This morning's workshop was enlightening, inspiring, validating... and paralyzing.
First off, my instructor is fabulous. She will be a wealth of knowledge this weekend and I hope that I get the chance to pick her brain. This morning was an "Info Dump" of literary terms, steps to reading and writing like a writer, and breakdowns of the elements of craft and narrative structure. I have never taken a writing course before, so it was validating to be familiar with most of her terminology. Also, her "Info Dump" mirrored a lot of what I teach to my middle school students. It is always a comforting feeling to know that you are on the right track!
The hardest part for me is now utilizing this information to benefit my own writing. It is relatively easy to analyze a finished novel's plot structure. It is a much more complicated task to create structure in your own writing. My instructor's advice:
And that's OK.
The best thing to do to be a writer, is to write. Begin writing your novel by beginning to write one. Just start writing and edit out what doesn't work later. One example she gave really stuck with me. If you're not sure how your character should do something, then write 5 different ways for the character to do it. Then, pick what you think is the best one.
I have often made reference to The Hero's Journey with my students. Last year we even analyzed one of our class novels (The Eighth Day, by Dianne K. Salerni) to show how it was structured around the Hero's Journey. In today's workshop we were presented with other plot structures from famous author Kurt Vonnegut:
These "Story Shapes" as Vonnegut called them, opened my eyes to some other types of narrative plot structure I should be sharing with the young writer's in my classroom. I've used the standard "plot roller coaster" with them in the past, but not all stories fit neatly into that structure. Showing my students these different possibilities will open up options for them in their own writing that may have been closed off to them before.
First off, my instructor is fabulous. She will be a wealth of knowledge this weekend and I hope that I get the chance to pick her brain. This morning was an "Info Dump" of literary terms, steps to reading and writing like a writer, and breakdowns of the elements of craft and narrative structure. I have never taken a writing course before, so it was validating to be familiar with most of her terminology. Also, her "Info Dump" mirrored a lot of what I teach to my middle school students. It is always a comforting feeling to know that you are on the right track!
The hardest part for me is now utilizing this information to benefit my own writing. It is relatively easy to analyze a finished novel's plot structure. It is a much more complicated task to create structure in your own writing. My instructor's advice:
Come up with your own rules for your work - or borrow others. Whichever you choose, just stick with it!Often I feel that I overanalyze my work, tirelessly thinking and planning what I WILL write, but never actually writing anything down. Fear of failure, of my writing not being good enough, holds me back. In class today, we were given permission to fail. We were told that we will write at least 2 times more than what actually gets printed. Our "Dump Files" may be as large as the novel itself.
And that's OK.
The best thing to do to be a writer, is to write. Begin writing your novel by beginning to write one. Just start writing and edit out what doesn't work later. One example she gave really stuck with me. If you're not sure how your character should do something, then write 5 different ways for the character to do it. Then, pick what you think is the best one.
I have often made reference to The Hero's Journey with my students. Last year we even analyzed one of our class novels (The Eighth Day, by Dianne K. Salerni) to show how it was structured around the Hero's Journey. In today's workshop we were presented with other plot structures from famous author Kurt Vonnegut:
These "Story Shapes" as Vonnegut called them, opened my eyes to some other types of narrative plot structure I should be sharing with the young writer's in my classroom. I've used the standard "plot roller coaster" with them in the past, but not all stories fit neatly into that structure. Showing my students these different possibilities will open up options for them in their own writing that may have been closed off to them before.
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