my ultimate goal is to compile my "writing degree" into a one page blurb in bullet points, cramped handwriting front and back. cuz that's how it feels sometimes:

write lots
read lots
collect various writer's "axioms"
find a construction method which suits you
get good @ grammar


so this thread will be the recipient of random brain dumps on what I feel are the 'critical' lessons I learned. ultimately, w/ some trimming- I'll have a jpeg of 1 page front/back in cramped handwriting.


LESSON 1:


GENEROSITY

Any work of art you can immediately tell if the writer was being generous with themselves when they wrote it.

perhaps this is even more important than 'authenticity' or 'craft' or anything else.

so-
be generous. if you're writing from a place where you're giving something- not seeking validation or anything else- just giving-

it will show
and people will respect your big balls

oftentimes to be generous
you have to step out of the piece
go for a walk
ask yourself something to the effect of,

"I got this one chance to say something to someone & make my mark on them. Do I give them a wisp of my subconscious pocket-lint or do I grab the butter knife and hand them my liver...?"

one way or the other
the audience craves liver
not pocket lint

so be generous: GIVE detail GIVE your words. Imagine yourself as the elder passing on a story to the younger generation, cowering there around the fire with their little fischer-price spears, still afraid of the dark. But YES... YOUR WORDS will SCULPT the next generation.

You can either teach them how to use those spears, or spend your time telling them how great you are.

or...

just be in the mood to share. really, really share. show & tell.

if you're there just to show off how good you are with words well, people can see that. they can sense it and no matter how good you are, build it and they will not come. 'cuz you're lording your 'craft'- not sharing it.

the key to generosity

perhaps is something as simple as the notion

-that-

life is hard. life can suck. maybe just maybe you can say something that will make someone's day go a little better.

and hey-

if you're writing but not in the mood to be generous... be generous with your lack of generosity.

be generous

be generous

be generous

you see it in all things. who is just clocking in, and who is hustling.

hustle.

ahh... writing skool. I wented thar too!

So I'm gonna toss a bit of fiction plot structure in the mix... not as a rule, o'course, but rather to see how catharsis naturally flows from the movement of a good plot.

Basically, as the writer, you've got the goods on the situation - you know (or at the end of the work will know) how everything in the story goes. Your reader, however, is starting from a point of zero knowledge about the world you're simulating.

But what about your characters? They start out in a different place. Yes, they're just constructs, but it's your job to treat and render them as real people. So one of the things you should think about when starting to write is what your character(s) know about the situation you place them in.

For the purposes of this writing, I'm going to use the word "character" to primarily represent the protagonist(s) - note the structure below works well for side stories featuring minor characters as well.

Generally, your character starts out with more basic knowledge than your reader - they know about the world, they have information on the situation that you've placed them in, they have a history. As the story progresses, your reader should come to gain some of the knowledge the character possesses, until, by the second act of the work, the reader has knowledge roughly equivalent to the character's. It's actually a good idea to NOT introduce character knowledge past this point, because it tends to feel "tacked on".

By the third act, you should be developing the reader's knowledge beyond that of the character (even as the character's knowledge of the plot continues to increase). This enables the reader to understand more about the forces that are in play on the character, and, if you've done a good job of writing, they'll identify with the character, and begin to think about how the same forces in play on the character affect (or could affect them).

Here's a really basic graph of how this works (yes, ripped off from creative writing class way back in the day):



The structure works particularly well for movie scripts - in fact, it's a general scriptwriting rule that the audience should exactly what's going in the movie (or the main drama) by the end of the first 20 minutes.

Anyhoo, tha's mai too sense for da day. Naow I go wraite good stuffs.

If you're a hanger-oner or an easy quitter, quit now. If writing isn't your bag, find your art and go that way. Don't waste time if you know in your heart you'll give up. I don't want to read any work that doesn't have heart. I'm not sure anyone does. It's not very much different than the Hollywood Dream or the million dollar fantasy. There is no Golden Ticket. Only hard work and more edits. Put all rock star fantasy away, shut up long enough to conceive, and WRITE.

go easy on ppl. why draw lines in the sand?

some people write for therapy, some just 'cuz.

I'm not gonna haze anyone. @ the end of the day, if it gives someone hope, or it's an hour of writing instead of television, or it's an hour of writing instead of jacking radios well-

you see my point.

one way or the other, writing is a good skill to have. if we show someone some tricks and it makes their life a little easier, cool.

LESSON 2

THE COLONEL

(had a little debate w/ myself if this should be lesson 3 or 4 counting in previous posts but meh. figured I'll just keep my own lesson #'s. BY ALL MEANS- ADD TO THIS THREAD IF YOU GOT SHIT TO SHARE. Give it a lesson #, color, or animal if you like. Stormcrow & Blue- mui appreciated. Mucho danke. keep it coming.)

Link where I grabbed this here: Clicky Clicky. I don't know if I'm infringing copywrite by reposting the piece here - so- credit where credit is due to Caroline Forche.

poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2007/05/co...caroline-forche.html

This poem was perhaps the most oft cited piece & over the years I think it appeared in the readers at least four or five times. It is an example of a) one of the few truly, truly successful prose poems out there and b) of flash <non> fiction and c) some of the finest writing in the English language.

On read through, pay attention. Make a list in yo' head. One for images & setting. Notice the language. Structure. Character development. SYMBOLISM.

Print it out. Make notes. Maybe try your hand at doing an imitation piece.

Note the following basics:

1. Poetry can be prose. It need not rhyme. Nor be iambic nor metrically precisimundo or rely on elevated language. Modern/postmodern writing- here is where it is at. Post Hemingway, we are a culture of brevity, terse delivery, dry-cigarette-breath gravitas. You can choose to not go this route, but if you do not have a working familiarity w/ some of the Canon- (and DIS B CANON, PEEPS)- well... may as well just be grabbing paper shopping bags and drawing treasure maps of your backyard on them. i.e., nice way to spend an afternoon digging up little action figures, but don't expect people to take you very seriously.

2. Expectations. Stop having them.

3. Comparison. Don't compare yourself to this. Look at it, learn from it. But don't compare compare. You can compare the writing, but not you.

4. All art is fabrication. We are imperfect creatures & therefor create imperfect art. Striving for perfection is a) essentially dishonest because you're not perfect and b) SOOO 19th century. That doesn't mean you shouldn't hone your craft but- remember lesson 1: Generosity.

The Colonel is an example of generosity in the extreme. Worthy of aspiration. And when I talk about generosity, I especially mean being generous when it comes to talking about your own human frailty. (or in this case, more generally- the human condition.)

AnYhOw:

You could 'craft' this piece from seven different directions or disciplines & each way would show you something new.

So with a little chagrin- simply because it is perhaps the most cited piece in 21st century work shopping, Here da Colonel:

The Colonel by Carolyn Forche


What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.


PS: Happy Memorial Day. GO SHOPPING!
PPS: The Colonel is META

More on Meta later. But realize- not only is it telling a story or forwarding the central poetic conceit, but it's also in its own way, talking about craft & the state of writing. i.e., META.