getting farther away from youth. Perhaps closer to death? I enjoy this little ritual, maybe because I love rituals. And maybe because I love cake!
Much later that evening, I logged on to my e-mail to discover a note from my friend. When she entered her house after taking me home, she found her eight-year-old beloved furry dog, Yogi, nearly comatose. Later at the vet’s, the diagnosis was grim. A cancerous tumor pressed on his spleen. Yogi in shock, was unable to make eye contact with her. He was completely out of it.
“I couldn’t even say goodbye,” she said. “It happened so fast.”
Yes, Yogi passed away that night.
So we will enjoy the rituals of our life. And we will honor the passing of one life to the next with loving rituals as well.
Writing Prompts:
1. Write a tribute to someone you have lost.
2. Write about how you value a person now in your life and give it to them.
3. Create a piece of art work to help your grief over any loss you may have.
4. Journal your feelings if you have lost someone close to you. The holidays can be a difficult time and this may help.
I was wondering, does a personal narrative have to be about something exciting that happened in your life? Can it be something not that exciting, but still something that happened to me? It is a personal narrative after all, and I know that the name says it all, but just to make sure that there are no huge rules about them.
****
A personal narrative could be about you looking at a butterfly and noticing something about that butterfly you never saw before and relating it to your life or the world in some way.
The best personal narratives I have ever read are NOT particularly exciting, but they touch our souls. A great narrative will be a special moment in time that has touched you and will touch the reader too.
Many personal narratives are not exciting at all. Just let the reader feel like she or he is experiencing the moment or episode along with you.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask.
Good luck with your narrative!
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=0k4lsi1dql
Watch the video of this incredible guy! Wow.
As writers, we should be noticing details during our daily lives. Pay attention to the sights and sounds around you. What does the air feel like against your skin? Notice all of your senses at various times and situations. Jot down notes when of fascinating moments that make you think, feel, or laugh.
Our memory may not be as acute as the young man in the video, nor will we be illustrating through drawing, but recapture specifics in words.
Writing prompt:
Today, take five minutes and notice details around you. Slow-down-the-moment. Describe every sense you have. Instead of describing LARGE (everything around you), try going small. Choose one specific item/object/animal/person to focus on.
1. Write all you can write about this tree/flower/dog/cookie/grandpa/etc. you can, using your specific senses.
2. If you have words like wonderful, nice, lovely, pretty, in your description, cross them out. Replace them with concrete nouns or active verbs.
You’ve celebrated Poetry Month by writing as specific as you can. You may use this to craft a poem or as a portion of another piece of writing.
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