Archive for Craft Discussions

Outlining a Novel in Three Acts

I outline my books. I know this about myself, and I no longer try to fight it. I have a thing for complex characters with complex relationships. Without an outline, I wouldn’t be able to sustain the tension or wind my way through bewildering relationships. I’ve finally found a method that works for me, so I thought I’d share it with those looking for tips on outlining.

1. I generally write about 20-50 pages before I touch the outline. This helps me discover who my character is and what their voice sounds like. Once I have a handle on this, the outlining begins.
2. I plan for 30 chapters as a guideline. Why? Because I like how solid 30 is. Using a piece of notepaper, I number each line 1 thru 30.
3. Get to know the Three-Act structure which divides the story into three main parts:
   1. Act I is the beginning where you  introduce the characters and the situation they are in before a conflict occurs to change things
   2. Between Act I and II is Plot Point #1. This is an event or external action that changes everything for your character and sets the story in motion.
   3. Act II is the middle of your story and is littered with all the obstacles you keep putting in your character’s way until you reach the Black Moment of the story
   4. Between Act II and III is Plot Point #2. This is an event or external action that happens AFTER the Black Moment and shifts your story toward the resolution.
   5. Act III is where you wrap up all your storylines and resolve any conflicts.
   6. This website gives an awesome breakdown of the three-act structure, along with movie examples.
4. So keeping my structure in mind, I take my piece of paper and pencil in the Black Moment and Plot Point #2 (around Chapter 26).  My stories usually come to me with these moments in place.
5. Now, here’s the tricky part. I like to start my stories in the thick of things. In my last novel, the very first line of the book introduced my Plot Point #1. Does this mean I skipped writing Act I? No. I combined Acts I and II, layering them together.
6. Okay. I know where my story starts (Plot Point #1), and I know the worst it’s going to end up (Black Moment). What about all the stuff in between – that honestly used to terrify me?  Every few chapters I pencil in an obstacle. I think about my character’s goal, and situations that could get in the way of that goal. I generally have about 6-7 of these obstacles that get increasingly worse as I near the Black Moment.
7. That takes care of 9 chapters, you say. What about the other 21 chapters? My last WIP had an MC that had complex relationships with 5 other characters in the novel. Each of these relationships had to have an arc, with the relationship changing over the course of the novel as the MC changes. So over the course of those 21 chapters I rotated between those 5 different arcs, including a beginning, middle, and end (or resolution) for each.
8. Beware sustained tension. Readers get fatigued if you never give them a break from the tension. I had one particular character arc that acted as break from the tension. Each chapter or scene my MC had with this character gave her a mini-break before she hit another obstacle. My way of relieving the sustained tension and giving the reader a chance to rest.
9. Note on Plot Points, Obstacles, and Black Moment: These should be events rather than emotional moments. Rather than “MC finally gets mad,” an obstacle would be “X Character does Y .” The MC may very well get mad, but that’s an emotion and not an event per se. Events spark action and change (and emotions). They are required to move your story forward.

Here’s an example of a single chapter’s “outline” from my last WIP:

Chapter 1: Carey is MIA/Blake calls/Mom left

Cryptic, right? Just a few notes like this per chapter provide me with a writing goal. The brevity allows me the freedom to let scenes develop as I write without outlining myself into a corner. So I know in Chapter 1 I want to announce that Carey is MIA, have Blake call my MC about it, and introduce that the MC’s mom abandoned her. Thee conflicts to introduce, but it’s up to my muses how much of each conflict I introduce and what type of scene I do it in.

I like to think of my process as a freeway with lots of exits and places to go.

I hope you can find something useful in my mad method!

Here’s a barebones view of how I layered things in for my last WIP:

Speak It! – A Great iPhone App for Writers

Thanksgiving weekend I drove 6.5 long hours from San Francisco to my sister’s in Southern California. The idea was to pick up some of my belongings that I left behind when I moved to the Bay Area. Since I was making the drive alone, I decided to find something to listen to so the hours would fly by. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could listen to my manuscript like it was an audiobook? That way I could drive AND edit.”

After testing a few free online text-to-MP3 options, I found they all sounded mechanical. To get the natural sounding voices, you had to pay money, which I wasn’t willing to do. Then I came across an iphone app – Speak It! This awesome app is a writer’s dream. I was able to listen to my MS – in a brilliant British accent no less. It offered up a different kind of editing experience. I have a tendency to constantly wordsmith and massage my text. It’s difficult for me to read for the larger picture. Since I was listening and unable to make notes, I was able to edit with a different part of my brain. I started picturing the characters and I really heard my MC’s voice. Not as it sounds in my head, but as a reader would hear it. Quite an educational experience.

Some things to note:

1. It’s not a one-step process to get your text into the app. Here’s what I did: (1) emailed MS text to myself in the body of an email, (2) opened email on iphone, (3) selected all text and copied, (4) closed email and opened Speak It app, (5) pasted text into app, and (6) listened to text in my chosen voice!
2. Since I pasted a huge body of text, the app had issues saving it. A couple of times I had to repaste it back in, but it was worth the hassle.
3. The voice is a little mechanical and has trouble on some words (the funniest was that it kept pronouncing M-I-A as in Missing in Action as Mia, a girl’s name), but I stopped noticing it after a while as I got engrossed in the story.

I highly recommend trying Speak It, especially if you have trouble writing dialogue.

Why NanoWriMo Isn’t For Me

It’s November and word counts and madly typing writers have consumed the internet. As I watch the madness, I’ve had this feeling that I’m sitting on the sidelines. Somehow, I’m less productive, less speedy, less than the writers who pound out 1,000 wpm. That’s not being fair to myself, though.

I’m not a speed demon. That’s not a judgment on those who participate in Nano and do well with it. My hat’s off to the participants. But – you knew the “but” was coming, right? – that’s not me or my writing style.

I’m a thoughtful writer. I think about my sentences and my story structure and the emotional arc of my characters. I plan my setting to add to the mood of any given scene. I consider my theme and how it can be layered into my story in subtle ways through a conversation here or a description there. I can’t accomplish all of this – and well – if my focus is on reaching the challenging daily word count required to complete Nano. In fact, the crushing guilt I feel when I fail an unrealistic (for me) word count goal only makes it harder to write.

I think Nano sounds amazing on paper. I love the planning stage leading up to it. I love all the excitement people have around it. I love the sense of accomplishment so many writers have as they participate. The idea of shutting off an internal editor sounds amazing and freeing, but not for me.

Sometimes I wish I could be that faster writer who can churn a book a month, but that’s like wishing I was Julia Roberts. When I sit at my keyboard, the experience of writing isn’t just about my fingers on the keys. A lot of it happens in my heart and in my head. I need time and space to let that happen. My stories wouldn’t be my stories if I crammed them like I did studying for final exams.  So while I wish everyone participating the best of luck, NanoWriMo isn’t for me.

Emotional Arc

Whether you’re writing a literary novel or a plot-driven novel, your characters need to experience some kind of growth or change. This growth – as in real life – rarely happens all of a sudden. Try it and your beta readers will leave comments like “I don’t feel this moment was earned” or “This doesn’t ring true.” The emotional journey of your characters is the backbone of any good story. So how do you plan for it?

When I am plotting out my story, I use a three-act structure. This site has a good breakdown of what a story arc looks like. Essentially, Act One is where you introduce your characters and setting. Then something happens – the conflict – that shifts your story into Act Two. This is the meat of your story when roadblocks are tossed at your character, and they must use their problem-solving skills to work around them. The tension builds throughout this section until you reach the Black Moment. This is the darkest moment in the story when your MC is not sure how they will resolve the conflict. The Black Moment is your climax and shifts you into Act Three where the conflict comes to some type of resolution.

This is a simplified explanation of the three-act structure, but I hope you get the gist. In addition to using this structure to outline my plot, I also use this structure to determine the emotional arc of my characters.

* An exception would be if you are trying to show the character spiraling out of control, but then you would need to have spent time establishing how “out of character” they are acting for the contrast to be successful.

**Note: I didn’t say happy ending. I’m okay with an ending that isn’t tied up with a neat ribbon BUT I want to feel that my character has grown. Personally I can’t stand reading a book only to find the character hasn’t changed one iota when confronted with problem after problem. That works for minor characters, but not MCs in my opinion.

I also want to point out that sometimes a story begins with the conflict – in fact, many of the best stories do. When this happens, the details of Act One are filled in through back story.

I hope this helps!

Battle of the Betas

We have a new guinea pig…This week Alicia Gregoire volunteered to have eight writers beta read a single page of her urban fantasy “Phoenix Rising” so readers can compare and contrast beta styles. Below is her text with my line edits inserted in brackets and italics. I also included summary notes at the bottom as I normally would with a beta. As last time, my notes are a little lengthier than they would normally be for a single page, but the idea was to let you see my beta style.

And onward!

20 Years Ago

[Is this a prologue?]

Ianos studied the chimera pride that roamed the foothills outside Timmons for months in search of the runt.

[Cool name. Also on first read, I thought the pride was searching for the runt and not Ianos.]

With a pair of large males and several females, it took him longer than he wanted,

[Took him longer than he wanted to what? Study the pride? Find the runt? Could be more clear.]

but once discovered, he kept his eye on it. In a final attempt of

[at]

self-preservation, they abandoned it weeks ago. Each day it grew weaker,

[I know the “it” is the runt and the “they” is the pride, but I think you could make this more clear by actually calling out the subject instead of using the pronoun.]

languishing without the companionship of the pride.

[If the pride abandoned the runt weeks ago and it is languishing without companionship, how is he having trouble spotting it amongst them?]

On the fourteenth day, Ianos executed his oh so easy plan.

Armed with nothing other than his knowledge of spells, he made his final trek to the foothills. He was much closer than he’d been in his previous visits to the chimera grounds and

[insert “had” after “and”]

never seen anything like the beast before. It

[The runt]

lay in the sun, with only one head awake, but not alert. The lion head mewled, mourning its fate. Its paper lantern thin wings stretched on the ground while the dragon and goat heads slept.

It was awing.

[awe inspiring?]

The lion head despondently watched Ianos’ approach but roared to awaken the other two heads when Ianos crossed some unknown border. The beast rose to its full height, stretched its wings wide, and bellowed—all three heads created a cacophony of rage.

[what does this cacophony sound like? I’m trying to imagine a lion, dragon and goat roaring at the same time.]

Ianos snarled and crouched, ready to strike. Electricity spurted from his palms towards the chimera. It dodged at the last second and ran head-on towards the sorcerer. He ran into a cave to his right; he’d have better luck surviving the fight if he was able to corner the animal. The beast skidded, turned, and charged again. Ianos leapt onto its back. He held tightly onto the lion’s neck scruff and struggled to pull a lasso out of his jeans.

[Interesting combination of the mythology and the revelation Ianos is a sorcerer in juxtaposition with his jeans and lasso.]

Thanks for sharing this piece, Alicia! I included notes in the text, but here are some gut reactions overall.

Mythology: If I recall right, Homer described a chimera as having a lion’s head, snake for a tail, and a goat somewhere on the body. Your chimera sounds very different which is 100% cool. I think it’s awesome to describe it differently, but the key is to describe it in more detail so I understand how your chimera differs from the current mythology. I really want to understand what this creature looks like, how the muscles ripple under its fur or scales, how it moves with all these various heads,

Pronouns: There is some confusion happening with the pronouns. I kept having to reread a sentence to figure out who the “they” and “it” were. This is easily fixed by working in the subject more often in place of the pronouns.

Imagery: This page relies heavily on sight. I think this could be so much more powerful if the other senses were engaged. Is it hot? How does the sun feel on Ianos’ skin? How does the lion’s scruff feel to the touch? Is there a sulfur smell since this creature breathes fire? And what does this creature sound like – cacophony is not descriptive of this particular creature?

I think you have a good start. I’d love to see more detail throughout this to really establish your world and ground me in your particular setting. Thanks again!

Check out what the other beta readers had to say!

Kate Hart
Meredith Primeau
Windy Aphayrath
Sarah Enni
Raven Ashley

Battle of the Betas

The lovely and brave Sarah Enni offered herself up as a guinea pig for a little beta experiment. Six writers will take on beta reading a single page of her work “The Flute” so readers can compare and contrast beta styles.  Below is her text with my line edits inserted in brackets and italics. I also included summary notes at the bottom as I normally would with a beta. My notes are a little lengthier than they would normally be for a single page, but the idea was to let you see my beta style.

So without further ado!

If Hana Larkhill had her way, her father’s body would be in a sailboat, rope and a flute in his hands, and she would watch him embark one last time toward the unknown at the eternal curve of the earth

[Initial reaction to death is usually at a gut level. First we feel and then we think and rationalize. This passage sounds very intellectualized as if Hana is distant from the emotions she is feeling].

Instead, James Larkhill lay in a sterile metal box at Faraday’s Funeral Home. Someone who did it for a living

[I think you can strike this. Reader would assume.]

had caked his face with makeup. His delicate freckles were powdered out of existence [nice detail]. An old blue suit bound

[would love to see “anchored” instead of “bound” to carry through the seafaring metaphor]

his body; even the strawberry gold of his curls had faded.

Hana’s mother, Noa Larkhill, hasn’t

[change in tense]

fought these depressing conventions.

[makes me wonder who the narrator is. Can’t quite get a sense of it yet.]

But she had insisted on an open casket. James’ face and shoulders were in tact

[one word]

and the suit covered his abdomen. But Hana felt the looming specter of his ruined lower body, smashed into irreparable pieces by an anonymous fender

[specter sounds a little purple especially juxtaposed with fender].

Faraday’s was cold, clean and modern—everything was black or stainless steel. Everything had razor-sharp edges. It was the kind of place that gave Hana the feeling she was being blown through by unseen drafts

[watch state of being verbs like was and were. Try using more active verbs that add color to the narrative].

She longed for home. For his family James had provided a house with a door that shrunk up in the winter and bloated until it wedged in the door frame in the summer, a house with stairs that had predictable creaks and groans, a house that moved around them like a familiar friend.

James’ death three days earlier had crushed Hana underneath deep, prolonged silence

[like the silence compared to the noise in the house before. Maybe into instead of underneath?].

Her mother, whose loudest expression to this point had always been in the strength of her brush strokes on canvas, rocked and wailed. Hana felt like a ghost, alone and unseen, holding her mother’s tiny shaking limbs in a room full of people that, at least today, felt like strangers.

Thanks for sharing this piece, Sarah! I included notes in the text, but here are some gut reactions overall.

Narrator: Right now I’m struggling to get a sense of the narrator. The narrator sounds very distant from the action/emotion right now, which give me little insight into Hana. I think this would be more revealing across more pages, but it’s hard to attach to Hana in this short section.

Language: When in the midst of deep grief, we tend toward more one syllable words. As we intellectualize and gain distance from the emotion, we use more of those multi-syllabic words. Right now, the language is distancing me from the emotions of the characters. That may be okay depending on your longer goal, but I thought I would bring it up.

Marine Metaphor: You brought up a lovely metaphor in that first sentence with the marine imagery. I’d love to see this continued a bit more throughout. Sailing into the horizon is often equated with death in literature, but death also leaves the loved ones still alive feeling unanchored. Could be something to explore.

State of Being Verbs: I bring this up in EVERY beta because I do it. I do a mad search and destroy for them in my manuscripts.

Suggestion: One great advantage of third person POV is the distance. You can start far away and pan in closer to your character. In this scene, you could show us everyone in the room before you closed in on Hana. That gives us a nice basis for discovering who she is. You might check out the opening pages of Anna Karenina to see how Tolstoy does this really effectively.

Check out what the other beta readers had to say!

Kate Hart
Kathleen Peacock
Meredith Primeau
Alicia Gregoire
Windy Aphayrath

Looking Up Instead of Through

You know I said I was taking a sabbatical, but you also know that when something is demanding to be written, there is nothing for a writer to do except sit down and write it. Bear with me because this is a long post.

I’ve been at war with my current WIP. The words are not coming as easy as I’d like, and I am acting like a spoiled child, stamping my foot to get my way. I’m demanding the characters do this or that, and the rebellious jerks are giving me the finger. Quite rightly, too. Because I’m not listening. Not to them and not to what’s happening in my life.

These past months since I moved to San Francisco, my world has been changing. Not the way I usually force change into my life with a flick of my fingers or a blink of my eyes. (A bad habit I picked up along the way so I don’t have to face my ghosts.) This change feels slow and whispery, something beyond my control. I don’t know where it’s taking me, but I can sense it in the air. My priorities are shifting in this immutable way, and it’s like water beating a rock to submission. At first, I kept trying to dodge change by staying in motion. Let me tell you – it doesn’t work. Something so inevitable can take its time coming. Like Rocky, it can wait for you to tire yourself and stop swinging away at the wind. You’d think I’d know this after years of trying to run my life like everything from birth to death can fit on a page in your planner, but obviously it’s a lesson that needs relearning.

So, I’ve been doing these things that I normally wouldn’t. Taking the long way to get places because I like the drive. Sitting in a park to stare at the clouds and dreaming up three absurd things they resemble. Visiting a farmer’s market to buy fresh flowers and taking time to admire them in the window. Growing herbs on my windowsill and being pleasantly surprised by their scent in my kitchen. Laying in the middle of my living room floor and listening to music while a breeze blows.

Stopping. Slowing. Breathing things in. Enjoying the stillness.

My perspective is changing. Rather, I’m doing what writers should do. I’m enjoying the different perspective I bring to life. As people and writers, we get so caught up in trends. The dos and don’ts. The next big werewolf/vampire/angel/dystopian craze. We forget that the writers we remember are the ones who broke the rules first. As writers, it is our job to notice the things most people don’t. We try to say it in a new way that feels familiar at the same time. We help people find the stillness in their busy lives.

Here are some things I’m noticing these days.

This tree looks completely different

when I stand under it and look up

This door is a boring closet door

Except it has this amazing keyhole

And this cool brass plate that reeks of history.

This framed poster and lamp are imperfect

But the scratched, glassless poster reminds me of my brother who drove me to SF to hang it (and break it in the process)

And the milk glass lamp was a gift from my sister who drove to SF to help me place it under this poster.

This cedar chest takes up my dining area so my guests have to eat sitting on my living floor

My brother bought it beat up at an estate sale during a time when he was heavily using drugs. When he showed me the ugly, beat up box, I wanted to cry at how far my brother was gone. A year later, he cleaned up and showed me the beauty he’d seen in this broken thing I’d had no use for. This is carved in the lid that he pieced back together.

And here is my messy refrigerator

With a note from my agent requesting my full, my asthma action plan, magnets from cities I’ve visited, and this note my mom wrote me on her waitressing order pad when I was 14 and nervous for my first day of cheerleading. (She has no idea I would value this, and there is a story in that, too.)

And what about these shelves of frames I’ve had up for nine months – without pictures in them?

And then there are the pictures that speak to me…like this empty chair at a table

or this whimsical, slightly sad girl

Or this whimsical,slightly sad girl (me at 20 with my mom)

The things we carry with us from place to place. The way we see things. They help us to tell our stories. They help us to find the stories in our lives and the lives of others. We forget that when we get caught up in forcing things into our boxes. Try changing your perspective. Be still and look around your life. Lay on your floor to see things in a new way. Hang upside down, if that’s what it takes.

Shh… Wait for it. Do you hear a story forming that’s all your own?

MFA Crash Course: Day Eight

***If you are following me AND leave a comment in this thread by 5 PM PST Tuesday, 6/8, you will be entered to win a $10 Barnes & Noble gift card. Plus you will receive one entry each toward the query crit by my agent Laura Bradford and the ten-page crit by writer Eleanor Morse. Full details here.

Workshop: Met with the four writers in my workshop, led by Julie Brickman. We did an in-class writing assignment to play with alternate POVs. Here’s my experiment with second person, and an answer to a challenge a friend made one night while drinking bourbon at the Seelbach Hotel – to try my hand at creative non-fiction.

You thought she was a hypocrite when she wouldn’t let you cut your hair. It fell past your waist in tangles and sometimes you dreamed it braided itself into a brown rope that strangled you. It seemed to get in your way, wrapping around your arm, your throat, your shoulders like creeping vines, and you hated it. Worse, your mother had a pixie haircut and had for as long as you could remember. Her ridiculous insistence that a seventeen-year-old girl should have long hair made you feel invisible. Your wants, your wishes, your womanhood hidden.

So one day you convince your aunt to trim an inch or two off. You look at yourself and see a hint of something you could be. It – the cutting – becomes addictive. You sneak around for the first time in your life, and the song of the scissors hisses through you. Until she confronts you, screaming, “You think I don’t know you’ve been cutting your hair?” And you think the hours of screaming don’t fit the crime – your first rebellion, but then she tells you, “Go ahead and chop it all off. I don’t give a shit,” and you forget the niggling doubt.

Should I? and Would I dare? whisper in your ear. You walk into the bathroom and know you will dare. Scissors in hand, you pull a hank of hair over your breast and snip… Whole inches fall and you are Samson-reversed made stronger with each cut. She finds you like that – scissors cutting away. Your eyes meet in the bathroom mirror. Pause, pause, pause. Without a word, she leaves the room , and you finish up before admiring your new do.

It’s not until weeks later you realize that you cut away some part of her love. You learn how jealous she was of your easy relationship with the aunt who made the first snip, but it’s too late by then.  She shows less interest in your life, and you no longer have a place to hide.

Lunch with Friends

Graduate Student Readings: Three of the graduating students read from their thesis work. Very inspiring.

Lecture: Online Marketing for Writers
Lori A. May, Lecturer
Lori A. May is a writer and Editor-in-Chief of Poets Quarterly and she shared her tips on social media for writers. I’m not going to share everything Lori said since she partly makes a living by sharing this info. Instead I will link you to her site. J   http://loriamay.com/

• Social media is about marketing your writing, networking, and “literary citizenship” (cheering on the arts).
• If you begin your social media strategy after your book is out, it’s too late. It takes time to build up a following, especially as a debut author. Start now even if you don’t have a book out.
• Your web, email, and blog are your online business card/portfolio. Be professional. Also use your name and get your URL set up with your name. This says “I am a writer and I take this very seriously.”
• Blogs should be professional while sharing your personality.
• When deciding which social media sites you want to use, try observing them first to watch the activity. Don’t try to do everything. Decide which ones work for you and put your focus there.
• Reciprocate support of other writers, and be a valued literary citizen.

Lecture: What Makes a Story Matter?
Eleanor Morse, Lecturer
Eleanor Morse discussed what takes a story from entertainment to a work that matters on a deeper level.

• Five elements of stories that “feel significant” include: the creation of something new; they connect us with a humanity beyond the self; they contain honest, intense emotion; there is movement; and the description of the finite introduces us to something immense.
• How should the writer approach a work like this? With a) curiosity and willingness to face the unknown; b) a vulnerability and honest emotional involvement, and c) absence of self-consciousness.
• Loved this quote! “Writing is not looking over itself to see how beautiful it is.”  (Not sure who said this.)

Cross-Genre Assignment  Follow Up: Performances of Elevator Plays
We gathered in groups to perform the elevator plays we’d written, cast and practiced. If something can be excruciating and funny at the same time, this was it.

Dinner with Friend: followed by Homework and More Homework, plus enlightening conversation with same friend

MFA Crash Course: Day Seven

***If you are following me AND leave a comment in this thread by 5 PM PST Thursday, 6/3, you will be entered to win a $10 iTunes gift card. Plus you will receive one entry each toward the query crit by my agent Laura Bradford and the ten-page crit by writer Eleanor Morse. Full details here.

Workshop: Met with the four writers in my workshop, led by Julie Brickman. We studied various forms of first person POV. On Wednesday, we also studied ways to use second person and alternate POVs.

• Second person POV is generally used to show a voice that is alienated from itself. A good example is Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City where the protagonist is devolving into a drug additiction.
• A POV that uses “we” can be used to demonstrate a collective voice. In the short story example we read called “We,” the collective was a group of women newly married who lose their identities while caring for young children.
• Both of these POVs would be hard to sustain in a longer work, which is why Jay McInerney’s novel is one of the few examples out there.
• POV you choose for your work should reflect your character. How close can you get to them? How together are they?

Student Readings: 3^rd and 4^th semester students read from their works or act out their plays. It’s a good opportunity to practice reading your work in front of a crowd.

Lunch with Friends: I had lunch with new friends. I swear hanging with these people is like sitting down with people you’ve known your entire life.

Plenary Craft Follow Up: Follow up to “Le Mot Juste” Lecture from Day Two
Sena Jeter Naslund, Lecturer
We each had to turn in examples of literature where we thought the authors had managed to surprise and delight the reader with unexpected language. She called students to the stage to read their examples and discuss them briefly.

Lecture: Early Loves, Lasting Influences: D.H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love” and Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse”
Robin Lippincott, Lecturer
Robin Lippincott was inspired early on by these two works. The thinking involved in these two novels helped him to develop his own work.

• Lawrence often used landscape as a metaphor the emotion in his work. He had a willingness to “convey the changing, quixotic nature of relationships.” His writing taught Robin to “be true to myself and trust my vision.”
• Woolf said “I write not to a plot but a rhythm.”  I love this quote!
• Woolf applied form to her novel, To the Lighthouse, imagining it in an “H” shape with the beginning and end of the novel covering hours and the center compacting a decade into a very short space.
• This lecture reminded me that studying poetry and the rules of formal poetry in particular can help a writer to understand rhythm and structure.

Cross-genre Assignment – Elevator Play Follow-up Practice: We were assigned to teams of six people and each person had to write a 60-90 second play that could be performed in an elevator. At this meeting, we cast the roles and practiced each other’s plays. As an introvert, I was mortified. As a writer, it was AWESOME to see my words acted out and see the reaction from others.

Celebration of Recently Published Books: One playwright performed a piece he was commissioned to write to help his city fall back in love with their local NFL team. Hilarious!

• Eric Schmiedl (playwriting), Browns Rules

• Marcia Dalton (Fleur-de-Lis Press author), The Ice Margin

• Kira Obolensky (playwriting), Raskol

• Louella Bryant (fiction), Full Bloom

Buffet Dinner at Brown Hotel: Two words for you, my friends – CASH BAR. After dinner, a new friend and I hung out discussing how the opinions of friends and family – real or imagined – can have an impact on our work. I love getting into these deep conversations with writers.

In-class Workshop Assignment: We were asked to try out a POV we had discussed. I chose multiple first person, but didn’t get very far – I tend to be a slow writer, especially when writing in class. Here’s what I wrote on the spot. You’ll notice I never got to the second person’s POV. Oops.

In a town engorged with concrete and oily exhaust, Delilah’s Café smelled of pancakes, sticky maple syrup, and home. I watched the woman herself skate through the place, twirling to avoid six-year-old Luke Murray, dipping under Dolores’ tray of plates held aloft by one meaty arm, and lunging forward to save a glass in danger of Frank’s clumsy elbow. From 6AM to 3PM, Delilah moved to some internal tune, gliding about her second home with grace my mother would have envied. In my six months of spectating from my booth seat, I’d only witnessed a single skip in her rhythm…a tiny blip that caused her wide, open smile to curtsy on one side. Her eyes had not widened in surprise when I confessed who I was. She had paused at the counter, a wet rag clinched in her hand that she’d been using to scrub the counter. Nothing more. No clue to how she felt about seeing me, the daughter she’d given up eighteen years ago. I would have thought she felt nothing if not for that dip in her smile.

*These tips are all my own paraphrases. This blog series is not sponsored by Spalding or its faculty

MFA Crash Course: Day Six

***If you are following me AND leave a comment in this thread by 5 PM PST Friday, 5/28, you will be entered to win a $10 Amazon gift card. Plus you will receive one entry each toward the query crit by my agent Laura Bradford and the ten-page crit by writer Eleanor Morse. Full details here.

Small Group Discussion: Met with three other writers to discuss a short story. Discussion was led by a grad student. I will have to do this next residency.

Workshop: Met with the four writers in my workshop, led by Julie Brickman. As promised, here is my workshop piece (removed link) and the feedback I received. Note: I’m only going to leave this up through Sunday. Do not reproduce or link in other places. I hope this helps writers who are afraid of the workshop experience. It can be a really rewarding experience, plus it helped me to solve a major issue with the plot – I was withholding too much from the reader.

Lunch with Mary Waters: I had lunch with my new mentor, so we could get to know each other and discuss expectations for this semester. This is where I squee because I adore her. She reads YA so I feel like this semester’s feedback on my current WIP is going to be really insightful and helpful.

Graduate Student Readings: Three graduating students read from their thesis – a final creative work we are required to turn in our last year of the program.

Lecture: What You Can Do with Elevated Prose and How to Develop Your Own Elevated Style
Elaine Orr, Lecturer
Elevated prose is a kind of prose that is lofty, high style, and intellectual. There are times when this kind of language can be used to effect.

• Why use elevated prose? To deepen a character, slow the reader down, create atmosphere, and more.
• The narrative can be elevated and the dialogue more realistic. The elevated narrative can allow a more intellectual exploration into larger themes of love and death.

Plenary Lecture: What is Creative Nonfiction?
Richard Goodman, Lecturer
This lecture examined creative nonfiction – both its definitions and its variations.

• Creative Nonfiction conveys truth, but allows room for creativity.
• Recommended Read: Woman Warrior
• Commit part of yourself to the page
• Must always have a deep respect for characters. Compassion is required.
• This type of writing gets its soul from the writer

Student Readings: I read from my work. I hate doing it and think I’m an awful reader, but it’s good practice.

Dinner with the YA Writers

Spalding’s Festival of Contemporary Writing: Faculty members read from their current WIP or publications. More impressive writing.

• Charlie Schulman

• Kirby Gann

• Dianne Aprile

• Roy Hoffman

• Kathleen Driskell

• Sena Jeter Naslund

*These tips are all my own paraphrases. This blog series is not sponsored by Spalding or its faculty.