Workshop - Thursday, Jan. 30

Write about a situation in which you and/or someones "encountered a shimmer of possibilities in a messy, disordered life."
-Tobias Wolfe

Tips: 

• Make use your notes from last class & the aphorisms from Barthleme's "Not Knowing"
• Action must take place in the range of 1 to 3 days (Aristotle). Retrospection transcends time
• Every single concrete instance in this situation must contribute to how the story operates, thus the meaning of the story (Flannery O'Connor) 
• If your situation is commonplace (some people say love is commonplace), use the background (backstories about characters and yourself; the landscape) to make it defamiliar, more original & new (Alan Lelchuk and Tobias Wolfe)
• Knowing where things happen in time gives the reader a connection to you and a way into your story (Tobias Wolfe)
• Make the reader see and feel the situation (Alan Lelchuk)
• Reflect upon your choices (Tobias Wolfe)
• What were the internal movements within you? (Tobias Wolfe)
• Language is the supreme creator of empathy (Tobias Wolfe)
• Make your writing and your authoring emotionally present (Tobias Wolfe)

Bad Writing, According to TB:

• Wooden ear for language 
• Self-indulgent 
• Self-conscious
• Sermonizing