Undefined parameters

The question of newness is always one with which my students (and even I) struggle. How to we bring something new into the world when everything has already been said? I watch them resort to complicated plot lines and pseudo-exotic settings and characters. They have to fumble through these attempts to see how they fail. Experience is the best teacher, and, being young, they haven’t yet received much of an education on that front.

So how to reach something genuine, true, exquisite in the mundane? I wish I could tell them, offer advice, but I think a writer must be true to herself before she can be true on the page, and this is where it gets difficult. How can we be true to ourselves if we haven’t yet learned who we are? Maybe it’s better to say we must be true to the struggle to be ourselves.

Who can Pull the Sword from the Stone?

I had thought for a number of years that one of my sons would be a writer when he grew up; it was simply something I took for granted from his earliest years. This is a boy who, at 2, said of our snow-covered house, “The house looks like a snow muffin” and who any number of people said had “the eyes of a poet” (whatever that means, even though I had to agree with them—he had the eyes of an old soul). Though he took an interest through elementary and middle school and wrote short stories and poems, he is headed to different artistic endeavors, which is fine by me.

The idea that one might be a born writer is a tempting thought. Certainly, some people are gifted in one area or another and have less distance to cover, perhaps, to achieve greatness (or, at least, competence). The temptation (for me, anyway) is not so much to feel one is born a writer than to feel that one wasn’t, thereby having an easy excuse to fail to exercise whatever talent has been bestowed.

Even if I was born to write, so much debris stands between me and whatever I was born to, that I think I should just start from scratch every day, without expectation of anything but effort.

The Joys of Escapism

As a young person, all I considered worthy of reading was “serious literature.” I figured that one only has so many hours of reading in a lifetime, and the world is filled with so much great literature, that I’d better be choosy about what I read. As I grew older, I still had time for serious literature, but I didn’t think of it as that, simply as what suited my taste. It didn’t occur to me to read for fun, to read something light, frivolous, escapist.

Then I began working at a hellish job, one with terrible hours, a long commute, and a spiteful coworker. It seemed as if I would never get to leave that job (and I had to be grateful for it since it was better than being unemployed). I picked up Terry Pratchett’s Bromiliad trilogy, much loved by both my sons, one they’d read and re-read, to connect with them by reading something they loved. The bonus for my exhausted mind was that it would be easy to read (something that had never before been a category of qualification for a reading selection).

I loved it so much, and more than the books themselves, I loved the escape; I’d forgotten the intense, absorbing pleasure of being carried away from my troubles, and, for a few hours, being really happy. After that, I delved into everything Pratchett had written, escaping.

As a writer, especially when I was a young writer, I wanted to write brilliant literature, something Pulitzer-worthy. After my foray into escapist reading, I know the value of entertainment and know that simply entertaining a reader is enough; I don’t need to be the Great American Novelist. If I am able to temporarily transport people elsewhere and give them respite, I’ll be satisfied with my work.

Charlie Kaufman and J. Alfred Prufrock

One of my favorite scenes in any movie is in Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation in which the character, Charlie Kaufman, attends Robert McKee’s how-to screenwriting lecture and asks about writing a movie more like real life, where nothing happens, nothing is resolved. I assume everyone can relate to poor Charlie’s question (and, if it’s just me and others like me, at least we’re in great company).

It’s not as if nothing happens in my life; it’s more Prufrockian than that: if I commit it to paper, if I say “I am Lazarus come from the dead, come back to tell you all,” and my readers turn away, “That is not what I meant at all.” then how should I presume to spit out the butt-ends of my days and ways?

Sheer force is the only answer I know. Use ridiculous prompts, sit on the train and write x-number of profiles before I can go home—one I haven’t actually tried, but it’s out there, waiting for me. Charlie and Prufrock sit on either shoulder, no angels and devils here, just the warmth of companions united in fear, self-boredom, and doubt.

The World of Objects

Character Clues Container

When hot on the trail of a plot or a great section of dialog, it can be easy to fly right past the physical sense of a scene and focus solely on the psychological. An exercise to ground students (and authors) to the world of objects is one we did in class recently.

I’ve included the video link above (and instructions below, should anyone wish to carry it out for a creative writing class K-12+).

What stuck me was that the most entertaining and engaging story came from a girl, DaNasia, who was improvising; she’d come to class unprepared, quickly grabbed some objects from around the room, and told her story, making it up as she went. Her story contained a sense of character and setting, conflict and drama, and to top it off, humor. She is aware of her audience—the video is intended for elementary-aged students—and amends her story on the fly to suit the age group. See if you can spot the moment in the video.

“Character Clues” Container

Activity

In this activity, students will use objects to help tell a story about a real or imaginary person.

Materials needed

Various sorts of containers (bags, boxes, baskets, etc.)

Sundry items

Introduction

To introduce the topic to students, ask them if they’ve ever explored something they found in order to determine who might have owned it. Discuss any student comments.

Before you demonstrate the activity, explain to them that you are about to create a story about an imaginary person (or it could be a real person, someone you know) by choosing objects that reveal something about the person and putting them in a container (which might also tell us something about the person).

Demonstration

Next, show them how to do the activity by selecting a container from a group of potential containers (bags, boxes, baskets, etc.). Remind them that the container can also help tell part of the story. (For example, the container might be something a child is more likely to use, like a school bag, or something an adult is more likely to use, like a toolbox or shopping basket.) Ask students to suggest types of containers that tell us something about their owners.

Then, select some objects from a group of items, putting them in one at a time so the students can see them (to generate interest and curiosity). After you have selected several items and put them in the container, take them out and discuss the contents of the container. Ask students if they can guess anything about the imaginary owner of the container. Then, tell a story about the person using the objects from the container. (See example below.)

Assignment

Now ask the students to make their own “Character Clues” container.

For younger students, students who cannot do homework, or students without access to materials at home, it is useful, if possible, to provide them with some items and containers to choose from within the classroom. If items or containers are difficult to come by, students can draw or describe their containers and contents when they tell the story.

If feasible, students can do the project for homework. Items do not have to come from home, they can come from nature or even be picked up on the walk home from school. Any object can start a story!

Once students have assembled their containers and contents, they should gather together for the storytelling. Each student should show his or her container, display the objects (all at once or one at a time), and tell the story of his or her character.

Enhancing stories

Encourage students to add detail to their stories. (For example, if a child is telling a story of a character who encounters a “scary dog,” he or she can add description and detail such as “a dog as tall as me, with a deep growl, bright red gums, and flashing teeth.”)

Variations/Modifications

-Stories can be written in addition to being told orally. Some students may wish to illustrate their stories.

-For a greater challenge, have students tell or write stories about the “Character Clues” containers that other students created before students reveal their own stories.

- Students can pair up and, together, create a story that involves both of their characters.

-Instead of placing the containers around the classroom, teachers can place the containers outside where the students can “find” them and bring them back to the class. They can include the story about how and where they found the container along with the story about the imaginary owner of the container.

-If students are familiar with mysteries or detective stories, they could speak of the objects in the container as clues and tell a detective story.

-For students who need help, teachers can create the “Character Clues” container themselves, and have each student examine it and tell a story about it.

The Power of Improv

I joined an improv group recently, and it regenerated an interest in writing a blog, keeping my focus on writing and creativity. Creativity must find its outlet, and so to escape the strictly regulated confines of the test- and data-driven climate of my workplace, I dedicate this space to writing and the pursuit of creativity.

In this improv group, we practice the standard “yes, and” idea, wherein one person begins the improvisation and the next must accept the reality that’s already been constructed and add to it. If someone began a skit by putting her arm around my shoulder and saying, “Child, have you come here for confession?” even if I’d planned to play the role of family dog, I had to instantly assume the role of sinner. Okay, so I’m talking to a priest; who am I—quick—a pole dancer, a thief, an overly guilty jaywalker? And who’s this priest; is he saint, is he a monster? The next words out of my mouth will determine that, so thinking is bypassed a little; you just skip along the surface and skim off a shiny bit. It’s liberating to allow others to define the parameters and to define them yourself, knowing that everyone else must go along with whatever stream your mind has jumped into; we all jump together and move with the current.

As a new reporter in college, I would work and rework a piece, refusing what came to mind in favor of something better. My high school creative writing teacher had told us in every variation imaginable that we shouldn’t allow our internal censor to constrict our writing, that editing could come later. I agreed with her wholeheartedly… and continued to let my internal editor censor me. It wasn’t until one night, as I hunched over my computer writhing with the burden of word choices, my newspaper adviser passed me in haste, just before deadline, and blurted, “Don’t think; write.” Ah, ha! Genius.

From that moment forward I understood. It’s the idea of “yes, and,” the freeing of oneself to flow and improvise, with faith that it’s leading somewhere.