[stylist] Writing Exercises from Patricia Foster

[Priscilla McKinley]

Hey, listers,

I just received the writing exercises from Patricia Foster, our guest
speaker on Sunday night.  She told me to let you know that these are
responses to other readings but that most will work without the
readings.  She will get the book list together later, as she is rather
busy right now.  Also, she said that she enjoyed chatting with
everyone on the conference call.

I am pasting, as well as attaching, the exercises.

Thanks,

Priscilla


1.  First Things First: an exercise in memory

You can use Edward Jones’ “The First Day” and Primo Levi’s “The
Disciple” as examples.

Write about a first – yours or someone else’s.  First haircut.  First
airplane ride.  First day of school.  First date.  First job.  First
lie.  First move to another city.  First hospital stay.  First time
eating ice cream or tiramisu.

Begin “in” the moment of action: the flash of the barber’s scissors
above your left ear as he leans over to cut into your dark, tangled
hair; rubbing the crumbs of a piece of toast on your nubby pajamas on
the morning of your first day at Longfellow school.

Remember to include sights and smells and sounds and textures that add
particularity to your memory.

Remember that underneath each concrete story there will be other
firsts: the first recognition of aloneness, the first stirrings of
shame, the first time falling in love with a place, the first foray
into grief.

Concentrate on focusing your action with a single scene – or a series
of scenes.  A scene: action that takes place in a specific time and
place.

2.  MEMORY – Revising History

We know that memory is fickle, that we consciously and unconsciously
remember events in certain ways to protect ourselves, to dramatize
ourselves, to make things more exciting.  Sometimes we do not really
know what happened and our minds intuitively fill in the gaps.

In both “The Harvest” (Amy Hempel) and  “Snow” (Anne Beattie) the
narrators reveal the slipperiness of memory, how an event – an
accident, for example – can be told in such a way as to leave many
things out or how our memory of a time in our lives can be different
from the memory of another person who experienced the same moments.

First:

In this exercise, I want you to write about a particular event – an
accident, a sudden illness, a dismissal, a moment in combat.   Write
as close to the action as possible so that you place the reader “in”
the moment of disruption.  Write in past tense and begin with “I
remember. . .”

Later:

Go back to your exercise and look at what you’ve left out and/or what
another person might have remembered differently.  Do one of 2 things:

1.	Add a postscript (along the lines of what Amy Hempel does in “The
Harvest”) of what you left out (and implicitly why you left it out).
2.	Add someone’s differing memory as counterpoint (“You remember it
differently. . .”) and then some kind of synthesis or commentary
(“This, then, for drama. . .”)
3.	Let the reader see how feelings change with misinformation as in “Accident.”


3.  Using Gesture and Mannerism in Creating Character

First:

After reading William Boyd’s “Beginning”:

Character can be revealed through action, dialogue, as well as through
mannerism and gesture. Many times writers depend too much on action –
what happens – to reveal character whereas description of mannerisms
and gestures tell us as much as we need.  Character can be achieved
through brushstrokes.   The literary critic, James Woods, gives this
example from Maupassant’s story “La Reine Hortense”:  “He was a
gentleman with red whiskers who always went first through a doorway.”

1.	Consider an important character in your history/story.  Think of a
gesture or mannerism or expression that pushes you to see this
someone: red whiskers; unshaved bristles on his cheekbones;  going
first through a doorway, etc.   Begin with a particular circumstance
that leads to remembering.

2.	Why do I go on about this?  Tell the reader why you are obsessed
with this person, why she/he is important to your story.

3.	Draw a picture of the place (room, car, beneath the tree) where
this takes place.  Put whatever details/objects might be in this
place.  Where are you?  What are you doing?  Describe the scene.

4.	Show this person in a moment of action.  It might be as simple as
washing dishes or turning down the a/c or as important as slapping
someone’s face.  Let yourself imagine what this person is thinking.
Ask this person a question you’ve never asked before but always wanted
to know.  Imagine the person answering, then returning to the activity
of the beginning.


4.  Emblematic Moments – Creating Scenes

Readings:  “What Happened During the Ice Storm”; “Illumination
Rounds”; “Killing Chickens”; excerpt from Matterhorn.

Scenes represent moments of choice or turning points.  Here, something
(often difficult) is decided or revealed that changes the direction of
the narrative.  Scenes represent immediacy, something happening
“before your eyes.”

In-class

Choose a moment in which you – or your character – make a decision.
We will start with a moment in childhood, something that still has
emotional weight in your life.  It might be a moment when you betray
or save someone/something close to you or are betrayed/saved by
someone else.  Once again, we will stay very close to the moment
itself, revealing ‘what happens’ as if through a close-up lens.  We
will use “What Happened During the Ice Storm” as our guide – a small
action that is redemptive (though if you go the betrayal route, then
you’ll be showing the opposite – though both sides reveal
vulnerability).


5.  Immersion/Immediacy/Atmosphere

Think of an incident from your past that happened in a particular
atmosphere: at night; while it was raining; in a storm; during a snowy
morning; in extreme heat or fog.  Choose an incident that has some
meaning to you, one that provokes some strong emotion and feeling.
The feeling could be positive or negative – a moment when you felt
frightened, isolated, safe, euphoric, powerful.  Try to remember as
much detail as you can about the event and about the physical nature
of the atmosphere.  Consider how the atmosphere becomes a significant
part of the event, how it plays a role in your memory, becomes if not
a character, then a defining aspect of the event.

Write as close to the moment/incident as possible. Write in first
person, present tense as if you are right there, re-living it.

Retrospective Point of View/Atmosphere

Now that you’ve written a close-up of this incident, take a different
tact:  look at the incident from your current perspective but write in
third person, past tense.  Let us see the same incident but allow the
narrator to have, perhaps, a different cognition on the event and the
people involved.  The retrospective narrator might comment on this
moment in a way that suggests how time changes your perspective
(sympathies, decisions, even moral concerns).




6.  FORM: A Day in the Life

 This kind of essay often takes a journalistic stance, reporting the
“contents” of a day, often for one or two purposes: to show an
ordinary side of strange, remote lives or to show a strange side of
ordinary, familiar lives.  In the case of Robert Heilman’s essay
“Overstory: Zero,” perhaps it is the latter.  In this essay, Heilman
breaks up and names the parts of his day – making the form modular –
and takes the reader deeper into the politics of a company
reforestation crew.

Formally, he uses second person point of view, present tense, modular structure.

In this exercise, I want you to consider the modular structure and do
the following: pick an area of your life that lends itself to
dailiness and to a revelation of the day’s meaning.   It might be your
job; it might be your social activities; it might be volunteer work;
it might be “A Day in the Life of a Loafer” or “A Day in the Life of a
Waitress,” or “A Day in the Life of a Single Mom/Dad” or “A Day in the
Life of an Asian Traveler.”

The main thing is to find something that compels you, that seems ripe
for unraveling.  And something you haven’t written about before.

To simplify the exercise, consider it as having four parts:

1.	Beginning of a day – the introduction to your story (this doesn’t
mean it has to start in the morning, by the way).  The beginning of
your particular story as a hitchhiker in Nepal may begin at 2:30 in
the afternoon when you’re dying of thirst.
2.	A list – Just as Heilman gives a list of what he takes with him in
“Kamikazes,” make a list that is important to this person’s life.
Incorporate it into a paragraph.
3.	An Event – something that “happens” and can be told as a story.
Ex: you spill salad dressing all over a customer and the customer
first yells, but then charms you and leaves you a big tip; you sleep
through a test and in your panic at what you’ve done, you rush out
into traffic and immediately make an illegal turn and get a ticket.
Something happens!
4.	End of day – a “moment” that reflects the day’s waning.




7.  Sequence/Scene (fiction)

This is a long exercise in sequence. The point is to explore how a
story moves from a situation to a complication to a turning.  We will
explore this not as an intellectual concept but through process.  In
the process we will look at the close-up scene, the flashback moment,
the movement from emotional response to action.  If you are already
working on a character, feel free to use this character in the
exercise.  If not, the exercise will evoke a character.


I will give you the first sentence of a situation and then prompts to
stay in sense memory.  Stay with character.

Situation: 1) waking up not in your bed.  You feel surprise and
anxiety.  Look around the room.  Let us see the room through the
senses – the light, the sounds, the smells, the objects, your
narrator’s body.

2) Let one particular object catch your attention and suggest a strong
connection to your anxiety.  Touch it.  Experience it sensually.

 3). Let this object evoke a memory, one based on wanting, desiring
something, a surface thing you want: a touch, a gesture, an object.
Experience this surface thing through your character’s sensibility.

4). Let the memory of this desire include a moment when a second
memory is evoked.  This second memory involves another object,
different from the one you are touching or wanting but similar in its
basic sensual pattern.  The wanting deepens into a state of being, a
state of self.

5). Second memory moves you to an action.  Let the action happen
moment by moment.

6).  Some part of the action will bring you back to the first object.
Your sensual perception is reshaped by emotion and yearning of the two
linked memories.

7). Now in the present you take an action.



8.  Creating Shape in Scene:  Image as Strategic Bookend

Choose a person you know well, someone with whom you have had intense
engagement (pleasure/disagreements/issues) in the past.  Let yourself
drift back to a particular moment with this person.

1.	Start with an image.  For example, describe this person’s hands
(one or two sentences).
2.	Narrate an action.  Describe something she is doing with her hands
(this may be only a small task: your grandmother wiping her hands with
a dish towel).
3.	Describe something about the surroundings, giving the reader a
sense of where you are and what the situation is (in the kitchen with
your grandmother while she peels carrots and you sulk at the table
because your boyfriend didn’t call).
4.	Ask this person a question you’ve always wanted to ask or begin a
dialogue about the problem or issue (Did your grandfather ever ignore
her this way?).
5.	Let the question be a catalyst for a scene.  If in real life you
didn’t ask a question directly, but always wanted to, you can push the
scene by imagining the other person’s response and telling the reader
that this is a dialogue in your head.  Imagining the response is not
cheating.  It’s a legitimate way to let the reader see more deeply
into your character and into your perception of the other person.
6.	Come back to the image of the person’s hands.  The image will be
slightly different because the narrator’s perception has been aroused
by the exchange.

The important thing in this exercise is progression from image to
action to setting to conflict and back to image.
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