Wednesday 4/2/2014 Class

From the last in-class writing exercise:  write a scene in which 2 characters are fighting over an object of your choice.  Begin with the first attempt of one character to take the object. 

Now take this in-class exercise and add another character who is assisting one character in his/her pursuit of getting the object.

"Tenth of December" by George Saunders on the blog.  Think about the moves Saunders makes in the narrative, how he moves the story forward, scene by scene.  Storyboard it in groups.

Continue working on the "memory" story:  let's talk about what you have come up with.

Write a description of this scene:

  

Monday 3/31/2014 Class

Use some or all of your sensate memories in a story draft with the despicable character as the narrator, the point of view.  How do your sensate memories create movement?  How do you construct narrative based on those memories? 

How do you create character?  Let's talk about a "recipe" for creating characters in fiction.  What elements do you need?

What is a cliché?  A phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.  Why do you use them?  Why don't you use them?  Let's do an exercise:  write down as many clichés as you can, and then we'll regroup and take some of them and reinvent them together.

In-class writing exercise:  write a scene in which 2 characters are fighting over an object of your choice.  Begin with the first attempt of one character to take the object. 

Wednesday 3/19/2014 Class

Use some or all of your sensate memories in a story draft with the despicable character as the narrator, the point of view.  How do your sensate memories create movement?  How do you construct narrative based on those memories?  How do you create character? 

Read "Bullet in the Brain" aloud.  Talk about the structure of the story.  Also about the way the writer constructs narrative based on memory.

Talk about the narrative strategies involved in the TV shows you watched and analyzed.

Monday 3/17/14 Class

Discuss "Signs and Symbols" by Nabokov in groups, using the Key Concept story arc.

Check out:

Part One:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFYrJOp_Oqw&feature=share
Part Two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdjawu_VRBo&feature=share

How are the objects used in this sketch?
How do the characters relate to one another?
What's the inciting incident?
What's the denouement? 

Write ten sensate memories from your life...  Read some of those aloud, and talk about narrative -- where does this description "take you"? 

In-class assignment:
Come up with a long list of despicable characters.

Wednesday 3/12/2014 Class

Go over Key Concepts (on the right).

Read "The School" by Donald Barthelme (on blog).  Talk about why this is a story, and what makes it a story.  Also:  who is the narrator?  How does the narrative progress?

In-class writing exercise:

Nabokov writes:  “Poetry involves the mystery of the irrational perceived through rational words.”  Think of irrational situations you’ve gone through, ideas, mysteries.  Now think of rational words, phrases, sentences.  Write a short poem intermingling the two.  Good example:

The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams
 
So much depends
upon

A red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Now take your poem and “transform” it into the first paragraph of a story.  IE:  “The rain had stopped earlier that morning, and the red wheelbarrows beside the chicken coop was glazed with it.  So much had depended on that wheelbarrow, and yet now it was abandoned, purposelessness.  Mary felt herself completely connected to it, staring out from the kitchen window above the sink, telling herself there was no alcohol in the house.”   

Monday 3/10/2014 Class

Poem portfolios due:  4 poems in manuscript form, 1 5-page paper, double-spaced, concerning your reaction to a poet we've discussed, using The Art of Syntax as your guide.

Poetry reading.  

Wednesday 3/5/2014 Class

Camera-phone haiku(s): 

• What came out of that process? 
• What could you make happen by looking at a picture? 
• How did you "translate" image into language? 
• How did you choose the language that "built" the haiku(s)? 
• What makes a haiku different than other forms? 

Forward motion poem:

• How did you imitate Plath's style in "Aerial"?
• How did you make forward motion happen?  How does she?
• What is the first image in your poem, and the last?

Art of Syntax, pages 127 through 144, starting with "Snake" poem.

Emily Dickinson on poet.org

I heard a Fly buzz (465), Emily Dickinson

            

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –  
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –  
Between the Heaves of Storm – 

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –  
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –  

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –  

With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –  
Between the light – and me –  
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –