Week 2 Welcome
to the dollhouse: building a world and peopling it.
Discuss:
how does one create a character that generates empathy in the reader? Which
details make a character ‘real?’ How can we reveal, in limited space, the inner
life of a character?
Read
3 flash fiction pieces: “Doghouse Dreams,” (James Claffey, from Camroc Press
Review),
“Fire Island, 1977,” (Tara Masih, from Apollo’s Lyre) and “Thirty-Nine” by Meg Pokrass (from Damn
Sure Right;
also in Salome).
Notice
how each story features a narrator at a specific moment in life (childhood,
adolescence, adulthood) and how this narrator’s innocence or experience is
framed by what they know or learn about themselves, about other people, or
both. Do we become closer to a character by “seeing” them (what this character
looks like) or by seeing through them (the character’s perceptions of the
world)?
Exercise: Write a story, scene or
character sketch in which we see a character as if through a telescope, with
the focus zooming in from distant to close, from external to internal. For inspiration, try these prompt words:
The story must be no more than 750
words and include a minimum of THREE of the following: envelopes unopened,
olive oil, hips rocking, Missouri in the rain, disposable razor, hardening
nipples, unfiltered Camels, floating in the pool, crushed Dexedrine, Tupac
Shakur, glow of tongue, gas station wine, nacho stands, stands of pines,
vibrators, purple lips, hummingbirds, 4 a.m., symmetrical cleavage, diet
whatever sodas, touch of rum, throwing smoke, handstands, scratchy wool, a dog’s
howl, a dog’s black head, a dog’s way of thinking. [This
prompt is from Thumbnail Magazine's 2013
Flash Drive No-Fee Flash Fiction Competition, judged by
Sean Lovelace, which will accept contest submissions until July 1, 2013. https://thumbnailmag.submittable.com/submit.]
Take-home read: “How Could a Mother?”
(Bruce Holland Rogers, from What If?) Also at Vestal Review.
Homework: Choose a person you’ve heard about or
seen but don’t know personally and try to live inside their head for twenty
minutes. This character could be a tabloid celebrity or the mumbling homeless
guy you pass on your way to the bus stop every day, but never talk to. It could
be a dead relative you know through family stories, the defendant in a notorious
court case, or a legendary figure like Helen of Troy or Lancelot. Put this
person in a tense or uncomfortable fictional situation and write a first-person
narrative in which he or she confronts difficult emotions. Don’t worry about
making up details you don’t know; those are the details will bring your story
to life.
Variation:
Try
this piece again, either with the same character or with a new persona. This
time, instead of first-person narrative, write from a close third-person point
of view, so that we are still privy to the person’s thoughts but have one layer
of distance. Or write from a secondary character’s point of view, someone who
observes or reports on the main character, but does not have access to their innermost
thoughts. Notice which voice feels more natural, more truthful to you.
Please bring 8 copies of one (or both) of your pieces to next week's workshop.
Please bring 8 copies of one (or both) of your pieces to next week's workshop.
