Creative writing session
As part of my efforts to get better and improve, I finally made it to a creative writing class I found here in LA.
It was a very interesting and humbling. The session included 3 writing exercises from prompts, and it was very challenging for one of them.
The first one was "This is my truth..." and that just spun out into a whole stream of consciousness bit where I tried to be as honest with myself as possible. It was interesting, but not something I'd care to share here. It was strange enough reading it in front of these strangers, but cathartic as well.
The second one was a bit more esoteric. It was about discovering a false truth, or understanding, that you might have or a character. I was a bit wrung out of honesty at that point, so I wrote a bit from a character's POV from my fantasy novel. The most challenging thing about that is that I'm trying to write a woman's POV, so I'll probably need to rely heavily on external input, but it was very interesting. What I did was re-write a scene in chapter 3 or 4 where she's coming to grips with the reality of being in a forced marriage, but having her expectations turned on its head. I still need to work a lot on her voice, and I'd actually decided to write the whole half of the book from my other character's perspective, then buckle down and focus on hers, because umping around isn't working for me.
The third exercise was more fun, because it involved a deck of cards. Each one was painted with a scene and a phrase, and we had to write something based off of it. Mine said: God Speaks. I think I may have inadvertently written my first poem. I'm not really big into poetry, not that I have anything against it, I just tend to get lost in the language and have a hard time finding that deeper meaning that others seem to get right away. The undercurrents of poetry elude a lot of times, but I have come across pieces which leave me feeling something. I'll post it after this, on it's own, but what's funny is how immediately after I finished, I got a great response from the writing coach and another lady whose focus is poetry (she did some very cool pieces yesterday) and they each spoke about things that I hadn't even noticed in it. Looking back I kind of get what they said, but it's so strange to me that I would be writing so consciously "shallow" and others would find deeper meanings. That's the great thing about writing, I suppose. Still, it feels strange to have written a poem.
On other stuff, I tried Reverse Outlining, from a suggestion on the Writing Excuses podcast and it blew my mind. I applied it to my fantasy novel, started from the ending and began inserting bullet points around "what needed to happen" so the thing above it took place, and it was just amazing how many gaps I discovered, but also how easily I was able to come up with things that not only closed those gaps, but tied things together. I think I fell in love with this story again just because of it.
The whole idea of the "promises" we make as writers to the audience hadn't really permeated my brain until I tried this:
Ending: A and B fight and B is killed by C and then A and C run away together.
Things that need to happen:
- A has to get C to trust him
- A has to save C's life
- A has to keep C's secret
- C has to stop loving B
- B has to have changed drastically
- B has to have hurt C
This reverse engineering of how things had to have happened was extremely useful and now I can go back and write a richer chronological outline.
So, I have a session with the private coach as well, I sent her two pieces of my best and worst writing. I sent an excerpt from my novel as the best, which I liked, and captures the tone of the novel I want, and I sent her To Return in all its messy, gory glory. I could've sent her worse pieces, of course, but I liked To Return a lot, and if she's gonna point out flaws it's the one I'd like to fix.
My challenge is now deciding whether I want to use her sessions to fix EGtH or if I should switch the class into help with my first draft of the fantasy novel. I'm riding such a high off the reverse outlining that I'm leaning towards that. I'll just ask her, see what she advises.
So, I do actually have to work today, so I'll just post my first "poem" and get to it.
-Chair!
It was a very interesting and humbling. The session included 3 writing exercises from prompts, and it was very challenging for one of them.
The first one was "This is my truth..." and that just spun out into a whole stream of consciousness bit where I tried to be as honest with myself as possible. It was interesting, but not something I'd care to share here. It was strange enough reading it in front of these strangers, but cathartic as well.
The second one was a bit more esoteric. It was about discovering a false truth, or understanding, that you might have or a character. I was a bit wrung out of honesty at that point, so I wrote a bit from a character's POV from my fantasy novel. The most challenging thing about that is that I'm trying to write a woman's POV, so I'll probably need to rely heavily on external input, but it was very interesting. What I did was re-write a scene in chapter 3 or 4 where she's coming to grips with the reality of being in a forced marriage, but having her expectations turned on its head. I still need to work a lot on her voice, and I'd actually decided to write the whole half of the book from my other character's perspective, then buckle down and focus on hers, because umping around isn't working for me.
The third exercise was more fun, because it involved a deck of cards. Each one was painted with a scene and a phrase, and we had to write something based off of it. Mine said: God Speaks. I think I may have inadvertently written my first poem. I'm not really big into poetry, not that I have anything against it, I just tend to get lost in the language and have a hard time finding that deeper meaning that others seem to get right away. The undercurrents of poetry elude a lot of times, but I have come across pieces which leave me feeling something. I'll post it after this, on it's own, but what's funny is how immediately after I finished, I got a great response from the writing coach and another lady whose focus is poetry (she did some very cool pieces yesterday) and they each spoke about things that I hadn't even noticed in it. Looking back I kind of get what they said, but it's so strange to me that I would be writing so consciously "shallow" and others would find deeper meanings. That's the great thing about writing, I suppose. Still, it feels strange to have written a poem.
On other stuff, I tried Reverse Outlining, from a suggestion on the Writing Excuses podcast and it blew my mind. I applied it to my fantasy novel, started from the ending and began inserting bullet points around "what needed to happen" so the thing above it took place, and it was just amazing how many gaps I discovered, but also how easily I was able to come up with things that not only closed those gaps, but tied things together. I think I fell in love with this story again just because of it.
The whole idea of the "promises" we make as writers to the audience hadn't really permeated my brain until I tried this:
Ending: A and B fight and B is killed by C and then A and C run away together.
Things that need to happen:
- A has to get C to trust him
- A has to save C's life
- A has to keep C's secret
- C has to stop loving B
- B has to have changed drastically
- B has to have hurt C
This reverse engineering of how things had to have happened was extremely useful and now I can go back and write a richer chronological outline.
So, I have a session with the private coach as well, I sent her two pieces of my best and worst writing. I sent an excerpt from my novel as the best, which I liked, and captures the tone of the novel I want, and I sent her To Return in all its messy, gory glory. I could've sent her worse pieces, of course, but I liked To Return a lot, and if she's gonna point out flaws it's the one I'd like to fix.
My challenge is now deciding whether I want to use her sessions to fix EGtH or if I should switch the class into help with my first draft of the fantasy novel. I'm riding such a high off the reverse outlining that I'm leaning towards that. I'll just ask her, see what she advises.
So, I do actually have to work today, so I'll just post my first "poem" and get to it.
-Chair!