Seven days to get writing again: delay
Dear readers, sorry. I’ve had a bit of trouble today, so day “six” will have to wait until tomorrow. Apologies.
Daniel Wallace
May 18
Seven days to get writing again: day five
The introduction to this series is here. But the idea is simple: one quick writing exercise a day for seven days. Post the results in a comment below, or, if you prefer, email them to me (at my name at gmail).
Day Five: Day Five? Wow. Even if you’ve just done a couple of these, you’ve done some very good (and not easy) work this week.
Day five is stealing from the poets. This should be fun and simple: it’s one of my favourite ways to get writing.
Below, I have chosen two verses more or less at random from two different poets: John Keats and Langston Hughes. Take five or so images from the lines below and write the first 100-150 words of a story using them–or more if it grabs you.
No need to combine this with one of the previous exercises: it’s not necessary to use these images to write a Malamud-style opening. Although that would be cool. The point is just to produce material for a story you might not normally.
Verse one. This is Keats reflecting that while he and every human will grow old and die, the nightingale’s song will not.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Verse two:
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
Here are a few sentences from me:
Wruth arrived in Brighton in the last carriage of an off-white train. The grand houses of the rich old ladies faced the sea, their Italianate pallour muddied by the dimming sunset and the coming of night. Wruth walked about the town, delighted. The peculiar antiques sold down the many winding lanes, the small cafes still busy in the evening, the oddly designed palaces, they seemed to be opening some kind of doorway to himself, to the alien and unknown Nile flowing in his veins.
I’m not sure who “Wruth” is, or where this one is going–but maybe that’s a good thing.
Have a go yourself: take inspiration from Hughes and Keats and write!
Best wishes,
Daniel Wallace
Seven days to get writing again: day four
The introduction to this series is here. But the idea is simple: one quick writing exercise a day for seven days. Post the results in a comment below, or, if you prefer, email them to me (at my name at gmail).
Day Four: Plotxercise!
Some evenings in Philadelphia, I would go to a Starbucks on a busy corner of Walnut Street, perch on a stool in the window, and do “plotxercise.” This terrible name is my own invention. The idea is to decide on some set parameters for a story, then try to fit many stories into those parameters, doing one example after another until your brain explodes.
There are unlimited ways to do plotxercise.
You simply to decide on a set of key parameters, and try to fit a protagonist and some events into that framework.
Here's one possible approach:
1. Protagonist is a _____ in ______
2. who thinks she wants to achieve _______
3. but who deep down, in order to be a wiser, happier, or more complete person, needs to discover ____.
4. When she is on the verge of finally achieving / not achieving ______, she suddenly understands / fails to understand ______.
Here's one from me:
Craig Chapman is a financial planner in Knoxville, Tennessee, who thinks he simply has to get through the rest of a multi-family road trip without his wife discovering that he and the wife of the family in the car behind had a drunken kiss at a party the previous week. However, Craig actually needs to get free of his narcissistic self-concern and see that his 14-year-old daughter is really suffering–from something completely unrelated to him. When he is on the verge of confessing everything to his wife, he suddenly overhears his daughter throwing up over the hotel room sink, and he understands his responsibilities to other people are more important than the contents of his own head.
And, just to show that this plot schematic works for even the greatest works of literature:
Gabriel Conroy is a literary man in Dublin who wants to be a social triumph at his aunts' annual party–he wants to give a great speech that everyone will admire–but who, deep down, actually needs to achieve a deeper, more profound communion with Ireland and Irishness. At the end of the night, when he has dramatically failed to achieve a night of passionate love-making with his wife, he is suddenly granted a vision of that profound communion: the snow falling all over Ireland, over both metropolitan Dublin and the far countryside, over both the living and the dead.
(if you like this particular “plot schematic,” take a look at John Truby's excellent Anatomy of Story, where I discovered it. And if you haven't yet read Joyce's The Dead, Melville House's novella series is a good place to get an attractive copy.)
Have a go yourself! I'm looking forward to reading your 'xercises.
Lastly: if you're enjoying this series, I would be very happy if you could share a link to it on facebook or twitter. Thank you to everyone who has linked to it so far! This is turning into a very exciting week.
–
Daniel Wallace
