Workshopping

When you have your writing "workshopped" you sit in the room as if you don't exist. The reader experiences your work the same as if they read it online or bought it in a bookstore. You are not there to defend the work, explain the work, interpret the work. To workshop is for you to see your words speak for themselves - and for some writers are surprised at what the work is really saying to someone.

Don’t make vague statements like “it’s good.” Rather than simply stating what you think, explain why. Think in terms of whether something “works” rather than in terms of “good” or “bad.”

Focus on strengths first, but don’t hide your constructive ideas about areas that could improve. Be sensitive but honest. The point is to help the writer consider ways to improve the work. Don’t be afraid to politely express your true reactions to the piece.

As you read each other's stories ask the text the following questions:

What is this story about?
What is the most important thing it is trying to say?
What works and what needs work?
How could the piece improve overall?
What aspects of the piece do you really like?
How did the piece affect you? What sort of impact does it have, if any?

Initial stage: Does the opening of the piece make you want to keep reading?
Setting: Is the setting apparent? Are there details about the time/ place/location? Does the setting play an important role?
Senses: Are you captivated by the writing in terms of senses/ does the writing make you taste, feel, see, smell, and hear in your imagination?
Language: Is the writing exciting? Strange? Too simple? Would you need a dictionary to understand what’s happening?
Predictability: Is the writing too predictable? Is it so unpredictable that it leaves too many loose ties at the end?
Distractions: Is there anything in the writing that takes away from its depth?

Dialogue: Does it blend well with the writing? Are the dialogue lines “normal” or too “forced”? Would you actually overhear people talking like that?
Characters: Are they well-developed? Can you imagine them being actual people?
Scenes and Scene Transitions: Can you tell when the scenes change? Can you keep track of the time//location throughout the story?
Pace: Are there parts of the story that are “too slow” and could perhaps be more exciting or cut? Is there too much action and not enough “thinking time” in the piece?
Believability: Are aspects of the story just too impossible?
Conflict(s): Is there an apparent issue in the story that is attended to and resolved?
Resolution: Does it appropriately tie up the issue? Is it too farfetched or cliched?

  Be sensitive but honest. The point is to help the writer consider ways to improve the work. You may say something like

“The dialogue in the opening scene is an effective idea–I feel like it captures interest right off the bat–but it starts to get confusing towards the end of the opening scene...I’m not making all the connections between the characters’ lines...maybe the writer has those connections in his mind, but needs to give more direction to us readers so that we can make those same connections.”

Flash Fiction

This is the best information on Flash Fiction

For Monday

Hi Gang,
I have to have an emergency meeting with Dean Coker at 2 p.m.

HAVE CLASS WITHOUT ME
1. Spend Friday's class reading through the blog and the suggestions about writing short stories.
2. Spend the weekend writing the first scene for the short story that should be based (even loosely) on the story poem you have been working on. This scene needs to start with action right away. Drop the reader in the middle of some chaos.
3. In Monday's class Dr. RT Goode is going to take us through a guided meditation to help us with our writing practice. Monday is the only day he can come to our class. Have your scene written but be ready to have the meditation practice influence what happens in the scene next.

Any questions?
Email me
Text me
Call me
and
Write
Write
Write

Telling the short story

Kurt Vonnegut

Here are some short stories to read for free (Yeah!)
Here is a list of "Best short stories of all time" (Also free)
Yellow Wallpaper is a favorite of mine

If the link is broken or you can't find it look on Project Guttenberg

They include biographical essays which you will also write in this class.
Read in order to write.
Read in order to write.
Read in order to write.

We will go over this list of things that make a short story and other kinds of storytelling work.

Poetic Storytelling

Get some idea from these slam poets

• explore, as a basis for your poem, personal observations and understandings of a specific (real) person's character which might include exploits, action(s), mannerisms and personality
• successfully present these interpretations by writing a poem in "brief" poetical format that "tells a story" about the observed person. The "character" should NOT be one's own self!)
• become more attentive to particular human quirks and personalities
• demonstrate the ability to utilize specific words and short phrases in place of long descriptive sentences and paragraphs in presenting a story.

Hint: This poem might be described as a "snapshot" of words that quickly, yet effectively tells a "story" about a single, select character.  Perhaps the story focuses on an event or the cumulative results of a personality trait related to the character's life.  Good subjects could include: a grandparent or other relative or, a peculiar neighbor or acquaintance.

Write a poem which satisfies the following criteria:

1. The poem is in the past tense.
2. The poem is no more than thirty lines in length
3. The poem is in the third person, about somebody (a protagonist) "other" than yourself, somebody colorful and vivid enough to make for interesting reading. The protagonist should be non­fictional (You might select one of the more eccentric people you remember from high school) unless you can, as Louis Simpson does in the poem “Caviar At the Funeral," create a convincing fictional character.
4. The poem should not be end-rhymed.
5. The title of the poem should be the name of the protagonist.
6. The main body of the poem should present a scene (as in a movie) dramatizing a telling incident in the life of the protagonist. The scene might well center around some kind of initiation experience, certainly around some experience from which the protagonist learned something important about himself/herself, about the people around him/her or about both. (Experiences which resulted in disillusionment are often particularly suitable for such ultra-short stories.) .
7. The background of the main character or characters should be sketched in by means of digressions.
8. The scene should show the protagonist faced with a situation in which he/she must make a decision.
9. From the decision which the protagonist makes, the reader should gain some insight into the protagonist.
10. From the way in which the author presents the scene, the reader should get a sense of the author's judgment of the character. 
11. This judgment should be very tactfully suggested, by innuendo, through hints and through the author's tone of voice, not blatantly stated.
12. Though told with, great economy, the story should contain enough physical details and images to enable the reader to vividly picture the story's central scene.