writing Archives - Page 33 of 151

November 25, 2015November 25, 2015

The Legacy of Storytelling

“I don’t know how it is for everyone else, but for me, it can’t be about the money, at least not entirely. I want to look back on my life and know that I did something worthwhile.” ~ Jennifer Niesslein, “The Price of Writing”

The work we do as writers isn’t always about the making money. It isn’t always about crafting the perfectly structured essay or flash fiction either. Sometimes, it’s just about telling the story.

I’m in the process of putting together a third anthology of work by writers at Harwood Place: Lost, Found, and Loved. I don’t get paid to work with these writers or to design the anthology, but the time spent with them and this project is precious nonetheless. As I retype their pieces into my computer from handwritten or printed copies (only a few of them use email), I realize again how much I love their stories. I also gain a better understanding about my purpose within this group.

When I write an essay or a story, I will spend hours, days, months on end revising, restructuring, agonizing at times (I can be quite dramatic). For these writers, certain stories will undergo deeper rewrites, but more often they share their story at the table, consider revising a little, and move on. They look forward to the next prompt, the next meeting, the next reading.

I’ve struggled with this in the past, thinking I’m their teacher and shouldn’t I press them to do more–reinforce that the real writing is in the rewriting? But, I’ve come to accept that their decision is perfectly okay.

Doris Lessing says:

Humanity’s legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: ‘He/she was born, lived, and died.’

The truth for these writers at Harwood Place–their experience at the table and, later, in front of the podium–is that they are there for each other. Last Saturday at our recent meeting, they had written on a simple prompt, “When we played cards…” (based on “Poker” by Paul Farley). As they took turns reading their stories out loud, the room filled with laughter, more personal accounts, deeper connections, and a solid sixty-minutes of pure joy.

That is the legacy of storytelling.

That makes the writing worthwhile.

* Check the Events page for the date, time, and place of our next reading.

November 11, 2015November 10, 2015

The Neighbor: a tiny flash fiction

It was a farce, this whole business of playing Twister. Larry sat there with the spinner and studied the four corners: right, left, all hands and feet. Not a thing about a nose. He could win by a nose. By a hair. By a sneeze. It was clear the lady of the house had a terrible allergy. He saw her now–right foot on red, left hand on yellow–bobbing her head in an oncoming attack. He’d bathed and brushed, but there was little he could do about his dander. He wasn’t even sure why he’d come to the party, except that someone on the block had mentioned hot cider, and he did love a good apple cider. No one had mentioned games for the supple.

Relegated to the sidelines, he flicked the spinner; it landed on blue. He whinnied, while everyone whined and scrambled for a spot. Arms entwined, bodies bent, Larry sat stiff in the chair, banished yet again. So when the lady of the house set her toe near the corner and turned her backside his way, it was only natural that he lean in. Nip. Call it a night.

October 14, 2015October 13, 2015

Focus on Story: Intrigue on Page One

I am terribly introspective most days, but there are moments–plenty–when my attention span runs short. Too much coffee, too many things to do, too short on time for all that “doing,” I have to force myself to slow down.
Take a breath.
Focus.

I don’t want to make myself focus, though, when it comes to reading. I want to dive into story. It’s true that a good book is worth the wait through a slow opening or a few introductory chapters. But a great story, as Lisa Cron says in her book Wired for Story, is marked by a compelling hook from the very beginning:

[W]hat draws us into a story and keeps us there is the firing of our dopamine neurons, signaling that intriguing information is on its way. This means that whether it’s an actual event unfolding, or we meet the protagonist in the midst of an internal quandary, or there’s merely a hint that something’s slightly “off,” on the first page, there has to be a ball already in play. Not the preamble to the ball. The ball itself. . . . and it has to have our complete attention.

Now, I’m not an action-packed kind of reader. If you look through my author interviews, you’ll see I prefer a slow build, a quiet novel. Still, a slow building story doesn’t mean slow-to-intrigue; first lines in these quiet stories can be just as intriguing as in a plot-driven novel. Here are a few of my favorite first lines from past and recent reads:

“It was bitter cold, the air electric with all that had not happened yet.” ~ from A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.

Have you read this book? Oooh, really good stuff (okay, worst book review ever–“really good stuff”–but suffice it to say this is one of my “I want to write like that some day” books).

“Mama left her red satin shoes in the middle of the road.”
~ from Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman (you can read my interview with Beth HERE).

Another one of my all-time favorites from the first line through the first scene and beyond.

“Daily, men descended into the earth, going where no man belonged, taking more than men deserved, their faces wracked with indifference, their hands dirtied with soot from the depths of the mountain.” ~ from American Copper by Shann Ray.

I received an advanced copy of this book, and I knew immediately from this line that I would absolutely love it. Everything about this story is woven into that first line: industry and power, the harm a man may cause, and the scars he leaves behind.

We’ll talk a more about Lisa Cron’s book and story structure in my upcoming online class, Principles & Prompts. Join us if you can. And, consider picking up Wired for Story or one of the three novels mentioned above. American Copper doesn’t come out until November 2015, but it’s definitely a book to claim for your shelves.

What’s your sign of a good story?