On his official site, chuck had a writers workshop... These are some brief recaps of what he posted... (The full versions were pulled since chuck is gonna publish a book about writing...)
I thought I'd post these incase there was anyone else here is interested in writing...
Topic One:
Establishing Your Authority
Recap of Chuck’s First Assignment
The first technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called Establishing Your Authority. We begin with two major methods for doing this: Heart Method and Head Method.
The Heart Method operates on an emotional current. With this method, you create an atmosphere of confidence or trust that isn’t achieved with everyday bragging or yet another variation on The Hero Story. To practice the Heart Method, begin with the following exercise:
Write an anecdote that establishes your authority with honesty and vulnerability. Risk telling the story of a scar, embarrassment, or humiliation. Chuck says that the beauty of this method is that it will inspire your reader, not only to trust your narrator and listen to you, but to open up, and risk telling his or her own story, as well.
Next is the Head Method for establishing authority. This is where you use interesting facts and tidbits of knowledge to impress the reader that your narrator is smart. To do this effectively, you need to do some research. Then, find a way to work this information into your story. Don’t try to impress the reader with mere cleverness. Instead, invite the reader to share in a special world of insider knowledge, with facts that actually move the story forward.
Also, take some time and pull some books down off the shelves. Read the first few paragraphs of several stories and look for examples where the author is Establishing Authority with the Head and Heart Methods.
When you submit your own stories for Assignment 1, Establishing Your Authority, make sure to specify in your summary which aspect—Heart Method or Head Method—you are focusing on each time. Good Luck.
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Topic Two:
Developing a Theme
Recap of Chuck’s Second Assignment
The second technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called Developing a Theme. In “Dangerous Writing,” where Chuck got started, themes are also known as Horses. Think of your story as a cart full of merchandise. If you are going to take it anywhere you need to hitch up some horses right away. This means introducing your one or two major themes early. And making sure they stay with you for the whole journey. There is no journey without them. They must pull your story from start to finish if you want to arrive.
A theme is an organizing idea for a story. It exists at the conceptual level, and is therefore abstract and intangible. But it appears throughout a story in multiple, specific and tangible ways. One example is the theme of mortality in Fight Club. It is stated explicitly in some places: “Across a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”
In other places it is more implicit: “His name is Robert Paulsen….”
(Big Bob becomes an object of reverence after he is killed.) Even breaking the taboo around violence in Fight Club may ultimately have more to do with our fear of death than anything else. This is a theme. What other themes can you identify?
For homework, go to a party. While there, seed the conversation with the theme or topic, Childhood Fears. Don’t make a big deal of it. Just find an opportunity to start talking about your own childhood fears. See if this doesn’t inspire others to do the same. Listen to as many stories about childhood fears as people are willing to tell. Later, make notes and start to mix different bits of the stories you hear into a story of your own. Remember that the theme of your story does not have to announce itself in an obvious way, but you should introduce some expression of your theme from very early on. Then, various permutations of the same theme should carry your story all the way through.
Don’t forget to specify in your story summary the kind of feedback you wish to receive.
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Topic Three:
Using On-the-Body Sensation
Recap of Chuck’s Third Assignment
The third technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called Using On-the-Body Physical Sensation. I like to call it the Gut Method of establishing your authority. You’ve already learned how to appeal to the head and to the heart. Now you want your words to reach even deeper, and affect the reader in a visceral way. This is the magic door that allows the reader to suspend everyday reality and step inside the world of your story.
The secret to this is to unpack physical sensations into discreet units of experience and then describe these experiences in direct and novel ways. Shun the cliché. If you want to describe an intense sexual experience, forget about the usual crap you would read in some typical soft-core porn-romance book. Think instead of the language your character—and only your character—would use to describe the act or the pet name he has for his own genitals, or how sex is sometimes not all that flattering or romantic.
But for this exercise, let’s talk about pain. Here’s the anonymous quote we use: “When a regular person gets a headache, she takes an aspirin. When a writer gets a headache, she takes notes.” Don’t miss the opportunity to describe your own sensations in a precise way. Even if it’s just notes for future use.
For the exercise, give your character a headache. And describe it without using words like “sharp, stabbing, excruciating,” without using words like “dull, throbbing,” without using words like “pain.” Think about it. When you read: “John had an excruciating headache!” does this give you any sense of a real particular headache? Or does it simply evoke bad literature and lazy writing? Do as much research and experimentation as you need, to give your character a headache that will make your reader take an aspirin.
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Topic Three:
Using On-the-Body Sensation
Recap of Chuck’s Third Assignment
The third technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called Using On-the-Body Physical Sensation. I like to call it the Gut Method of establishing your authority. You’ve already learned how to appeal to the head and to the heart. Now you want your words to reach even deeper, and affect the reader in a visceral way. This is the magic door that allows the reader to suspend everyday reality and step inside the world of your story.
The secret to this is to unpack physical sensations into discreet units of experience and then describe these experiences in direct and novel ways. Shun the cliché. If you want to describe an intense sexual experience, forget about the usual crap you would read in some typical soft-core porn-romance book. Think instead of the language your character—and only your character—would use to describe the act or the pet name he has for his own genitals, or how sex is sometimes not all that flattering or romantic.
But for this exercise, let’s talk about pain. Here’s the anonymous quote we use: “When a regular person gets a headache, she takes an aspirin. When a writer gets a headache, she takes notes.” Don’t miss the opportunity to describe your own sensations in a precise way. Even if it’s just notes for future use.
For the exercise, give your character a headache. And describe it without using words like “sharp, stabbing, excruciating,” without using words like “dull, throbbing,” without using words like “pain.” Think about it. When you read: “John had an excruciating headache!” does this give you any sense of a real particular headache? Or does it simply evoke bad literature and lazy writing? Do as much research and experimentation as you need, to give your character a headache that will make your reader take an aspirin.
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Topic Four:
Submerging the I
Recap of Chuck's Fourth Assignment
The fourth technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called Submerging the “I”. For all the immediacy and power of first-person narrative, one of the usual drawbacks is continually hitting your reader over the head with the word “I.” A narrator who goes on and on with “I did this, then I did that…” is likely to seem egocentric and to alienate the reader.
The alternative is simple. Keep the first-person immediacy, but eliminate most occurrences of the word “I”. Especially those that appear early in the narrative or that lead sentences and paragraphs. For a great example of a first-person narrative that holds back on revealing the “I”, check out a copy of Chuck’s story Guts, which appeared in the March 2004 issue of Playboy magazine and also in a recent issue of the Guardian U.K.
For homework, dig up some of your own recent first-person writing. Go through and circle every occurrence of the word "I". Then, find a way to eliminate most of them. Can you find a long paragraph that starts with "I" and has another "I" in almost every sentence? Chop it up. Find a way to present your narrative that is direct and immediate, without hitting the reader with a thousand little "I's"--those "I's" that keep saying: "this is not your adventure, it’s mine."
Remember, you don’t have to eliminate the “I’s” completely. If you do, it’s not first-person narrative anymore. So, it’s fine to have an “I” show up, say, once or twice in a long paragraph--especially near the end of it--as a sort of anchor. But somewhere floating above that anchor, there needs to be a sound and sea-worthy ship.
The challenge is always to invite the reader inside, first. Allow him or her to identify with your character and sail along with you. Make the narrator an interesting but, in a way, impartial character--a window onto the world of your story--instead of a lone egocentric little “I”, ranting at the world. When you submit your re-written passages as a workshop assignment, be clear in your summary about any points of comparison to your previous work. Write a clear, concise agenda for the kind of feedback that you wish to receive.
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Topic Five:
Hiding a Gun
Recap of Chuck's Fifth Assignment
The fifth technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called: Hiding a Gun. It’s named for the scene in Act One of Anton Chekhov’s play, The Seagull, where a character loads a gun and then leaves it. Of course, the rest of the play is the audience waiting to see when this gun will appear once again, and who will get shot.
This technique resembles what students of literature call “foreshadowing.” That’s when something is hinted at early in the work, then brought back at a crucial moment, usually, at the climax of the story. Hiding, and then revealing your “gun” is a powerful way to bring on that climax, before your story loses its energy.
The way this is done can be crude and obvious. Or it can be subtle. When used effectively, it’s maybe the single best plot device you will ever pick up. For anyone who thinks this technique is clumsy, or outdated, Chuck recommends checking out a short story called This is Us, Excellent in Mark Richard’s collection, The Ice at the Bottom of the World.
Also, check out some of your favorite films. Look for any character, situation, or tiny element that is dangled early on, then comes back in a big way to turn the tide of events, to help resolve the plot, or to provide an unexpected twist-ending. Think of the subtle or not-so-subtle cues in the Sixth Sense, that reveal to the careful viewer--early on in the story--what the rest of the audience will only figure out near the end. Think of the mystery of Rosebud in Citizen Kane.
The hidden gun can take any number of forms, but these tend to fall into a few basic categories: The Big Question (Quest for Knowledge), The Countdown or Ticking Clock, and the Physical Process (like a pregnancy). In all of these forms, the hidden gun can provide a satisfying way to resolve your plot.
For homework, find a copy of the short story This is Us, Excellent, and figure out the hidden gun and what it alludes to. Beyond this, take another look at your favorite books and films with an eye out for the hidden guns. After you’ve dissected everything, look for new ways to hide guns, besides the question, the physical process and the clock. Try to find a gun that no one else has used. And, of course, find some ways to hide a gun in a story of your own.
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Topic Six:
Avoiding Thought Verbs
Recap of Chuck's Sixth Assignment
The sixth technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called “Thought Verbs." The idea is to eliminate them from your writing. “Thought Verbs" are abstract verbs that describe internal states or processes. This includes such verbs as: Thinks, Wants, Desires, Feels, Believes, and Knows. Also, Loves and Hates.
The challenge is to go the next six months without writing: “John knew that if Amanda felt the same way he did, then everything would be perfect. He wondered if now might be the right time to ask.” Instead, you’ll have to Un-pack those abstract verbs into discernable actions: “John inched a little closer to Amanda on the sofa. She smiled and made eye contact, but leaned a little bit the other way, crossed her arms, stayed just out of reach. His lips trembled and a single bead of sweat formed on his forehead, then trickled toward his brow. Staring at her lips, he started to shape a word on his own, but the sound of it stuck in his throat.”
Even if you don't like my example, you'll get the point.
Verbs like Inched, Smiled, Leaned, Crossed (her arms), Stayed, Trembled, and Stuck are physical verbs that paint a definite picture. As Chuck said in the original essay: at its most basic, this is showing, rather than telling.
While you’re on this mission, remember to look out for verbs like Remembers and forget about using Forgets. Also, be wary of the “to be” verbs--verbs like Is, Am, Are, Was, Were, Be, Being, Been. Again, these are state-of-being verbs. Even strike out Has and Have when you can. These last two will point to Direct Objects that are physical enough, but the verbs themselves paint no pictures of real world action. Try to bury your descriptions of what a character Is or Has amongst tangible, physical details and actions. And Un-pack those invisible actions of Heart and Mind into something you can demonstrate with a physical equivalent. One good way to achieve this is to avoid like the dickens your character spending too much broody alone time. Get your characters together and get the action started.
For homework, go through some of your recent writing and circle all the Thought Verbs. Then, re-write and Un-pack every suitcase full of abstraction into discernable physical details and action. Also, read some published fiction and mark the Thought Verbs. Rewrite some passages. Find ways those authors could have done it better. Chuck says you’ll learn to hate the lazy writer who has characters that sit around Wondering and Worrying. And after six months of keeping this new discipline in your own writing, you’re free to go back to the old way. But we bet you won’t.
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Topic Six:
Avoiding Thought Verbs
Recap of Chuck's Sixth Assignment
The sixth technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called “Thought Verbs." The idea is to eliminate them from your writing. “Thought Verbs" are abstract verbs that describe internal states or processes. This includes such verbs as: Thinks, Wants, Desires, Feels, Believes, and Knows. Also, Loves and Hates.
The challenge is to go the next six months without writing: “John knew that if Amanda felt the same way he did, then everything would be perfect. He wondered if now might be the right time to ask.” Instead, you’ll have to Un-pack those abstract verbs into discernable actions: “John inched a little closer to Amanda on the sofa. She smiled and made eye contact, but leaned a little bit the other way, crossed her arms, stayed just out of reach. His lips trembled and a single bead of sweat formed on his forehead, then trickled toward his brow. Staring at her lips, he started to shape a word on his own, but the sound of it stuck in his throat.”
Even if you don't like my example, you'll get the point.
Verbs like Inched, Smiled, Leaned, Crossed (her arms), Stayed, Trembled, and Stuck are physical verbs that paint a definite picture. As Chuck said in the original essay: at its most basic, this is showing, rather than telling.
While you’re on this mission, remember to look out for verbs like Remembers and forget about using Forgets. Also, be wary of the “to be” verbs--verbs like Is, Am, Are, Was, Were, Be, Being, Been. Again, these are state-of-being verbs. Even strike out Has and Have when you can. These last two will point to Direct Objects that are physical enough, but the verbs themselves paint no pictures of real world action. Try to bury your descriptions of what a character Is or Has amongst tangible, physical details and actions. And Un-pack those invisible actions of Heart and Mind into something you can demonstrate with a physical equivalent. One good way to achieve this is to avoid like the dickens your character spending too much broody alone time. Get your characters together and get the action started.
For homework, go through some of your recent writing and circle all the Thought Verbs. Then, re-write and Un-pack every suitcase full of abstraction into discernable physical details and action. Also, read some published fiction and mark the Thought Verbs. Rewrite some passages. Find ways those authors could have done it better. Chuck says you’ll learn to hate the lazy writer who has characters that sit around Wondering and Worrying. And after six months of keeping this new discipline in your own writing, you’re free to go back to the old way. But we bet you won’t.
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Topic Seven:
Big Voice Vs. Little Voice
Recap of Chuck’s Seventh Assignment
The seventh distinction in Chuck’s Workshop is called: Big Voice vs. Little Voice.
Big Voice is similar to Voice Over in movies, or an aside in plays. Big Voice allows your narrator to develop and express a philosophy or world view. This is Tyler Durden's rants about a society of men raised by women and raised by popular culture to believe we would all be rock stars or movie stars. Since Big Voice can be directed to other characters through dialogue, it doesn't necessarily take the form of Voice Over or an aside. The important distinction is that Big Voice allows your character to be political or controversial and to directly express thematic concerns.
Little Voice, in contrast, is the physical business of your scenes. Little Voice is sometimes called Recording Angel. This is the voice that captures *just what happens* in the language of the senses, not the language of abstraction or generalization. Little Voice gives your work its visceral reality, especially when you've followed the other assignments and eliminated thought verbs, thesis statements and other weakeners. Little Voice should give your readers the sights, sounds, smells, and on-the-body feelings, as well as the play-by-play action of the scene.
Big Voice will often function as a transitional or framing device. It can be used to create mood or establish the tone of your work. It can also be used to express the passage of time.
The BIG rule for Big Voice is this: Don't go on too long with it. It's strong medicine that works best in small doses. Too much and your reader may feel like the philosophy of your piece is beating them over the head. Or, worse yet, they may simply get bored. A second rule you may want to consider: Don't Open with Big Voice. It's usually much stronger writing if you hook the reader with action and physical business first. Save the philosophy for chapter two. Or at least, paragraph two.
For homework, look for examples of Big Voice in some published fiction. Figure out what purpose they fulfill. Mood? Framing? Passage of time? Political or philosophical message? Change of location?
Then, look at your own work.
Experiment with using Big Voice to create mood. Then to transition from scene to scene by creating a sense of time passing.
Then, write a soap box rant for a character. Something that will allow your character to state their world view, and write a Little Voice scene where you can present that rant.
For submissions, as always, be clear in your summary about the kind of feedback you wish to receive.
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Topic Eight:
Using Choruses
Recap of Chuck's Eighth Assignment
The eighth technique in Chuck’s Workshop is called Using Choruses. “Choruses” are repetitions, artful repetitions. Just like the chorus of a song, this is the repeated part that encapsulates and helps you remember the rest. Again, we're inventing a language here that lets us talk about fiction in a way that your freshman literature teacher probably didn't talk about fiction. But we're also talking about the very oldest tools of rhetoricians. Back when public speaking was an artform -- instead of a soundbite – trained and gifted speakers knew how to use tools like repetition to the greatest advantage. These days... pacing, repetition, and the other devices of artful delivery belong almost exclusively to standup comedians.
Much of what we learn here will be about writing that mimics speech. Writing that sounds, reads and feels fresh and vital, instead of “writerly” and dead on the page. Doing this effectively begins with... listening. People “chorus” or repeat themselves all day, everyday, in good old-fashioned ordinary speech. Unscripted and spontaneous.
Some of these “choruses” are just throat-clearing phrases. Sometimes it's a way to keep the floor or hold someones attention. Sometimes it's a way to acknowledge something said, but turn the conversation back to your own topic. Chuck identifies three good uses for choruses in your writing:
“A transitional device, bridging two different aspects of a story.
A reminder, recalling an earlier moment of insight, emotion or motivation.
Or, a beat of bland time, a pause needed for suspense before the axe falls.”
One use for the first kind of chorus, is to acknowledge something painful, then move on. It's the way Vonnegut, in Slaugherhouse Five, when anybody dies, even an animal, he returns to the chorus, “And so it goes.” This lets the author illustrate the gravity of the moment with a bittersweet kind of acceptance and humor, then move on.
The second use of the chorus is like setting up a trigger or “anchor” to a certain emotional state, then firing it off. This can set off a cascade of reactions in the reader. It can restore the intensity of all previous plot points to the present moment. You have seen standup comedians do this again and again. You've seen Chuck do it again and again. “I am Joe's white knuckles... I am Joe's complete lack of surprise...”
The third kind of chorus sort of holds off the climax, slows the reader down. When something important is coming up, something too important for the quick pace of your story, something you don't want the reader to miss, this is when you slow them down with a beat of bland time.
For homework, find examples of:
Choruses you (or other people) use to get attention – by acknowledging a speaker, but changing the subject.
Choruses you use to recall a past event (trigger a reaction) with friends or family – those special “insider” sayings or language no one else would “get.”
And choruses you use to stall conversation and create tension – they can be as simple as injecting “You Know?” between every sentence.
Then, create some new choruses, specific to a character. For example, in Choke, Chuck created a simple relative clause that expressed the special bond between Victor and Denny:
“For serious, dude…”
Now, for serious, dude, create some phrases or sentence fragments that only your characters would use.
Beyond that, practice using choruses in each of the three ways described in this essay. Again:
As transitional devices.
To recall earlier plot points.
To delay the inevitable.
Make sure in your summary to point out the aspect of the assignment you are focusing on and the kind of feedback you wish to receive.
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Topic Nine:
Saying it Wrong
Recap of Chuck's Ninth Assignment
The first rule of Saying it Wrong is...
You need to be able to say it right, first. What follows shouldn't be taken as a "get out of Jail Free" card, if you haven't dug in and really learned those English 101 basics about comma splices and split infinitives. This disclaimer is that old saw about how you need to "Learn the Rules first" before you find creative ways to break them. And it's true. Now, on with the rule breaking.
IF you ever do a workshop with Chuck's mentor Tom Spanbauer, this technique is called "Speaking with a burnt tongue." It means that the special character called your narrator might not use perfect English and might, in fact, misuse the language to a good effect.
Chuck identifies three good uses for "Burnt Tongue" mistakes:
One, Creating a sense of immediacy and honesty in the story.
Two, Slowing the reader and forcing them to pay close attention.
Three, Creating interest with poetic or unusual language.
Again, so much of "minimalism" is about writing that mimics speech. For example, if the teller of the tale is angry, isn't it likely that he or she would spit out harsh words and fumble a few of those words in the attempt to express the emotion? If you choose just the right words and even the right mistakes in the use of those words, you shouldn't ever need a lame ass tag on the end, like: "he shouted angrily." Don't tell us that your narrator is angry, sad or confused, show it.
For homework: Listen for how people misuse language in everyday speech. Collect "mistakes" you can use in your own writing.
If you submit an assignment that focuses on this particular technique, make sure to specify in the summary how you're applying what you've learned and what kind of feedback you wish to receive.
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Essay Ten: Beware the Thesis Statement
Once I sat in a Chinese restaurant that had a buffet bar full of American food. One whole end of the bar was meatloaf and mashed potatos and cold green beans. I looked around and everyone there seemed to be filling up on it. There I sat with my dainty little bowl of egg drop soup, my plate with General Pao's chicken and fried rice, the chopsticks that I could contemplate using -- except for the soup -- while all around me really large hungry Americans ate like truckers. They piled meatloaf on moo goo gui pan, rice on beans, mashed potatos on crab rangoon ... and all on the same plate.
Then, a friend of mine comes careening out of the bar next door and spots me as I'm about to leave the restaurant. He insists I go into the bar long enough for a drink. The thing is, it's a karoke bar, and the next thing I know, he's on stage belting to a John Courgar Mellancamp song, while I try and drink the glass of cheap scotch he set me up with. At least it's more appealing than the girl he once tried to set me up with. But as I sit in this thunderously loud, cramped, smelly bar, drinking my scotch, one thing is shining clear: he's too drunk to sing and I'm not drunk enough to listen. I stay long enough not to hurt his feelings. I thank him for the drink, then I step out into the cold night.
Sometimes when you read my recaps of Chuck's workshop essays, it may read like the wrong food is piled on your plate. You may notice that my voice is different and my pace and delivery are not quite the same. One of the problems with cover bands is no matter how good the musicans are, the singer can never sound exactly like the person who recorded the song. And that's just what everybody wants and expects. They judge you by how well you ape the original. Hell, when well-known recording artists perform their own original songs, the audience still wants it to sound just like it did on the record -- which can be a real drag for artists who are sick of imitating themselves, and want to do it differently. This time. Maybe change the mix a little.
Chuck has given us an awesome set of tools. It's impossible and unnecessary to try and incorporate every bit of it into your writing all at once. And even if you could, you've still got your own voice to sing with and your own song to sing.
Don't be afraid to take what you're learning here and apply it in your own way.
I could have started this recap with that sentence, since the notion of applying just the tools you need, when you need them ... that's something Chuck covers in the original "thesis statement" essay. But I didn't want to start out by just summarizing, because that's exactly what the warning in Chuck's original essay tells us not to do. It's fine for a strictly academic essay, to adopt that structure where you condense your full meaning into a single sentence and open with it. Then the rest of your paragraph is just an elaboration. But this structure kills the life and the energy from fiction, big time.
It's much better to open with a salient, particular detail, then make your point vividly and gradually, allowing your reader to assemble the meaning in their own mind.
For homework, look at some of your own writing where you started out with a vague, general thesis statement, an abstract construction of meaning:
"John sat brooding that he could never hold a job for long."
or
"Patricia had never been what you could call 'lucky.'"
Then keep reading until you find salient, particular detail. Move that detail to the front. That's right, put it at the top. Build your way up from strong details that generate a gradual unfolding and preserve the mystery and the energy of the story you're telling, until the reader can put the meaning together for themselves.
Besides this, look for published stories that begin with strong, particular detail, and look for those that begin with more of an abstract, thesis statement. Notice the kinds of stories that make use of each and how each approach may serve the needs of a particular kind of story well.
If you submit re-writes of your own work, after eliminating some energy-killing thesis statement openers, make sure that you are clear in your summary about your approach to the work and the kind of feedback you'd like to receive.
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Topic Eleven:
Reading Out Loud - Part One
Recap of Chuck's Eleventh Essay
In Chuck's eleventh essay, Reading Out Loud, Part One, he talks about the one major drawback to an online workshop. If this were just seven or eight of us sitting around someone's kitchen table, we would each read our week's work out loud.
Reading out loud gives you the chance to hear what works and what doesn't work, and to make changes based upon the way the work reaches your listeners. Their little gasps, moans, laughter, or the lack of these things. It gives you the chance to perfect you timing and to find the devices you might need to make your work read at the right pace and delivery.
One thing that crops up is the need for attribution. Chuck is a big advocate of always, always using an attribution with every line of dialogue. Even the bland, "he said" or "she said" serves its purpose well. Chuck tells us that "what looks smart and tight on the page" -- like vast tracts of unattributed dialogue -- doesn't always play so well for a live audience. In fact, it's likely to leave them confused and pissed off.
So the mission is to find people to listen as you read your work out loud. Whether you start or join a local workshop is up to you. Make sure to mark the places in your text where you need to add a pause or a bit of attribution or sharpen up your verb use a little. Also, watch audience reactions to those passages rich with hard, popping K, T, and D sounds, versus soft S, F, and V sounds. Notice what keeps their attention.
Additionally, for homework, find a copy of Mark Richard's book, The Ice at the Bottom of the World. In this slim volume of devastating stories, Richard invents a "burnt tongue" language that only his characters speak. It's a complete lesson in saying things wrong -- breaking every grammatical rule -- and making it work just right. Read at least the first story, Strays, out loud.
And read your own work out loud. starting today.
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Topic Twelve:
Reading Out Loud -- Part Two
Recap of Chuck's Twelfth Essay
Everyone is a storyteller. We're "doomed" to storytelling. So we may as well get good at it. That little chattering, yammering inner voice that gladly works overtime and sometimes keeps us awake at night dissecting the world and trying to make sense of it all. It's what some cultures call "Monkey Mind." Some wisdom traditions are just about observing the monkey mind instead of identifying with it.
Be observant. Learn from the "Monkey Mind." Start to use it instead of allowing it to use you. Every story you ever tell will be a veiled memoir, every picture you paint, a self-portrait. No matter how much you expand or fictionalize, to make your story inclusive and appealing to more people, you will still be doing therapy on yourself. So make use of it. Exhaust you issues.
This is another good reason for reading out loud. The act of vocalizing your story liberates the flow of emotion around it. Consider that it's the stories we can't tell that lay us low. Then learn to tell your deepest story, in a way that entertains instead of alienates people. This way, you exhaust the emotion around an issue, as you turn it into art. On multiple levels, you win.
For homework, think about how you tell time. Avoiding abstracts. Nobody really parcels out their life into hours, minutes and seconds. How do you mark the passing of the day, say, on a Sunday at home? By tasks accomplished? By the position of the sun? Next, How does your character tell time? Invent a method of tracking the day unique to your character. Different from your own. How does your character perceive and describe Time, and in so doing, describe themselves?
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Writing tips from Chuck Palahniuk
Writing tips from Chuck Palahniuk
[b][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/redandjonny/]My Flickr page[/url][/b]
[color=#FFBFFF]A lot of people would say it's a bad idea, on your first day out of prison, to go right back to stalking the tranny hooker that knocked out five of your teeth. But that's how I roll..[/color]
[color=#FFBFFF]A lot of people would say it's a bad idea, on your first day out of prison, to go right back to stalking the tranny hooker that knocked out five of your teeth. But that's how I roll..[/color]
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