ABird by Birdfor the African-American market--A top-notch writer's guide filled with practical guidance, essays, and journal exercises for the African-American writer including advice from E.Lynn Harris, Charles Johnson, and Yolanda Joe. In her introduction, Jewell Parker Rhodes writes: "Never (in four years of college or five years of graduate school) was I assigned an exercise or given a story example that included a person of color...While the educational system and the publishing world have become progressively more welcoming of African-American authors, there is still little attention to educating, supporting, and sustaining the writing process of African-American authors.Free Within Ourselvesis a solid first step--it is the book I wished I had when I started out as a writer. It is meant to be a song of encouragement for African-American artisits and visionaries.Free Within Ourselvesis a step-by-step introduction to fictional technique, exploring story ideas, and charting one's progress, as well as a resource guide for publishing fiction." For the legions of people who have a novel stuck in their word processors, help is finally on the way!Free Within Ourselvesis an excellent guide to all the elements necessary to crafting fiction: character development, point of view, plot, atmosphere, dialogue, diction, sentence variety, and revision. Writing techniques are taught using exercises, journaling, story examples, and analyses of famous writing fragments, as well as several complete stories (including those of James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Edwidge Dandicat, among others). The book is further enhanced by inspirational advice from successful contemporary black writers (such as Bebe Moore Campbell, Rita Dove, Henry Louis Gates, John Edgar Wideman, and others), a bibliography, and a guide to workshops, journals, magazines, contests, and fellowships supportive of black arts.

Jewell Parker Rhodes, Ph.D., is the author of the novels <b>Voodoo Dreams</b> and <b>Magic City</b>, and is the recipient of a Yaddo Creative Writing Fellowship as well as the National Endowment of the Arts Award in Fiction. She is the director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing and a professor of American literature at Arizona State University. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

PART I: CELEBRATING OURSELVES

Preface: Celebrating Self and Community

3

(4)

Getting Ready to Work: Claiming a Journal, the Writer Within

7

(6)

Literary Ancestors

13

(14)

PART II: SPIRITUAL PREPARATIONS

Unearthing Tales

27

(20)

Ellis Cose, ``How Much Is Enough When Telling People What They Want to Know?''

34

(6)

Jewell Parker Rhodes, ``Block Party''

40

(4)

Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Amy Wallace, ``First U.S. City to Be Bombed from the Air''

44

(3)

How to Keep Going

47

(14)

PART III: LEARNING THE CRAFT

Creating Character

61

(20)

Characterization Study: Edwidge Danticat's ``New York Day Women''

74

(7)

Creating Plot

81

(40)

Plot Study: Zora Neale Hurston's ``Sweat''

91

(13)

Plot Study: Alice Walker's ``Nineteen Fifty-Five''

104

(17)

Point of View

121

(64)

Point of View Study: Charles Johnson's ``China''

134

(22)

Point of View Study: Terry McMillan's ``Ma'Dear''

156

(12)

Point of View Study: J. California Cooper's ``The Magic Strength of Need''

168

(17)

Description, Setting, and Atmosphere

185

(29)

Description Study: Randall Kenan's ``A Visitation of Spirits''

195

(19)

Dialogue, Dialect, and Narrative Voice

214

(47)

Dialogue Study: Toni Cade Bambara's ``Raymond's Run''

236

(10)

Dialogue Study: Gloria Naylor's ``Kiswana Browne''

246

(15)

Theme

261

(14)

Thematic Study: Jess Mowry's ``Crusader Rabbit''

264

(11)

Revisions and Letting Go

275

(65)

PART IV: WISDOM AND ADVICE FROM BLACK AUTHORS

Best Advice from Black Writers to Black Writers

283

(32)

PART V: TOOLS YOU MAY NEED

Reading List

315

(4)

Writing Resources

319

(19)

Essential Fictional Terms

338

(2)

Permissions

340

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

GETTING READY TO WORK: CLAIMING A JOURNAL, THE WRITER WITHIN

Select a three-ring binder, a glamorous notebook, a diary with lock and key, whatever's most comfortable for you. This journal is where you'll begin your initial explorations of self and community. First, you can use it as a place to do the exercises in this book. Later it'll become a workbook for recording dreams, story ideas, characterizations, and comments about stories you've read. Your journal is your passport to thinking like, acting like, and becoming a writer!

Don't try to do the following exercises all at once. Take time between exercises to experience, observe, reflect, and revise.

Writing is a process.

The exercises should be done sequentially. No more than one a day. Each exercise is designed to increase your confidence in your writing, step by step, and to teach you specific fiction skills. If you're struggling with an exercise, repeat it. Move on when you feel your writing is improving. Remember: exercises are an easier beginning than starting a story from scratch. By doing the exercises in this book, you'll be allowed to make mistakes, to explore thoughts and feelings, to learn as you go. After practicing these exercises, when you do sit down to write a story, you'll be much better prepared to succeed.

MY BEST ADVICE

Treasure your journal. It is your first, best learning tool.

For those of you who are new to writing, this chapter will help limber your skills of observing, listening, imagining, and assembling portraits of your world. For those of you who have been writing for a while, these opening exercises will give you the opportunity to sharpen your skills and reflect again how heritage can influence and deepen your writing. In either case, your journey to becoming a better writer has begun. When you're anxious or filled with self-doubt, remember: the collective spirit of our people is with you. You are walking a path that all writers have walked. This path is, at times, both crooked and demanding, but always infinitely rewarding.

Open your journal. Take a deep breath. Begin.

EXERCISE 1

EXPERIENCING A COMMUNITY EVENT

Describe an event you'd like to celebrate--it can be as large as a Kwanzaa celebration or as intimate as a picnic. Write quickly for twenty minutes; don't edit.

When you've finished, reread your description--and ask yourself: Is it specific? Are there sounds in your description? Are there colors, textures, smells, tastes? What did you fail to observe? What did you leave out? What did you write just right?

For twenty minutes, rewrite the description, adding more details.

Compare the two versions and decide which one you like best. Which version conveys the more complete picture?

EXERCISE 2

EXPERIENCING THE FOLK

Look for a person to describe, someone worth celebrating. It can be someone you know, a bus driver, a street-corner musician, or a child playing double Dutch in the street. Write quickly for twenty minutes; don't edit.

When you've finished, reread your description. How well did you describe the person? Would I recognize them if I saw them on the street? How does your person dress, talk, move? What do they feel? Joy? Wistfulness? How can you tell? What outward signs best express their personality? How do they react to touch, sight, taste, and sound?

What makes this person special to you? What about them are you celebrating?

Revise your description for twenty minutes, adding new details.

Compare the two versions and decide which one you like best. Which version is more accurate? The more vibrant and "lifelike"?

EXERCISE 3

TALKING THAT TALK: COMMUNITY STORYTELLERS

Listen for stories!

"I remember . . . ," "Girl, let me tell you . . . ," "Back home, we used to . . . ," "Listen up! It's like this . . ."

Storytelling is a fundamental human activity--some stories are short (leaving you breathless for more), some are long and twisting, some teach, some give praise, some slander, some help you imagine a time and place where you've never lived. In Africa, the griot was honored as master storyteller, responsible for maintaining the stories and legends of the tribe. The griot tradition did not die with the advent of American slavery. Indeed, cultural storytelling kept alive a past and sustained a newly born people. Slaves were not "blank slates" but a community who mirrored, shaped, celebrated, informed, and inspired themselves through stories.

Go out and find a storyteller--a preacher telling biblical stories to a Sunday school class, a teenager bragging about a birthday party to her two friends, a grandmother on the front porch spinning stories about her Alabama childhood.

Listen to the voice of this storyteller, the rhythms in his or her speech. Is the talk slow and meandering or fast and focused? Is the voice loud or soft, rough or smooth? Is the voice conversational or formal? Write a page in the voice of the storyteller you've studied. Try to recapture their story--feel free to elaborate, improve upon your memory--the important thing is to keep writing the voice of the storyteller you heard. To keep imitating the rhythm, sounds, and speech.

Reread your writing. Can you hear the storyteller's voice? Rewrite any sentences that don't sound like your storyteller.

Repeat this exercise with two other people. If you wrote a teenager's rap in the first exercise, try capturing the nostalgic voice of an elderly deacon. Stretch yourself--look for a variety of voices to challenge you. If you haven't heard enough good storytellers, don't underestimate the power of simply asking: "Please, tell me a story." You'll be surprised at what you might hear.

Once you've captured three storytellers, list the differences among the three voices. Which voice did you capture best? Who told the best story? Why was it the best? How did the voice make the story more interesting?

Over time you'll train yourself to hear nuances of speech, differences of grammar, word choice, rhythm, and sound.

For now, listen up! Just as a musician daily practices scales fast and slow, high and low, loud and soft; as a writer you need daily practice in listening to people talk--becoming more in tune with the full range of human sounds.

EXERCISE 4

TALKING THAT TALK:FAMILY TALES

Our ancestors shape our family's stories. Talk to an aunt, a grandparent, a second cousin about your family's heritage. Ask to see pictures, mementos, genealogy charts, family Bibles which have special significance. What stories are attached to these objects? What do these stories reveal about the African American spirit in your family? What makes these stories dramatic and intriguing?

Certain stories are easily passed down through the generations within families. Other stories are told in whispers, with long silences between incidents. Listen for the "gaps" in one of your family's stories. Listen for the silences, for what might be left unsaid, the secrets, then--imagine.

For an hour, write the family tale you found; write the story just as your family tells it.

Next, put a star by all the points in the story where you don't know what happened. These starred points represent opportunities for imagining, for writing fiction.

For example, here's a bare-bones tale from my family history:

One spring, Cousin James packed his bags and left Carolina for California. As a kid, James could outrun, outclimb any kid. He was smart beyond belief, sweet; he dreamed of flying airplanes. When his father remarried, there was a family fight. The next morning, just shy of eighteen, James left and nobody has ever heard from him again.

What was said during the fight between father and son? Were they really arguing about the stepmother? Or some hurt done to the dead mother? Or were they arguing about money? James's career? What happened to James in California? Is he a truck driver--bitter with drink? Or a homeless person dreaming of his mother? Or a counselor for troubled kids? Did he ever learn to fly?

When I begin to imagine what happened, what I don't know, I begin creating stories. Stories which draw upon both my family and community heritages.

Remember: imagination soars from what is most real in the world around you, what is most real about yourself, your family, and your community.

Now revise your family story, filling in the gaps with imagination.

Compare your two tales--the one told to you and your revision. How has your imagination changed the story? Was it harder or easier to imagine because you started with family history? Which version is more compelling? Which story is more satisfying to you as a reader?

Celebrate! You've finished Chapter One.

Reread all the writing in your journal! You've written description, created characters with actions and dialogue, imagined plots, and conveyed your own unique sense of what is special about your family and community--all the things a good writer does!

You're on your way!

Excerpted from Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors by Jewell Parker Rhodes
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.