Great dialogue makes for great scenes In last week’s post, I focused on tips for writing great scenes–scenes and summary are the building blocks of fiction and memoir. A friend who blogs and writes essays read the post and reminded me that scenes and partial scenes also lend energy and veracity to nonfiction. So true! C’mon, make a scene! First of all, a vital reminder: a scene is a piece of story action, played out moment-by-moment on page, stage, or screen. Conflict drives every scene. No conflict, no scene. A scene moves, dynamically beginning in one place and ending in …
Tag: writing exercise
#NaNoWriMo2015–Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #8)
Hey, it’s NaNoWriMo day #8 so let everything go to hell! We’ve all had those days when things keep going wrong–and wrong–and more damn wrong! The events might be big (getting fired from your job) or small (someone cutting in front of you when it’s your turn to order your latte). At some point we feel so cornered we explode and let loose our rant! Maybe we’re alone and maybe we’re not. Maybe we’re ranting in someone’s face. Hopefully we’re not threatening anyone with bodily harm. Confession: I’ve pulled over in my car so I could rant without censoring myself …
Story Form–It’s a jungle out there!
I had a call yesterday from a writer who wasn’t sure if the story she wants to write will best be told as fiction or memoir. We talked about fear of exposure and how fictionalizing a life story does not necessarily do anything to address that issue. We talked about the kinds of books she loves to read. At the end of our brief conversation, she asked if I had an exercise that would guide her along a discovery process to find her story’s form. I have a simple step, I said, to take you in that direction. Sit down …
THE FORCE FIELD OF RELATIONSHIP
Writers talk a lot about viewpoint characters. The story is told from her viewpoint. Or his viewpoint. Or both their viewpoints. Sometimes we become so focused on maintaining a strict viewpoint, we forget that narrative is about relationships. Relationships. Interactions. Exchanges. Collisions. Between people. And between a person and her world. When you write your next scene imagine an energy field or aura surrounding each of your characters. As you write, put your attention in the space where these energy fields collide. Now imagine an energy field (or a thousand different fields) coming from the physical world–the birds singing …
SECRETS & LIES – Daily Writing
If you are writing fiction and you want to spark a two-character scene and/or a short story, endow one character with a secret and the other with a lie. Now let them interact without either one revealing the truth. Too lazy or virtuous to come up with something juicy? Visit the Post Secret website for inspiration. It’s one of my favorite “writerly” sites online.
A NARRATIVE SENSE OF PLACE
“If character is the foreground of fiction, setting is the background, and as in a painting’s composition, the foreground may be in harmony or in conflict with the background…where there is a conflict between background and foreground, between character and setting, there is already “narrative content,” or the makings of a story.” Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft As an exercise, Burroway suggests writing a scene in which two characters are in conflict over their surroundings. One wants to stay, the other wants to leave. If you choose to do the exercise, you might try it twice–first …
DREAMING CHARACTER–A FICTION EXERCISE
I’ve been cooped in at home all week with a sick child. Today, Pearl is on the mend and I had the chance to hop on my trail bike and take the dogs out for a ride. When I haven’t been on the trail for awhile, I’m always amazed how the New Mexico sky and landscape ground me, and how bike riding fires up my imagination. Along the way, I came up with a writing exercise. If you feel so inspired, try it and let me know what happens. 1) Invent a new character or choose one you’re already working with. Let …
THE RANT!!!
When was the last time you had a really truly terrible sucky day? One of those worst days, when everything went wrong and you felt defensive and angry and backed into a corner? Maybe you really were backed into a corner–by your best friend or by the driver who cut you off in the parking lot and then waved a single digit your way. Maybe the bad stuff lasted a few hours or a few minutes; either way, by the end you were ready to blow your stack and rant! I’ve had my share of bad streaks and the rants …
MAKING HEADLINES!
I learned one my favorite writing “tricks” from Charles Dickens, who often published his novels in installments. He used chapter headings, or, what I call headlines. Open OLIVER TWIST to Chapter 6 and read: Oliver, Being Goaded by the Taunts of Noah, Rouses into Action, and Rather Astonishes Him. Or Chapter 32: Of the Happy Life Oliver Began to Lead with his Kind Friends. But page forward to Chapter 33: Wherein the Happiness of Oliver and his Friends, Experiences a Sudden Check. And near novel’s end: The Pursuit and Escape. When I’m writing my first draft, I aim for scene …
QUOTE OF THE DAY–TRUE CHARACTER
Today’s writing quote, one of my favorites on character, comes from Robert McKee’s powerful book STORY: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. “TRUE CHARACTER is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure–the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.” Whether you are writing a screenplay, novel, play, or memoir, I believe the quote holds true. Think about people close to you, think about yourself, think about your characters–and now make a quick list of defining, revelatory choices made. What was the context of the choice? What …