At Blue Planet Writer's Room
Gail Shepherd
Week One: Introduction
“When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.”
– Mark Twain
Discussion: Why these stories, and not others?
Beginnings/Close Reading
Excerpts from Francine Prose
First paragraphs as a microcosm.
Writing Exercise: Novel Game, composing first sentences (NYT Critics’ Notebook, Dwight Garner)
Week Two: Good Story Well Told
“Go to your bosom, knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.” –Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
Writing Exercise: The 30-minute autobiography or/Life as a book-jacket blurb
Week Three: Understanding Story, basic structures
“The beginning of a plot is the prompting of desire” –Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Three act structure; Plot and motivation: “I want what I want.”
Conflict: Protagonist and Antagonist
Story Arc: Rising Action
Selections from: John Gardiner, The Art of Fiction
Week Four: Character, Description, and the Editorial Process
“Of course, just because you are a character doesn’t mean that you have character.” – Harvey Keitel as The Wolf, in Pulp Fiction
Writing Exercise: Creating character/Mismatching for story, motive, and conflict
Writing Exercise: Interviewing your main character
A bit about editing: Before and After
Week Five: Reading Film as a Writer
“No wire hangers, ever!” – Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford, in Mommie Dearest
“No wire hangers, ever!” – Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford, in Mommie Dearest
Writing Exercise: Reading and writing conflict.
Week Six: The Reading Writer’s Toolbox “I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.” – Steven Wright
CLASS EXCERPTS FOR DISCUSSION WILL BE PULLED FROM THIS LIST
(We won’t get to all of them, of course)
On Reading Well
Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose
Story, Robert McKee
The Lie that Tells a Truth, John Dufresne
The Art of Fiction, John Gardiner
On Writing, Steven King,
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
How to Read Literature Like A Professor, Thomas Foster
Short stories on the web
“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor
“The Daughters of the Late Colonel,” Katherine Mansfield
“A Distant Episode,” Paul Bowles http://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/winter-2011/distant-episode
“The Earthquake in Chile,” Heinrich Von Kleist http://www.viceland.com/int/v15n12/htdocs/earthquake-in-chile-kleist-441.php
“Feathers,” Raymond Carver (podcast)
“Goodbye My Brother,” John Cheever
“The Dead,” James Joyce (text and podcast) http://members.multimania.co.uk/shortstories/joycethedead.html
Anton Chekhov, “A Slander”
Ernest Hemmingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”
James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” http://www.scribd.com/doc/7086554/Sonnys-Blues-by-James-Baldwin
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”, http://www.flf.ukim.edu.mk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ywsvxY63msU%3D&tabid=206&mid=1469&language=en-US
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” http://arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/Portals/7/Language%20Arts/Robinson/A%20Very%20Old%20Man%20With%20Enormous%20Wings.pdf
Michael Cunningham, “White Angel” http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1988/07/25/1988_07_25_025_TNY_CARDS_000350671
J.D. Salinger, “For Esme, With Love and Squalor, http://www.dibache.com/text.asp?cat=51&id=173
Tons of other good short stories, here: http://www.dibache.com/text.asp?cat=51&id=3015
Novels
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby,
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird,
Henry Green, Loving
Eudora Welty, A Member of the Wedding
Tony Morrison, Beloved
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief
George Martin, A Game of Thrones
Susan Patron, Higher Power of Lucky
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Steven King, Carrie
Heinrich von Kleist, The Marquise of O
Tim O’Brian, Going After Cacciato
See also: Francine Prose’s List in Reading Like A Writer
Nonfiction and Memoir
Tim O’Brian, The Things They Carried
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Mary Karr, The Liar’s Club
Melissa Fay Greene, Praying for Sheetrock
Bill Bryson, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle
Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy
Roald Dahl, Boy
David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior
Richard Wright, Black Boy
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Tobias Wolff, This Boy’s Life
Michael Herr, Dispatches
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Calvin Trillin, About Alice
Frederick Exley, A Fan’s Notes
Film and TV
Pan’s Labyrinth
Glengarry Glen Ross
No Country for Old Men
Jurassic Park
The Big Sleep
True Blood
Persepolis
To Kill a Mockingbird
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