[stylist] Writing Exercises from Patricia Foster

[Donna Hill]

Hi Priscilla,
I got both of them. I thought we used to be able to send attachments, 
but I guess that was a while ago.
Donna

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On 10/26/2010 3:01 PM, Priscilla McKinley wrote:
> Did anyone get this email?  I didn't receive it in my inbox.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Priscilla
>
>
>
> On 10/26/10, Priscilla McKinley<priscilla.mckinley at gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> I'm trying to send this again.  Can we not send attachments?
>>
>>
>> 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 some 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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