6.     Departures

Cowan, A. (2011) The Art of Writing Fiction.  Harlow: Pearson Education. 

This is a great book. Writing groups enjoy using it. Individual writers have found its very good advice encouraging. It also very clearly acknowledges the part that autobiography plays in the writing of fiction. There are suggestions here about using notebooks and a chapter on character that groups enjoy working from. Lots to learn from, here.

Departures

Picture the old-style destination boards at train stations and airports, the locations flipping rapidly over.

Perhaps in each of us there’s a similar board, not just of locations but of people and incidents. The people may be significant to us – a grandparent, for instance – or the merest, briefest acquaintance. We may have visited the place only once, or we may have lived there for years. The events may be trivial or life-changing. But somehow, they’re etched into our memory and they return to us regularly, as fleeting images or lengthier daydreams, the board constantly changing, repeatedly flipping.

Take a few minutes to imagine your destination board, and begin to compile a list of the places, people and incidents that appear before your mind’s eye. These are your headings, your points of imaginative departure.

When you have completed your list, asterisk the half-dozen headings that are most evocative for you. Now write a page or two in response to each of these headings. You are seeking to memorialise the places, people and incidents that define your internal landscape.

This may take several sessions. When you have finished, put this writing aside for a week or two, and when you eventually come back to it, cross out the sentences that seem laboured or long-winded, cliched or imprecise. Rewrite your descriptions for clarity, economy and precision.

7.     Darkness 

Cox, A. (2005) Writing Short Stories. Abingdon: Routledge.

Great for those of you working on short stories. Each chapter is interleaved with interesting and challenging exercises.

Darkness

For this exercise I want you to step out into the darkness. Not too far – and please don’t go anywhere dangerous. Choose a quiet time of night, if possible. Stay still for about five or ten minutes, long enough to absorb the nocturnal atmosphere. How have shapes and textures changed? It is unlikely to be pitch black; what is the effect of moonlight or any other sort of light? Concentrate especially on noises and movement, close to you or far away. If it is summer you may be aware of insects or other creatures. Are there any smells that you associate with night time? Is it cold or warm? Is there a breeze?

…Describe the darkness. (You can go inside now, if you wish!) You can concentrate on the nocturnal landscape close at home, or evoke the darkness of space, or even bring back a childhood fear of the dark, but make your description as real and as specific as you can. When you have finished, read some other descriptions of darkness. For example……

8. Hero’s journey

Davidow, S. Williams, P. (2016) Playing with Words. London: Palgrave.

This is another of those generous books which shares a way of working, further reading, lots of examples and plenty of little exercises embedded in each chapter. Here is one that might work independently of the surrounding text:

The Hero’s Journey Exercise

We are always the heroes and heroines of our own stories. In answering these questions (a paragraph for each one), the beginning of a memoir or autobiography may arise. Here’s your own life as a hero’s journey.

1.     What journey or quest are you on?

2.     What powers do you have?

3.     What mentor will help you?

4.     What adversity are you struggling against?

5.     What or who is your nemesis?

6.     What threshold experience do you face?

Mind you, as soon as they tell me that I must write a paragraph for each answer I begin to rebel, but, then, I am known for being obstreperous.

9. Home for the Holidays

Dufresne, J. (2018) Flash! Writing the Very short Story. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. 

I have to confess, I have not read a great deal of this one. I have read enough to know that if you are interested in writing the very short story, then there is plenty of good advice here. I think you probably need to read that advice before you embark on the following in very short form:

It’s always a good idea in fiction to get families together at ritual events, at weddings, funerals, baptisms, reunions and holidays. There’s bound to be trouble. And that’s what you’re looking for. So follow a family through the year and write about their gatherings in a series of very short stories: New Year’s, Easter or Passover, Independence day, Labor Day, family reunions, a wedding, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas. Anyone die during the year? Marry? Divorce? Have a baby? Anyone arrested?

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