Tag: writing exercise

Exercise 10: A terrible thing to do

On By Marcy ErbIn Creativity Sessions, Writers - Marcy Erb2 Comments

I know it is already Thursday, but this week was just too stressful to post any sooner – and besides, a writing exercise seemed unimportant compared to the elections in the U.S. The continuing uncertainty is still stressful, but I have gotten a bit more used to it. So, to pass the time, here is the last of the writing exercises from Steering the Craft.

Chapter 10 is called “Crowding and Leaping” and deals with narrative flow and what details an author includes and what they leave out. One line from the chapter that I particularly like was: “Some say God is in the details; some say the Devil is in the details. Both are correct.” Page 118

Le Guin also says that there isn’t really an exercise she could come up with on this topic – it is such a fluid thing and unique to each story (and storyteller). So for a final exercise, she gives us “a terrible thing to do.”

“Exercise 10: A Terrible Thing To Do

Take one of the longer narrative exercises you wrote – any one that went over 400 words – and cut it by half.

If none of the exercises is suitable, take any piece of narrative prose you have ever written, 400-1000 words, and do this terrible thing to it.

This doesn’t mean just cutting a bit here and there, snipping and pruning – though that’s part of it…” Steering the Craft, Page 124

I chose the 1285 word short story I wrote for Exercise 4: Again and Again and Again. To see the original, full length story, go here to that post. I was able to edit it down to 628 words…so here is the shorter short story!

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Exercise 9, Part 3: Implication

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The last exercise in Chapter 9, the chapter in Steering the Craft on Indirect Narration, is about implying characteristics or setting the mood using location or place. When I think of indirect narration, this is what comes to mind – like the scene setting and music in a movie or TV show, this is how the mood is set. For some reason, I thought this would be easy – maybe because its nearing Halloween and so the “scene” around my neighborhood has been deliberately and obviously set with decorations and pumpkins – but I wound up doing this exercise twice. When I went back and read my first attempt, it didn’t really tell me anything about the character or the mood of the story. So I tried again…

First, the instructions:

“Exercise Nine, Part 3: Implication

Each part of this should involve 200-600 words of descriptive prose. In both, the voice is either involved author or detached author. No viewpoint character.

Character by indirection: Describe a character by describing any place inhabited or frequented by that character – a room, house, garden, office, studio, bed, whatever. (The character isn’t present at the time.)

The untold event: Give us a glimpse of the mood and nature of some event or deed by describing the place – room, rooftop, street, park, landscape, whatever – where it happened or is about to happen. (The event or deed doesn’t need to happen in your piece.)”

Steering the Craft, Page 111-112

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Exercise 9, Part 2: Being the Stranger

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We are down to the last 3 exercises in Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft writing book – home stretch! This one is the second exercise in Chapter 9, which is about indirect narration – and it was a bit daunting. Le Guin instructs us to write from the viewpoint of a character we disagree with or hate or is extremely different from ourselves.

First, the prompt:

“Exercise 9, Part 2: Being the Stranger

Write a narrative of 200-600 words, a scene involving at least two people and some kind of action or event.

Use a single viewpoint character, in either the first person or limited third person, who is involved in the the event. Give us the character’s thoughts and feeling their own words.

The viewpoint character (real or invented) is to be somebody you dislike, or disapprove of, or hate, or feel to be extremely different from yourself.”

Steering the Craft, Page 100-101.

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Exercise 9, Part 1: Telling it Slant

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As an update to my last post about my friend Tiran, his battle with AML, and the livestream he and his partner were hosting to raise money for the San Diego Blood Bank and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society: the livestream was a huge success and I am so proud to have been a part of it. All told, the DJs who participated in the livestream raised $2600.00 to be split evenly between the two charities! Almost 1000 people tuned in – the support, both monetary and attendance, was so heartening.

I’m picking back up with the exercises from Ursula Le Guin’s book Steering the Craft. I’ve gone full circle on these: from dreading what to do when I run out of exercises to being ready to be done with them so I can move on to different posts! I will talk about writing goals before November and the whole rigamarole of Nanowrimo kicks into high gear.

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Exercise 8, part 2: Thin Ice

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This is the last POV exercise in Steering the Craft – this time, I swear! In the previous two chapters, Ursula Le Guin cautions repeatedly against changing POV – either doing so too often, or without warning, or without a solid plan. The Chapter 8 exercises seem to be a case of her teaching you to recognize such ill-advised POV changes by making you do them on purpose. In part 1 of this exercise, she instructed us to change POV several times in a short piece, but to indicate somehow you were doing it. I chose to use line breaks and I think it worked out okay. In part 2, she has you change POV frequently and without warning.

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Exercise 8, Part 1: Changing Voices

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Did I say last week “haven’t we had enough POV exercises?” – because I didn’t mean it. After going through Chapter 8, I’ve realized that Ursula Le Guin cares deeply about POV. Chapter 8 is basically an extension of Chapter 7 but deals exclusively with the idea of how to change POV characters safely and effectively within a story. My impression from Chapter 8 is that Le Guin is bearish on changing POV characters and takes a skeptical view on doing so. I felt slightly chastened reading this, since it is almost my favorite thing to do when writing fiction. Certainly in real life, you only get your own point of view, thus some of the fun of fiction is getting to experience the story from multiple narrators and POVs.

Le Guin says we can keep using the story from Exercise 7 – but I decided to come up with a new one – based on another true story. I was stuck in traffic one day when I realized the car in the lane next to me had a very unusual passenger sitting in the front seat…

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Exercise 7, part 4: Involved Author POV

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This is the last part of the exercise for Chapter 7 – the Point of View chapter in Steering the Craft. I’ll be honest, I was tempted to skip it, because hadn’t we had enough POV exercises already? But in the spirit of completion and to get outside my POV comfort zone, I stuck to it and did part 4. So here’s one last version of “The Mountain Lion Killing” – and this time we get the whole back story.

To review Le Guin’s directions for the exercise:
“Exercise 7: Points of View

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Exercise 7, part 2 and 3: The Mountain Lion Killing

On By Marcy ErbIn Creativity Sessions, Writers - Marcy Erb1 Comment

Last week, I introduced Ursula Le Guin’s exercise for chapter 7, which is her chapter on point of view. This week, she has us using the same story from last week (if possible) to explore less common POVs. I found I was able to use my story from last week and keep it going – so we are back in the campground with a freshly dead Mountain Lion.

To review Le Guin’s exercise instructions:
“Exercise 7: Points of View

Think up a situation for a narrative sketch of 200-350 words. It can be anything you like but should involve several people doing something. (Several means more than two. More than three will be useful.) It doesn’t have to be a big, important event, though it can be; but something should happen, even if only a cart tangle at the supermarket…

Please use little or no dialogue in these POV exercises. While the characters talk, their voices cover the POV, and so you’re not exploring that voice, which is the point of the exercise.

Part 1: Two Voices
POV was Third Person Limited, two versions, two different characters. (If you’d like to see what that looked like for my teeny tiny story, go here.)

Part 2: Detached Narrator
Tell the same story using the detached author or “fly on the wall” POV.

Part 3: Observer-Narrator
If there wasn’t a character in the original version who was there but was not a participant, only an onlooker, add such a character now. Tell the same story in that character’s voice, in first or third person.”
Steering the Craft, Pages 71-73

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Exercise 7: POV – The Mountain Lion Killing

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Ursula Le Guin talks about how points of view in fiction come and go in popularity, with first person and limited third person all the rage for the last 100 years or so. I had never thought of point of view as a “fad” (even if a relatively long lived fad), but I guess that all depends on your point of view!

Her goal with chapter and exercise 7 is to define and get you to experiment with different kinds of point of view, especially ones you are not comfortable with. The exercise starts out with the one of the POVs currently in style, limited third person, and then expands to other less common POVs.

For this one, I’m telling a tale that was told to me at a work happy hour. It was related as a true story, but you know how happy hour stories go…

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Exercise 6, Part 2: The Old Woman

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This is the second part of Exercise 6 from Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft book.  To recap: Chapter 6 was about verbs, specifically dealing with person and tense. This serves as a prelude to chapter 7, which is a long (and intimidating!) chapter on point of view.  My take on this exercise has an old woman wandering around the remains of her house after a fire and remembering a different disaster that struck when she was a child.

The prompt: “Exercise Six: The Old Woman

This should run to a page or so; keep it short and not too ambitious, because you are going to write the same story twice.

The subject is this: An old woman is busy doing something – washing the dishes, or gardening, or editing a PhD dissertation in mathematics, whatever you like – as she thinks about an event that happened in her youth.

You’re going to intercut between the two times. “Now ” is where she is and what’s she’s doing; “then” is her memory of something that happened when she was young. Your narration will move back and forth between “now” and “then.”

You will make at least two of these moves or time jumps.

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