Tag: Seattle writing courses

Creating Characters in Seattle Writing Class

Tom Wolfe's work will serve as a model in my Seattle writing class.
Tom Wolfe’s work will serve as a model in my Seattle writing class.

In my Seattle writing classes, I emphasize the importance of creating strong characters, whether in fiction or nonfiction. In my upcoming spring Seattle writing class, I’ll discuss how to write a character sketch, one of the essential techniques of narrative writing. A short, vivid character sketch should introduce all of the major players in the story, the protagonist, the antagonist, and various helper characters. For a short story, you might include four character sketches at most. Don’t use character sketches for very minor characters; most readers prefer to focus on a small nexus of characters as a way into the story.

As part of the Seattle writing class, you’ll pick out the protagonist and antagonist of your story. Choose one of them to describe in a character sketch. A character sketch is a short word picture that introduces one of the main figures in your story. It should be short, vivid, succinct. Include distinctive details; try to SHOW rather than simply TELL about someone. Include one tag or crowning detail that the reader will associate with them. See examples below.

“He was a good-looking Irishman with a lot of black hair and a great wrestler’s gut. When he sat down at his typewriter he hunched himself over into a shape like a bowling ball. He would start drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes until vapor started drifting off his body. He looked like a bowling ball fueled with liquid oxygen.”

From The New Journalism by Tom Wolfe

“At 5-foot-11, 185 pounds, Tyler is modestly sized, if muscular, with thick blacksmith hands, dark hair showing flecks of gray, and green eyes, one of which–the left—bears a birthmark that sometimes lends that iris a golden hue. Maybe the defect is actually a gift, because Tyler has 20/20 vision in his right eye but 20/15 in the left.”

From “The Way of the Sniper,” by Rick Telander in Men’s Journal, December, 09.

Create Strong Characters in Seattle Writing Course

The Catcher in the Rye includes strong characters, a theme of the Seattle Writing Classes.
The Catcher in the Rye includes strong characters, a theme of the Seattle Writing Course.

PROTAGONISTS AND ANTAGONISTS

The characters in your story, whether fiction or nonfiction, function like the dramatis personae in a play. They do not exist in isolation, but in relationship to the other characters, the plot, and setting.

For example, most stories have a protagonist and an antagonist, though the form of the relationship varies from genre to genre. The protagonist is often the main character in the story, while the antagonist is the person or thing the protagonist struggles against. A strong story will allow for a balance between these two opposing characters; if one or the other is too predictable or weak, the story will suffer. We will discuss how to fix this in the Seattle Writing Course.

The plot of the story revolves around the protagonist. The term ‘protagonist’ comes from ‘protagonistes’ – a Greek word meaning one who plays the first part or the chief actor. While the protagonist is a hero in most of the stories, he or she can be a villain as well, as in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. While an antagonist need not necessarily be a person, the protagonist is almost always a person. The list of fictional protagonists includes Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises, Ishmael in Moby Dick, or Mrs. Ramsay in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Memorable nonfictional protagonists include Tobias Wolff in This Boy’s Life , Mary Carr in The Liar’s Club or Chuck Yeager in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff.

In the Seattle Writing Class, we’ll discuss how to create strong protagonists and antagonists, essential elements of a strong story.

For more, please consider signing up for my spring Seattle Writing class, The Nature of Narrative.

Seattle Writing Class Explores Memoir Writing

Seattle Writing Class
MFK Fisher and Seattle Writing Classes.

My winter Seattle Writing Class, Follow the Story, will explore a number of writing genres, including memoir writing. Memoir is especially useful in treating questions of identity, a particularly American dilemma, as this is a country without strong classes and social norms. Identity often has to be negotiated, explored as a mix of ethnic, social, economic, psychological, and other dimensions. The fluid nature of American society leads many writers to pose questions such as, Who am I?  Where do I belong? What does it mean to be American? These are some of the topics we’ll discuss in my Seattle Writing Class.

One of the crucial tests for a memoir is finding this larger issue. What does this life illustrate? What has  the narrator learned from his or her life? Without a larger point, a personal memoir can easily lapse into boring, repetitive, poor-me stories. Humor is an especially effective antidote to this, showing that a writer has a perspective on his or her life. This sense of perspective helps give the memoir a point, avoiding the trap of what Joyce Carol Oates called “pathograpy”, memoirs that uncover disease, disaster, and sickness and revel in it, without trying to give a sense of how such a condition can be transformed.

For many Americans, discovering their identity comes from travel. Over the years Europe has Writing Memoirs   For many Americans, discovering their identity comes from travel. Over the years Europe has been one of the most popular destinations in this regard. In Map of Another Town by M.F.K. Fisher, she discovers a sense of herself when enduring trying circumstances while living in Aix en Provence. Fisher went on to become the dean of American food writers and much of what she learned came from her experiences, both good and bad, while living in France. Fisher has to struggle to discover who she is within or outside French society. Struggle is essential to a good memoir. Without it, there’s little suspense and little sympathy generated for the writer.

For more on memoir and other genres, please consider signing up for my Seattle Writing Class, Follow the Story.

Seattle Writing Classes: Breaking Writer’s Block

Seattle Writing Classes
Seattle Writing Classes help you overcome writer’s block.

One of the best things about writing for a daily newspaper is that it either permanently cures you of writer’s block, or it convinces you to pursue another profession.

When I worked on the Ellensburg Daily-Record, a small daily in eastern Washington State, I had to cover a wide variety of topics, not all of them especially captivating–the Ellensburg Rodeo, the Kittitas County Weed Board, country and western concerts, and an eccentric old lady who won the Halloween Contest by dressing up in a dog food bag.

During the time I worked there, I developed a method for quickly organizing and composing stories. It was the only thing that allowed me to survive with my love for writing intact. I developed this method by trial and error, mostly by error. Early on, like many of those who sign up for the Seattle Writing classes, I would obsess about the lead, spending three or more hours on it. As the deadline approached, I had less than an hour to finish the rest of the story.

I needed to find another way. I discovered that if I postponed my instinct toward perfectionism to later in the writing process I could produce a better story. First, I got black on white, quickly typing up the rough draft, and then I went back over it and tinkered with it. The key to avoiding writer’s block was postponing perfectionism.

Over time, I refined this technique. I would arrive at the office, organize my notes, find an angle around which to structure the piece, and then type away. After finishing the rough draft, I would go back and polish it from the lead forward. By postponing my inclination toward perfectionism to the end of the process, I was able to turn in a stronger piece.

This is one of the topics we’ll over in my fall Seattle Writing Class, Revising Your Life. Let me know if you’d like to sign up!

Narrative Nonfiction in Seattle Writing Classes

Seattle Writing Classes: The Boys in the Boat
The Boys in the Boat

In my Seattle writing classes, I like to emphasize how to write nonfiction that exhibits the drama and depth of a great novel. I recently read The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, a nonfiction book that serves as a fine example of this genre. The book is a meticulously researched account of the University of Washington rowing team who competed at the 1936 Olympics. The author met one of the team members, Joe Rantz, who lived nearby. By that time Joe was an old man, but he remembered well the experience of rowing for the Husky crew and of competing in the Olympics. He talked about the magic of being a part of “the boat” and what it meant to him and the other young men.

Brown realized that he had a story. He went back and interviewed Rantz as well as his daughter Judy. Slowly, the story began to materialize. This is a strategy I discuss in my Seattle writing classes, especially my fall writing class, Revising Your Life.

Brown organizes the book around Rantz and the other team members. Rantz is an especially appealing character, who struggled in his personal life, abandoned by his family. He had to make a living for himself during the Great Depression as well as compete for the crew team to make sure he kept his scholarship to the University of Washington.

Brown researched the book so he could add scenes of Joe’s early life in the Puget Sound area and the excitement of joining the crew team and competing with some of the best crews in the country and eventually the world. Drawing on journals, newspaper articles, and interviews, Brown weaves a compelling narrative about Joe and the other team members who shocked the world with their grit, tenacity and brilliance.

The books builds slowly toward the climatic scenes near the end, where the competition intensifies and Joe and the others have to dig deep to realize their dreams. The ending is especially moving, conjuring up a world now lost in time. The books is nostalgic in the best sense, reminding us of a moment of honor and selfless achievement that could easily be forgotten, but is lifted to permanent life by Brown’s extraordinary book.

Seattle Writing Class Hosts U.W. Press Editor

Regan Duff of the University of Washington Press speaking to my Seattle Writing Classes
Regan Huff of the University of Washington Press speaking to my Seattle Writing Classes.

In my Seattle writing classes, I always provide a detailed explanation of the publishing process. As part of this, I like to invite editors to speak about how they publish books and stories. Last week, we had the pleasure of hearing from Regan Huff, the senior acquisitions editor of the University of Washington Press who spoke to my summer Seattle writing class about the changing role of university presses, which have become to the go-to source for many books that once would have been published by larger houses.

“We’re non-profit so we can do books for a mission-driven reason,” she said. “We can keep books in print forever. We care about how books are designed. We care about authors.”

Most of these presses are attached to a university, so they do publish scholarly books, but in recent years they’ve branched out to more general interest topics and readerships. “We publish a lot of books on Asian and environmental issues,” she said. “We’re publishing a first-time author who is a pilot and engineer.”

Regan explained that the U.W. press publishes authors from all over, but they are focused on the Pacific Northwest region as subject material as well as other fields.

“If you are considering pitching a book, ask yourself, have we published something like your book?” she explained to my Seattle writing class. “Most presses are interested in books related to the current list, or a particular field. Go to the website and see what they have published recently.”

Make sure that your manuscript is a good fit for the press before submitting. This entails considering how the press will market it as well as the quality of the manuscript. “Look for a fit rather than holding your work up to be judged,” she told my Seattle writing class.

When you submit your manuscript, make sure that your pitch letter and book proposal reflect this understanding. “What is your book about and why is it interesting?” she said. “Who will read the book?”

Good advice for those looking to get published!

 

 

Writer as Reader in Seattle Writing Classes

Seattle Writing Classes Discuss Writer as Reader with Dana Gioia as example.
Seattle Writing Classes Discuss Writer as Reader with Dana Gioia as example.

In this summer’s Seattle Writing Class, “Writing for Story,” we’ll learn how to read in public as a writer. This is a necessary skill for anyone who wishes to promote a book or read in public.

I was reminded of the importance of this when attending the recent reading by Dana Gioia, who received Image Magazine’s Thirteenth Annual Denise Levertov award. Gioia is not only an internationally acclaimed poet, but is one of the best contemporary readers of poetry around. He gave lyrical, dramatic interpretations of his and other people’s poems, all from memory. When I asked him about how Wallace Stevens had influenced his poetry, he said Stevens was an influence, though perhaps not as important a one as Shakespeare or Robert Frost. He then recited from memory Steven’s poem, “Peter Quince at the Clavier.” Are there any contemporary poets who could match that? If so, I have not heard them read.

Gioia’s ability to memorize, recite and perform poetry seems to grow out of his convictions that poetry is a public art, not simply something to be written and read without being spoken. These beliefs helped shape his tenure as head of the NEA, where he did important work in repairing the direction of the agency. In his 1991 essay, “Can Poetry Matter?” he took up this issue, criticizing the way contemporary poetry and writing was taught. The essay appeared in the Atlantic and created quite a sensation. I read the essay while in graduate school. It had an important influence on my own writing, and on the Seattle Writing Classes I eventually taught. Gioia’s understanding of audience and belief that writers need to speak to an audience outside of writing programs convinced me to follow a similar trajectory in my work and teaching. I highly recommend this essay as well as his poems and literary criticism for neophyte writers looking for a thoughtful and helpful model.

Business of Books at Seattle Writing Class

Business of Books speaks at Seattle writing class
Jennifer Worick and Kerry Colburn of Business of Books speak at The Writer’s Workshop’s Seattle writing class

In my Seattle writing class, I teach the art and craft of writing as well as the publication process. As part of this, I bring in outside experts to talk about various aspects of writing as well as publication. The process of getting a book published always ranks high among the interests of my students. The process seems mysterious, powerful, and complicated, which it is, but if you have someone to guide you along its much more comprehensible. I help with some of this in my Seattle writing classes, but my latest guests provide a valuable service in packaging book proposals.

Jennifer Worick and Kerry Colburn, the dynamic duo behind The Business of Books (www.bizofbooks.com), are uniquely qualified to do this. Jen and Kerry have been “on both sides of the desk”— as both editors and authors. Kerry is the former executive editor of Chronicle Books and the author of a variety of titles, including How to Have Your Second Child First, Good Drinks for Bad Days, and Mama’s Big Book of Little Lifesavers. Jen, previously editorial director of Running Press, has co-authored or written more than 25 books, including her newest, Things I Want to Punch in the Face, and the New York Times best-selling Worst Case Scenario Handbook: Dating and Sex. During their publishing careers, they have reviewed many proposals and brought many successful books to market. They offer workshops, speak at conferences, and work with individual clients on book proposals.

“The benefit of self-publishing is that that you don’t have to pitch it and wait,” says Colburn. “But we’ve learned over the last few years, you still need a team of pros to make your book the best it could be. A lot of businesses have sprung up to help with that.

“With traditional publishing, you get a team, the expertise of the sales and foreign rights teams. Yes, they take a bigger piece of the pie, but it’s in their best interest to give your book a chance. :Your book will be assigned a marketing and publicity specialist and the publisher’s sales reps will take care of selling it to retailers all over the country. You’re part of this big machine.”

The downside is that you have to get your manuscript accepted by that company. I This is exactly where The Business of Books comes in.

“It’s like online dating,” says Worick. “Make your proposal specific.”

They’ll be teaching an intensive workshop on book proposals Saturday, May 14, 1–5 pm on Queen Anne hill in Seattle: https://bizofbooks.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/may-class-craft-a-winning-book-proposal/

Seattle Writing Classes Students Benefit as Independent Bookstores Bounce Back

Seattle writing classes students benefit from independent bookstores.
Seattle writing classes students benefit from independent bookstores.

As I mention in my Seattle writing classes, writers need to support local independent bookstores. These are the folks who will schedule your first reading, promote your books, and create the literary community that will help all of us thrive. I encourage the students my Seattle writing classes, online writing classes and Travel Writing classes, to support these local enterprises. I’ve had the pleasure of reading at a number of great independent bookstores in the Seattle area, including Elliott Bay Book Company, University Bookstore, Third Place Books, Queen Anne Books, and other independent book stories around the country including Village Books in Bellingham.

Over the years, these bookstores have struggled to compete with larger chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders. They discovered if they added amenities like cafes, people would stick with their local bookstores. As the world gets increasingly digitalized, people crave a comfortable physical space and the sense of a community that independent bookstores can provide. They offer something beyond the conversations that take places at universities, involving many different communities and readers, from kids, to teens to adults, interested in every subject under the sun.

These bookstores survived the chains, which have imploded or are imploding, only to face a bigger rival in Amazon. As the story below shows, some independent book store owners are finding ways to compete on price and convenience with Amazon. These bookstores also benefit from the emphasis on buying local, which makes sense whether you’re purchasing tomatoes or the latest sci fi novel. The key for the bookstores is to emphasize this and locate their stores in a place that’s convenient. Elliott Bay Book Company bounced back once they moved to Seattle’s thriving Capital Hill neighborhood.

The article below shows how such bookstores can innovate and find ways to complete with larger chains or with Amazon. These changes are good news for independent bookstores AND authors:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-model-for-independent-bookstores-1461082697

Travel and Adventure Writing

Travel Writing classes
Writer’s Workshop founder Nick O’Connell skate skiing at Home Ranch, CO, gathering material for a travel and adventure story.

Travel and Adventure Writing is some of the most enjoyable writing I do. It gives me an excuse to get out into the wild and leave behind all the email, texts, phone messages and other things I need to keep track of as a writer and founder of The Writer’s Workshop.

I had the pleasure of going on a press trip recently to the Home Ranch in Colorado. During the three-day visit, I took skate skiing lessons from Matson Tew, one of the guides at the ranch. The ranch offers lessons for cross country, skate skiing and even telemark skiing, which allows guests to try all kinds of skiing. I have telemarked for years and done classic cross country skiing a lot, but I had done little skate skiing and the times I’d done it, it had kicked my ass. It was so strenuous that I could only do it for a few hundred yards. But I figured if I had good instruction and the right equipment and a good course, I could at least make some progress, and get some material for travel and adventure writing.

In addition to taking lessons, I planned to write about it. The lessons and trip were essentially research for me. I no longer attend many city council or county commissioners meetings, as I did when I was a newspaper reporter, but I try to get out in the field as much as possible. I always learn a lot on such trips, soaking in the geography, the landscape, the people. And I usually return with a story as I did on this trip. As I teach students in my Travel writing classes, Seattle writing classes, and online classes, I like to use scene to organize such stories. Take a look at the story I wrote about the trip for a demonstration of how to do this. http://www.mountaingazette.com/blogs/kicking-and-gliding-at-the-home-ranch/