Call and Response

Here's something I came across I'm a little preoccupied with... a great magazine is publishing weekly poems in response to something in the news...

Littles:

Can you think of one thing that happened in your house over the last week?
Write about it -- include as many senses as you can. What did you see? Hear? Touch? Taste? Smell? Who were the people involved? What were they wearing?
How did it make you feel?
When we respond to something, we react -- we take it and make sense out of it in a way that creates something satisfying...
Can you write a poem in reaction to what happened?


Middles:

Last week a singer died -- John Prine -- I love this song of his song with Bonnie Raitt: HERE
There were a lot of reactions --
HERE's a song I really love that's been going around. A response.
When you respond, you offer something into the world that incorporates some of the thing and some of yourself...
This singer weaves in songs of Prine together with her own idea of how to feel a little better about the sad fact of the singer's death.

You can also react to something positive!

So here's your prompt --
think of something -- it can be in the news, in your home, in your dreams... but pick something that has stuck with you -- that you have been thinking about.

First: Journal about it -- explore it and how it has stuck in your head. Why do you think it seemed to have the weight it did? Was it because of the past? Was it because of the present?

When you are done, write a piece in response to the original thing.


Bigs:

I can't say anything much better than I did in the other two prompts -- Definitely check out the tribute song to John Prine in the middle section of this post. I love it so much.
But here is one of my very favorite poems, which is also a response:

The Day Lady Died

BY FRANK O'HARA

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday

three days after Bastille day, yes

it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine

because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton   

at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner

and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun   

and have a hamburger and a malted and buy

an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets   

in Ghana are doing these days

                                                        I go on to the bank

and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)   

doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life   

and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine   

for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do   

think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or   

Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres

of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine

after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE

Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and   

then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue   

and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and   

casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton

of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of

leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT

while she whispered a song along the keyboard

to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

What do you make of O'Hara's use of details? What do you make of his lack of period at the end of the poem?
How did the poem make you feel?

When you think about the thing you want to respond to, think about the feeling you have. What type of format would suit the emotion you have about the thing you want to respond to?

Go!

As always, I'd love to read what you come up with!
You can also submit your poems to Rattle in the Poets Respond section.


A pen! What for? To see it dance.

Cliché or Not Cliché, That is the Question

Yesterday, in passing, I mentioned clichés.

For some reason I always loved teaching about clichés. As I said yesterday, they are, for one thing, always an opportunity to write. And I suppose as a teacher they are an easy way out... (coincidentally that is exactly what they are for the writer as well...) because I can look at one, say -- nope, no good, try again -- and I can easily tell you why.

Anyway -- today the prompts are all about this tired old territory.


Littles:

((((small warning if you are reading this with littles -- there is one word at the end -- in the grown-up part of this blog which is a big grown up word you might not want to explain <3))))


You might not know what the word cliché is, but I bet you know what some of them are!
Her eyes were as blue as the sky -- that's one example.
Here's an idea for you.
Can you think of things that your family always says? They say those things so much you know it before they even begin?

Write down as many of those as you can think of. A really fun thing to do as a writer is to sit and observe. You can ask someone to put on a timer for you -- maybe 5 minutes -- and for that whole time watch what is going on around you. Write down as much as you can.
My favorite thing to do used to be to write in a cafe. I used to love to watch people -- what they said to each other -- what they looked like doing the things they were doing.

Now -- draw pictures of what you saw them doing.
Add crazy words. Maybe your mom asked your sister if she wanted some chicken soup. (My daughter spent most of yesterday sick on the couch). What if instead mom said, "what if the couch was a time machine?" Or "that couch belongs in the front yard."
Can you write a story (bonus for a picture story!) with your new crazy ideas?


Middles:

Ok -- list as many clichés as you can. I tried, but all of mine sounded like they were out of some crazy sit com from a date so old you wouldn't believe it. Of course, there's the tried and true "her eyes were as blue as the sky," and "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

Most clichés revolve around a metaphor or a simile.

Try to start with at least 5.
Now -- rewrite them!

Her eyes were as blue as the sapphire in the locket she always wore around her neck.
I'm so hungry I could eat every single pancake every IHOP every cooked.

When you are done, let your list prompt you to write a story or a poem. As always, you can look ahead to the big prompts. The only difference between theirs and yours is they get a little more complicated. Personally, if I were stuck in quarantine, I would start with the littles, then do the middles, then the bigs. But that's just me... I like to write.


Bigs:


When I was in poet school I had to write papers -- about poets and poems and books... so fun. Anyway -- I came across something in a set of poems by Jane Kenyon -- I still haven't ever seen this written about -- which is a fun thing to come across. Anyway -- a few of her poems seem to me to be built around clichés:

Take this poem for example (warning -- it's a sad poem):


In the Nursing Home

She is like a horse grazing
a hill pasture that someone makes
smaller by coming every night
to pull the fences in and in.

She has stopped running wide loops,
stopped even the tight circles.
She drops her head to feed; grass
is dust, and the creek bed's dry.

Master, come with your light
halter. Come and bring her in.


Can you find the cliché? Ok... it's actually an idiom. Here's what Miriam Webster has to say:

Definition of put out to pasture

1: to bring animals to a large area of land to feed on the grass there put the sheep out to pasture

2: to force (someone) to leave a job because of old age I'm not ready to be put out to pasture yet.—sometimes used of thingsI put my old computer out to pasture.

So this is your prompt today --

Think about a cliché (or an idiom). Think about what it is getting at -- all idioms and clichés are based on something real. Then write the poem about that reality, without mentioning the cliché.
Notice for Kenyon the title is really blunt about the actual situation. Then the poem itself is a metaphor.
In the poem, the speaker has put her mother in a nursing home -- put her out to pasture, as it were. And then we see this horse -- in a pasture -- and understand the way that life diminishes for one whose physical world -- but also life itself -- is curtailed by their new reality.

Here's another example -- one that I wrote. See if you can spot the idiom.

Years After He Raped Her

The current moves

fast now, slow again

but always there

is ground

under the bridge

with the imprint of decision

sharp splinters from the planks

fall, and remnants of white

paint peel

the stream remains

in August

only a parched-lip trickle

winters, freeze

takes hold.

• After Jane Kenyon

(hint: it's water under the bridge.)

Your turn!


A pen, what for? To see it dance.

Pleasures

I haven't written in a week.
Today is no exception.
I read something in the NYT yesterday -- that basically said, if your not functioning, that's ok.
OK.
But still -- the way to writing is simply to write...

Here is one of my very favorite poems by Bertolt Brecht:

Pleasures

First look from morning's window

The rediscovered book
Fascinated faces
Snow, the change of the seasons
The newspaper
The dog
Dialectics
Showering, swimming
Old music
Comfortable shoes
Comprehension
New music
Writing, planting
Traveling
Singing
Being friendly

I posted it not long ago for a daily poem series I'm doing for a yoga studio I teach at... Someone said, it's kind of optimistic for Brecht...

Where does optimism come from? 

Where does the focus on gratitude for the moment come from?

I used to teach this poem to my students -- I remember one student calling it corny (though I think they used a far more current term that needed then to be translated to my own generational lingo). I asked -- well, would you feel differently if you knew the person had just survived a war?

I also keep thinking about Love in the Time of Cholera. 

I keep thinking ___ in the time of the Pandemic.

Ok... here are the prompts.

Littles:

write a poem that is a list of the things that you love in your day. Try to be as specific as possible. So if you think, mom, is there something about your mom? is it the way she smiles when she tickles you? is it the way the dog kisses your face?

Think about senses -- the things you see hear touch taste and smell.

Middles:

Write a poem that is a list of things you love.

Be honest.

Be surprising.

Be relentless in rooting out cliches. I always think that cliches are an opportunity -- look -- you get to write more there!

Notice the range in the Brecht poem -- some of the list is about writing -- but some is about the world -- and then he comes to relationship.

A great poet friend of mine once said, sometimes we get really big when we should get really small... notice if you are using any big concepts and try to be very very specific.

Bigs:

Notice how there is a sense of time in this poem. He does this without the usual means of syntax and grammar...

Notice how many senses are involved (he wrote another one "To Eat of Meat Joyously")

As you write your list, isn't it important that we, at this moment, remember that some things don't change...

the row of tulips at the neighbors hedge

the way an old friend laughs at the same things 

writing to strangers

Write a poem that is a list of things you take pleasure in. Today.

Also (or, Or), write a poem _______ in the Time of the Pandemic.

Just You

Ok... So here's a thing I've been thinking about. I like to blog -- I wrote a blog everyday for a year -- two years running. The premise of that first blog was "I want to see what happens if I learn one thing about oil every day for a year." It came from something Thomas Friedman said one day in one of his columns in the Times -- he said something about how American's didn't know anything about where their oil came from. That's how it started -- and after 15 years, I checked the stats and 40,000 people have read that blog. I'm sure most of them were looking for something other than what they found... but I loved the thing. I learned so much about oil, yes, but more about writing -- more about my own voice and communication. About how sick of oneself one can get... and how endless the possibilities.

This blog I just started because I was reading a bunch of parents who were concerned about what they and their kids were going to do all day...You

Yesterday I was noticing how many writers were offering writing prompts... and I suddenly felt ridiculous... that old, who do you think you are voice...

Anne Lamott said this on twitter a few days ago:
You get to feel and express your terror, rage and sorrow even if you are not in a hot zone. Don’t shame yourself into thinking that it’s not as bad for you as it is in other places. It’s ghastly, scary, infuriating and heartbreaking for everyone. You matter. You can say it here:


I just love that -- love her, too. I love it because I feel like the sentiment is so needed right now. We are all going through this Big time -- together -- alone -- collectively -- individually...

"Just" is funny. It can be diminishing -- or it can lift you up -- give you permission to be...

I used to give this assignment to my freshmen -- to write something down that they believed they were the only one of in the whole room -- what experience or physical attribute... it's a really interesting exercise -- both for understanding what makes us up and what our perception of that was. One year the girl with no spleen won -- but that was a numbers thing...

So toady I encourage you to write about you. Your experience. You're being.

Elementary:

Write about what it is that makes you truly special and unique.
List thing you love to do.
List things you are good at.
List things that make you laugh.
List things you love to smell. How do the smells make you feel?
List things you love to taste. Are there special things that are happening when you taste those things?
What is your favorite color? What are the favorite colors of your family? Can you draw a picture using all of the colors to represent (that means to take the place of -- to stand in for.) The people in your family? Because you are using colors to stand in for the people -- you can draw pictures of what those people would be if they were in nature...

After all of this, if you are still having fun, write a poem about YOU.


Middle:

First, write a journal entry for today. Try to use all five senses. Talk about both what you are doing, what is different about what you are doing than normal. Talk about how you are feeling. Think about the metaphors we worked on before -- can you make some metaphors about this time for you now?

Next:

Write a journal entry five years from now. What will you be doing then? Where will you be? Talk about how you are feeling. Think about the metaphors we worked on before -- can you make some metaphors about that time for you then?


Then:
Write a poem. What do you have to say right now -- about today. What do you want to remember? What can you tell me about YOU?
If you want an extra challenge -- look to the next section where it talks about writing a sonnet...



High School and Beyond:

So -- there are three of us in this house -- and two dogs... everyone but me had a stomach bug for days... One person is feeling really scared and sad and it is making them really selfish -- one person is finding a lot of healthy time to explore new passions and learn and work out -- one person is freaking out and cleaning all the time and everything is still so incredibly filthy dirty!! Sigh.

I'm just thinking about how we are all dealing with this all so individually -- together and separate -- together out the window, on Zoom, on social media -- alone in our houses, our rooms, our own minds...

Write about your experience today.

Here's an idea -- a sonnet is a good way to allow for this type of exploration...

A sonnet has 14 lines -- 4,4,4 then 2.
Think of it this way -- if the first stanza is your regular view -- as if you were looking through your own eyes around at the world --
Then the second stanza zooms out -- and looks as if from a great height.
Then the third is a space to be really personal.
The last two lines say something about a truth about the whole.
There's a further explanation and link at the end of the post.

A note on rules and forms and such:
I'm not really a form girl. I just wrote a set of sonnets for my friend Olivia -- but I don't follow the rules -- or I try then I break them open...
Some people find the rules help them -- give them something to distract them while they are bearing their souls...

Remember -- today is about you. Take what helps you -- leave the rest behind with a big EXHALE.

Here's a favorite Sonnet of mine -- ...

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 

Conspiring with him how to load and bless 

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 

And still more, later flowers for the bees, 

Until they think warm days will never cease, 

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 

   Steady thy laden head across a brook; 

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, 

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? 

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— 

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft 

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats


Here's one definition from the internet -- but look around, you'll find a bunch.

A Shakespearean sonnet expresses a single idea, but it is generally an idea that develops and expands, with multiple facets, leading to a conclusion – and all within a very specific rhyming scheme. The sonnet structure consists of four divisions, always making up fourteen lines. The first three of the four sonnet divisions have the same rhyming scheme, whilst the fourth and last division has a different rhyming scheme:

1. The Shakespearean sonnet begins with a four line quatrain – four lines that end with alternate rhyming words, in this pattern: ABAB
2. The second quatrain has the same rhyme scheme but with different rhyming words so it follows this pattern: CDCD
3. The third quatrain also has the same rhyme scheme, but again with different rhyming words: EFEF
4. The final two lines is a rhyming couplet: GG

In The Beginning

In The Beginning…

Today there are ideas for poems and for fiction. Those of you who have been following the fiction prompts would (hopefully) want to stick with that. For others, it might be time for a shift. As I shift my thinking I will keep you fiction people in mind too!

I have been working on a poem with the refrain, “in the beginning”

It’s an interesting sentence — right? It can go in two directions — 

It can set up a story — or it can imply a contrast to the ending — or the present. 

It is a deceptive sentence, too — what is the beginning, really? Is the beginning when my coffee cup (now woefully close to empty) was full? Was it an hour ago when I put the kettle on to boil? Was it when I bought this coffee, in a store in Vermont when we were still traveling between states daily? Was it when my cousin gave me my first cup of coffee when I was 10? Was it when my father would make me coffee milk to drink along with him — with loads of sugar and milk? 

This is a silly example, but it’s important to keep history in mind… the beginning of your beginning. You have The Who, When and Where -- don't forget the Why. It's important not only to have a plot, but to keep a psychological plot in mind as well. Stanley Kunitz used to say of poems, there's the thing, and then there is the other thing. A lot of today’s thinking comes out of my work with the brilliant book Story Genius by Lisa Cron. I recommend it highly!

Elementary

Take a look at a few of your favorite books. What do you notice about the beginnings? Can you see how the characters first words give you a hint about what is coming later? 

You can watch this fun video. Notice how what Grover thinks the end will be both is and isn't true!

You have two choices — if you haven’t yet, WRITE YOUR STORY! You’ve been working on character and what your character is wanting — now bring the story to life! Think about beginning, middle and end — so that something happens to your character. 

Give yourself three pages. Write on the top of the pages: First — Next — Then. If I were you I would draw pictures to go along with the story! Then I might even ask one of your grown ups if they have a stapler. Do you know what you will have if you staple these together? A Book! Put a blank piece of paper on the front and draw the cover!

Middle

Ok - We’ve been working on fiction — I want to start taking about poems, too — so now it’s up to you which way you write.  (I mean, it’s always up to you, of course. No matter who tells you it’s not — it’s always up to you! I used to get into a lot of trouble in college because I would try to interject humor into my scholarly endeavors… I still remember the red pen underlined saying, “NEVER DO THIS”. So, of course, you have to think about what it is you want — if you want a good grade, you will maybe decide to do what you are told… Man! This is not what you are supposed to say in a writing assignment!)

If you want to keep going on your fiction — 

Think about the beginning of your story — now think about your main character — think about why the beginning of the story is important to them. What was it their mother taught them to be afraid of? What are they afraid of? What is at stake for them as the story begins? Can you write a scene, in your character’s kitchen, that happened before your beginning that foreshadows what is to come and raises the stakes? Did your character always dream of being an astronaut, so when the alien lands in her back yard she is totally ready to climb aboard? Did you character just spend the last week replanting the lawn so instead of being welcoming she is just pissed that the UFO ruined her work?

If you want to work on a poem —

Write a poem about your personal mornings… 

Think about the beginning of your day today. How is it different from a day a month ago? A year ago? How do you think is different from the beginning of a day a month from now? A year? 

High School and Beyond

So — if you want to keep working on your fiction — it’s time to start working on the story. 

Think about the beginning. How does the beginning of your story relate to what is at stake for your character? There are a few ways of starting — you can set the scene, or you can dive right in… I have to say, I’m a dive right in girl — but that’s yours… Also think about what it is in the character’s past that has lead them to this moment being the beginning of their story - 

I have been thinking a lot about how different things are setting off different people right now. Some things simply are simply more difficult to navigate because of the climate now — Driving to MGH last week there was construction at the entrance to the hospital. It required a small, painless detour — but I nearly lost my shit. Because everything is unpredictable at this moment, the disruption in the path I thought I knew by heart was disproportionately unsettling. This is the heart of personality, right? What happens to us that makes us us — makes us respond in our own way to the things that happen. 

Write the opening scene. Also write a scene from the past that has influenced the character.

Poem —

I am intrigued by this moment. About how this moment is different from he moments that came before — and the ones that are to come.

Write a poem about one thing — either that is the same as it was — or that is very different — because of what we are experiencing. Think about this moment entirely as it relates to time and continuum. 

Here's a poem I've been obsessed with this week:

Spring

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

To what purpose, April, do you return again? 

Beauty is not enough. 

You can no longer quiet me with the redness 

Of little leaves opening stickily. 

I know what I know. 

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe 

The spikes of the crocus. 

The smell of the earth is good. 

It is apparent that there is no death. 

But what does that signify? 

Not only under ground are the brains of men 

Eaten by maggots. 

Life in itself 

Is nothing, 

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. 

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, 

April 

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. 

Dialogue and Metaphor

Dialogue --

Part of any (or squarely most) stories is dialogue -- how people talk to each other and the art of what they say, what they don't say, what they mean, what is heard and what isn't heard. In some cases, whole stories have been built out of dialogue -- check out this: It's one of my favorite stories of all times:
Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway

And also sometimes people talking on their own like this other of my favorites:
Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid

The following is an exercise for all ages. It was developed by Richard Jackson -- I read it in The Practice of Poetry (The link here is to Amazon, but may I suggest you buy it from your favorite independent book seller <3)

There is a warm up for each level, then the exercise is at the end.

NOTE:
PLEASE SEND ME YOUR WRITING!
This is one of my favorite exercises of all times. I would really love to see what you come up with.
Send me the five sentences -- your name, age and where you are from. Also, let me know if it's ok to post!! PRETTY PLEASE


Elementary Note:

A metaphor is when something is like something else -- but you don't use the words like or as, so that the one thing and the other thing merge... this allows us to say something about the first thing without all the words...
My son's smile was my sunshine.
My daughter's laugh was a booming cannon.

Before we get started try some of your own:

_______ is a ________

take a common noun for the first blank -- and then something much much bigger or smaller in the second. Can the second say something about the way you feel about the first?


Middle Note:

You too, practice some metaphors.
The day was a green, big-eyed alien.
Toilet paper was today's Abominable Snow Man.

Write a page about how you are feeling today, about what is going on in your world. What are you afraid of? What are you finding joy in?
Use adjectives and verbs in your writing.
Now look around and think of the things near you.
The heart of metaphor is how what we see is colored by our perception.

Write five metaphors that allow the everyday things around you to say something about your day.



High School and Beyond

Metaphor.
How are you feeling today? Write for five (ten or fifteen) minutes about the way you are feeling and or what is happening in your world today. Use adjectives and verbs. Notice what the adjectives and verbs say about what you might be thinking and feeling that you didn't notice before.
The very heart of metaphor is perception and communication. How you communicate your perception. How things become distorted by our inner lives... and how we can communicate about everyday things in ways that make them more like the way we see them. Bigger, smaller, more dangerous, less important.

Write five metaphors. This is for warming up...



THE EXERCISE!

Ok -- now here's the way to do this. Take a piece of paper. You will write five sentences.
DO NOT READ AHEAD OF THE SENTENCE YOU ARE WORKING ON.
DO NOT SKIP.
I have given you some extra white space so that you can scroll to the sentence you are working on.




FIVE EASY PIECES

1. Describe the person's hands.

2. Describe something he or she is doing with the hands.

3. Use a metaphor to say something about some exotic place.

4. Mention what you would want to ask the person in the context of 2 and 3, above.

5. The person looks up or toward you, notices you there, gives an answer that suggest he or she only understands part of what you asked.

Conflict!

Conflict. It’s what makes a story a story…

Today we will look at that thing that will be the kernel of your story — the thing that gives your character more to do than just sit around and look pretty… There are lots of beautiful character studies — or beautiful views of the landscape. But when characters have to react to influences — from inside or outside — then they begin to move through development — they can learn, grow and teach us something.

Elementary:

Again, it’s always best to start by reading what you have already done. Yesterday I got totally caught up in other things — and maybe you did too — so maybe it has been a day. Look again at your character and their setting. Say good morning to your character! Maybe you can offer her some of your breakfast?

Now, it’s time to start giving your character their story. Conflict — that’s the fancy word. But all that means is that your character wants something they can’t have. Or someone wants your character to do something they don’t want to do. Something happens that is going to mean that your character, who has been going along just like any other day, is going to have to do something different!

I bet you can think of lots of things like that. Some people are having trouble finding toilet paper right now. That could make a mess! My son only likes a certain kind of cheese… My daughter doesn’t want to walk the dog! There’s a famous story where a man wakes up to find out that he has become an insect! Can you imagine??

It is also possible that conflict isn’t uncomfortable at all — maybe your character finds something mysterious — like a bracelet that is really beautiful and they want to find out who it belongs to so they can give it back? 

First: Think about something that surprised you yesterday. Write as much as you can about what happened.

Next: It can be a good idea to read a few of your favorite books. Can you find the place where something happens to the main character that they have to react to? 

Now: imagine that you are your character. What do you think might surprise them? What do you think happens that is going to change their whole day — or maybe their whole life?

Middle:

Again, it’s always best to start by reading what you have already done. Yesterday I got totally caught up in other things — and maybe you did too — so maybe it has been a day. Look again at your character and their setting. Say good morning to your character!

Conflict… Something needs to happen to your character today that changes everything. Conflict is a place where the person (or cartoon or animal) you have created will have to overcome an obstacle… face a challenge and change — for the better or worse — forever.

First: Think about your favorite story. Can you identify the conflict? A lot of times there is set up first — or maybe the story dives right in, starting with a mad moment of action. What kinds of conflict are you drawn to in stories? 

Next: Think about a conflict in your own life. When was a time when you were confronted by wanting something you couldn’t have — or when something was asked or required of you that you didn’t know how you would be able to do it?

Maybe you’ve heard about the crazy toilet paper shortage of 2020— some people stocked up way in advance — some people didn’t and ran out. Some people are waiting in line at 6am at CVS in Wellesley on Friday. Some people have 150 rolls in their basement… Do you think this is about toilet paper? Why would toilet paper become crucial? What is it about control that makes us take it out on such strange things?

The situation we find ourselves in might provide lots of good ideas for you — or maybe you want to use your fiction as an escape… yesterday I was walking on the beach and I found a plastic bottle of holy water! Who lost it? What happened as a result? Maybe it was a vampire…

Or a vampire masquerading as a priest…

Ok. What challenge is facing your character?

High School and Beyond:

I think a lot of people start with conflict — but, as I said before, it always starts with character for me. I think it’s pretty easy to look around right now and find plenty of inspiration… For many month I’ve been thinking about the phenomenon of hoarding — who is the person who has 150 rolls of toilet paper today? What are the causes? The ramifications? What is the situation that will force them out of that space? The mother of three who breaks down crying on FB?

Think about what limitation your character has that they will need to grow larger than…

That old adage about problems being gifts — it can be annoying to hear in life, but in the realm of the story it has to be true. Without conflict your character would never have the opportunity to grow. 

Another way I like to think about conflict is before, during and after. What was the thing in the hoarders childhood that created that need? And where will the character go with it?

I suppose growth isn’t the only option… I really hate those stories where one things goes wrong and then everything sort of begins to spiral out of control… maybe I should try that. I think that very often the exercises you are most averse to is where you can learn the most — it is showing you that there is a weak muscle… weakness is a place to build strength!

Here’s another thing I’ve thought about a lot lately — it’s what I need in the writing… I have been working on a very dark novel for quite some time — but I realized several months ago that I didn’t feel like it was the right novel for me for now… I heard a talk by Shonda Rhimes where she talks about the relationship of story to what’s going on in society — how they often need to bounce off of each other rather than reinforce… I am usually a serial killer viewer — and right now I only want to watch Dharma and Greg. Again, just sharing my thoughts to help you think your own!

With love and writing,

Jennifer

A Pen! What for? To see it dance!