Writing Classes Emphasize Storytelling

Writing Classes Emphasize Storytelling as In the Garden of Beasts
Writing Classes Emphasize Storytelling as In the Garden of Beasts

In my writing classes, I emphasize the need for strong storytelling skills as a way of reaching a wide audience. I just finished a book that demonstrates this exactly: Eric Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin.

The work of narrative nonfiction tells the story of William Dodd, American Ambassador to Germany during the years 1933 to 1937 when Hitler and the Nazi Party were taking power in Germany. Dodd spoke German and loved the country, having received his Ph.D. in Leipzig 40 years earlier. When offered the post of ambassador for President Franklin Roosevelt, he accepted and brought his family with him, including his daughter Martha, an attractive and flirtatious woman who had just separated from her husband and was in the process of divorcing him. Martha caught the eye of a number of high-ranking figures including Adolf Hitler, Gestapo Head Rudolf Diels and Soviet attaché and secret agent Boris Vinogradov. The book does a great job of providing a view of the Third Reich from the ground up, Martha’s encounters with these men vividly illuminating the personal side of these men, a side often ignored in the histories of the era.

Larson is particularly good at using characters, including Martha, to tell the larger story from the inside out, one of the strategies I encourage my students to follow in my Seattle, online and travel writing classes. Martha is the principal point of view figure in the book which traces her early enthusiasm for Germany and the Nazi party. This enthusiasm gives way to uneasiness, dread, and open hostility as she sees the regime for what is truly is: a murderous, inhuman machine. It’s truly a gripping read from the opening which graphically details the wounds of a young American doctor who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, one of many such early warnings of Nazi brutality. Put it on your reading list!

Seattle Writing Class Discusses Dramatic Outlines

 

Writing for Story: Seattle Writing Class.
Writing for Story: text for summer Seattle Writing Class.

In teaching my Seattle writing class, I’ve learned that structure is the biggest challenge for most writers. While most writers understand sentence structure and paragraphing, they have trouble organizing individual paragraphs into a larger story. This is one of the things we’ll discuss in my upcoming spring Seattle writing class, Writing for Story. One of the best ways of structuring a story is to begin with an outline, one of the techniques I’ll discuss in my spring Seattle writing class, Writing for Story. This needn’t run pages and pages: sometimes even a simple three or four sentence outline can do the trick, such as the one I’ll explain below. By using this outline, whether for a story or book, you’ll have a good chance of figuring out the larger shape of the story in advance. If you fail to do this, it’s like building a house without a strong foundation; it can easily collapse.

The dramatic outline allows you to chart the emotional peaks and valleys of the story so that you’ll know where you’re heading when you sit down to write. The five short statements below describe the major actions in the story. There is one statement for each major focus. This is not like the outline you wrote in English composition class; these statements highlight on the dramatic actions in story. They help you focus on what’s essential to the story. This is a conflict—resolution outline, with the conflict introduced in the first statement, developed in the next three statements, and resolved in the last statement.

1) Complication – Make it simple and active. Have you chosen active verbs to show action? Is the main character included statement? How will you illustrate the main action? Do you have the source material for this? Is the action dramatic enough?

2) Development Action – Clear, cogent, related to complication.

3) Development Action – Clear, cogent related to complication, tied to previous development, tied to main character.

4) Development Action — Clear, cogent related to complication, tied to previous development, tied to main character.

For more: Writing for Story.

Seattle Writing Class Discusses Author Platform

Text for Seattle Writing Class.
A River Runs Through It discussed in spring Seattle Writing Class.

In my spring Seattle writing class, we’ll discuss how you create an author platform. Many authors cringe at the mention of this concept, preferring to spend their time writing rather than marketing or creating a network. But the task doesn’t need to be overwhelming to create a platform that will help you sell your book, whether you’re pitching to a traditional publisher or planning to self-publish your book. The important thing is to work smart. Figure out the best way for you to create a strong platform while continuing to write.

The author platform has taken on an important role when it comes to whether or not a writer will get a traditional publishing contract — and it’s equally important to self-published authors who are serious about their writing careers.

The rise of the author platform as an industry obsession is a relatively new phenomenon. While industry folks may argue that platform has always mattered, today it’s more important than ever before. A huge shift has transpired in the past decade when it comes to what agents and editors weigh when deciding what projects to represent or publish — and in some cases an author’s star quality matters more than his or her actual book.

Author platform is more than just social media. Many aspiring authors believe that platform is all about social media, but in fact Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram are only small pieces of the author platform pie.

The platform is a strategy and means of selling a book. Because the book world has changed so dramatically, publishers don’t have as many predictable sales channels, and they increasingly want a sure thing when it comes to selling. They may love a book, but if they’re not sure how to sell it, they won’t buy it unless the author has a platform in place to for it. For more, sign up for my spring writing class, The Nature of Narrative.

 

 

Charles Johnson on Writing Classes

Charles Johnson Cartoon for writing classes
Charles Johnson Cartoon for writing classes.

In my writing classes, I emphasize how learning art and craft is essential to succeeding as a writer. Tonight, I’ll be interviewing my former teacher, Charles Johnson, on teaching and writing. He just published an important new book, The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling. The book grows out of his teaching at the University of Washington, where I received my Master of Fine Arts and doctorate. Here are some of the questions we’ll address:

-Why did you write The Way of the Writer? What was the impetus for it?

-What do you hope the book will do? What kind of conversations will it spark?

-How does the book grow out of your own approach to writing?

-You never attended a creative writing program. How did you find your way as a writer?

-How important were mentors like John Gardner? How would a young writer acquire a mentor?

-How was working as a journalist important to your development?

-What did art and cartooning teach you about writing?

-You say in The Way of the Writer that you avoided creative writing classes while working on Faith and the Good Thing? Why?

-Have these programs changed over the years? As a young writer today, would you be more or less willing to attend such a program?

-What would you look for in a creative writing program? What could be most helpful about such a program? What are potential drawbacks?

-Has the writing workshop approach evolved? Is it still the main pedagogical strategy of these programs? What are its weaknesses? Its strengths?

-Can craft and technique be taught?

-What cannot be taught?

The are also issues I’ll address in my spring writing class, The Nature of Narrative. I’ll be interviewing Charles Johnson tonight 7:30 p.m. at Third Place Books Seward Park in Seattle. Please stop by!

From Charles Johnson—a National Book Award winner, Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, and…
THIRDPLACEBOOKS.COM

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 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!

 

 

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/