Now Write! : Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers

by Ellis, Sherry (Author)

• ISBN13: 9781585425228
• ISBN10: 1585425222
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-07
• Publisher: Tarcher

Summary

Today's A collection of personal writing exercises and commentary from some of today's best novelists, short story writers, and writing teachers, including Jill McCorkle, Amy Bloom, Robert Olen Butler, Steve Almond, Jayne Anne Phillips, Virgil Suarez, Margot Livesay, and more. Complemented by brief commentary from the authors themselves, the exercises in Now Write! are practical and hands-on. By encouraging writers to shamelessly steal proven techniques that have yielded books which have won National Book Awards, Pulitzers, and Guggenheim grants, Now Write! inspires the aspiring writer to write now.

Author Biography

Sherry Ellis's author interviews have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Poets & Writers, Writer's Chronicle, Glimmer Train, and Agni, as well as other literary and arts magazines. A personal writing coach, she teaches writing in Concord, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

EDITOR'S NOTE	xi
GET WRITING!
Jayne Anne Phillips
Wedding Pictures	3	(2)
Robert Olen Butler
Through the Senses	5	(3)
Alison Lurie
My Pet	8	(2)
Alice Mattison
Two People Come Out of a Building and Into a Story	10	(2)
Alexander Chee
The Seed	12	(4)
Diana Abu-Jaber
Truthful Dare	16	(3)
Jill McCorkle
The Photograph	19	(2)
Rick Hillis
The Prefab Story Exercise	21	(3)
Maria Flook
The Upside-Down Bird: Hybridizing Memory, Place, and Invention	24	(7)
Paul Lisicky
A Map to Anywhere	31	(2)
Chuck Wachtel
Starting with the News	33	(3)
Debra Spark
Wedding Cake Assignment	36	(3)
Katherine A. Vaz
A Tabula Rasa Experiment	39	(4)
Karen Brennan
Collage	43	(2)
Dan Wakefield
The Five Senses	45	(2)
Crystal Wilkinson
Birth of a Story in an Hour or Less	47	(5)
Laurie Foos
Surrealism Exercise, or Thinking Outside the Box	52	(2)
Leslie Schwartz
Overcoming Dry Spells	54	(3)
Virgil Suárez
Field Trip	57	(2)
David Michael Kaplan
Smushing Seed Ideas Together	59	(4)
Kathleen Spivack
The Writing Exercise: A Recipe	63	(4)
POINT OF VIEW
Nina de Gramont
A Story to Tell	67	(2)
Maureen McCoy
First-Person Point of View: Imagining and Inhabiting Character	69	(2)
Clyde Edgerton
You-Me-I-You in the Cafeteria	71	(2)
Martha Cooley
Getting Characters' Ages Right	73	(3)
Paula Morris
What Are They Thinking? A Point-of-View Exercise	76	(2)
Daphne Kalotay
Third-Person Narration and "Psychic Distance"	78	(4)
Eileen Pollack
Look Backward, Angel	82	(2)
Laura Kasischke
Let the Dead Speak: An Exercise in First-Person Narration	84	(5)
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Kay Sloan
Empathy and the Creation of Character	89	(3)
Michelle Herman
What's Under the Surface?	92	(4)
Lauren Grodstein
The Interview	96	(3)
Elizabeth Graver
"Once Upon a Time": Playing with Time in Fiction	99	(4)
Robert Anthony Siegel
Why I Stole It	103	(2)
Chris Abani
Language Portrait	105	(2)
Rachel Basch
Paw Through Their Pockets, Rifle Through Their Drawers: A Character Exercise	107	(2)
Maxine Chernoff
Mr. Samsa, Meet Bartleby	109	(3)
Michelle Brooks
Rattlesnake in the Drawer	112	(2)
K.L. Cook
A Family Theme, a Family Secret	114	(4)
Michael Datcher
Characters in Conflict	118	(2)
Edie Meidav
The Voyager: Write What You Don't Know: An Exercise in (Surprising Yourself with) Character	120	(4)
Joan Silber
Getting Dramatic	124	(2)
Mary Yukari Waters
Developing Your Characters	126	(2)
Lise Haines
The Way They Do the Things They Do	128	(4)
Cai Emmons
Braiding Time	132	(5)
DIALOGUE
Steven Schwartz
Snoop 'Da Dialogue	137	(2)
Sands Hall
Dialogue Without Words	139	(3)
Lon Otto
Hearing Voices	142	(3)
Thomas Fox Averill
Dialogue Exercise: The Non-Apology	145	(3)
Douglas Unger
Levels of Dialogue	148	(7)
PLOT AND PACING
Dan Chaon
Fictional Building Blocks	155	(3)
Renée Manfredi
Keep the Engine Running	158	(2)
Fred Leebron
The Riff	160	(2)
Brent Spencer
Storyboard Your Story	162	(3)
Sean Murphy and Tania Cassette
Sticking to the Structure	165	(3)
Kirby Gann
What Am I Writing About? Clarifying Story Ideas Through Summary	168	(3)
Douglas Bauer
The Richness of Resonance	171	(4)
SETTING AND DESCRIPTION
Margot Livesey
Setting in Fiction	175	(2)
Jim Heynen
The Character of Setting	177	(2)
Joan Leegant
Animating the Inanimate	179	(2)
Venise Berry
Learning to Layer	181	(3)
Patricia Powell
A Sense of Place	184	(2)
John Smolens
Be the Tree	186	(2)
Geoffrey Becker
A Very, Very Long Sentence	188	(2)
Karen E. Bender
Most Memorable Food: Using Sensory Detail	190	(3)
Bret Anthony Johnston
Like Water for Words: A Simile Exercise	193	(6)
CRAFT
Susan Vreeland
Finding a Larger Truth by Turning Autobiography into Fiction	199	(3)
Sheila Kohler
Secrets of the Great Scene	202	(4)
Tony Ardizzone
Hemingway's Caroms: Descriptive Showing and Telling	206	(2)
Robert Boswell
How to Own a Story	208	(3)
Elizabeth Searle
Object Lessons	211	(3)
Rosellen Brown
The Goldilocks Method	214	(4)
Sandra Scofield
Big Scenes	218	(3)
Nancy Reisman
Moving Through Time: A Four-Paragraph Short Short	221	(3)
Joy Passanante
Using the Retrospective Lens	224	(2)
Amy Bloom
Water Buddies	226	(2)
Victoria Redel
Listening to Sound to Find Sense	228	(2)
Lynne Barrett
Entrances: Building Bigger Scenes	230	(3)
Steve Almond
The Five Second Shortcut to Writing in the Lyric Register	233	(2)
Christopher Busa
Meaning Making Via Metaphor	235	(4)
Christopher Castellani
Soundtracking Your Story	239	(3)
Robert Cohen
Negative Capability	242	(5)
REVISION
Porter Shreve
Seven Drafts in Seven Days	247	(3)
Ann Harleman
More Is More: An Exercise in Revising Your Story	250	(4)
Brian Kiteley
Potholes	254	(3)
Jonis Agee
The Dark Matter: Twenty Issues in Novel Revision	257	(6)
AUTHOR WEB SITES	263	(2)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	265	(2)
CREDITS	267