4 - Style - Week 4

 Objective

The aim here is not to practice withholding ideas or feeling, but to practice revealing them through the surfaces of physical experience.

Assignment

Writing in the third person, describe a house from the point of view of a mother or father whose daughter has just left home and married a man the mother or father despises. Don’t refer to the wedding itself, or to the mother or father’s hatred of the son-in-law. Focus on the house as she or he experiences it in the wake of the daughter’s departure.

Then describe the same house from the point of view of the same mother or father—except this time the daughter has left home to marry someone the mother or father genuinely loves and approves of. Again, don’t refer to the wedding itself, or to the mother or father’s affection for the son-in-law but on the house as she experiences it in the wake of the daughter’s departure.

The two pieces combined should total 600-750 words.

Mother hating son in law

Sitting in the table of the small trailer the women was sobbing and thinking. The grandpa watch was behind the orange tree. The tic-tac was still working. The guilt of hiding her father watch was enormous to her. Being 45 and broke as one can be. It was never the dream of Marilyn. Being married a great magazine editor and have three dogs. That was something we can call a dream. Now, she is just thinking if it was right or wrong. To think to call her daughter and tell her that she can use the grandpa watch. She also thinks to herself why has never sale to no one.

Marilyn always thought to provide a good watch for her son in law. A good man that will provide to her daughter and take her out of the trash life they have. The old Rolex was of a better time. Marilyn’s father had groceries store close to the city hall. Sickness and going against the big, stored make grandpa closed the store. The cancer is a fast disease. At least for Mister James. Marilyn got pregnant during high school. She got pregnant at 18 finishing high school and her daughter at 16 is already running away with a man that prefers soccer to American football.  

The night goes long, and Marilyn is still sitting in the same chair. Thinking from past to future. From regret to regret. Sadness and sorrow are not common at her house.

A new though arrive her mind. Lie to her. Lie to him. They do not know the last value piece she has. She thinks is not worthy if she is going to loose her daughter but prefers lie to her and hide the watch. She wants to reach her daughter and explain to her or at least try.

Mother loving son in law.

Sofia and Brian will arrive near 6 pm. They have everything prepared. I do not like much that they will move back to Brian town, but surely, I love that the truck of Brian is bigger than this old trailer.  I love the sound of the truck arriving and hearing her laugh. The other day I even heard you being a sassy girl with Bria, and that it is okey. They really love each other. I am tired of being on this chair and using a lime to clean the color of this old watch. I know Sofia is going to love having grandpa watch.  I always have thing that if a bride receives a good groom. She needs to provide back. I know that Brian will be amazed of this magnificent present and more coming from Sofia.

It has been a long day and I only want to take a bath but knowing that my little princess will have a good house and soon will receive a car from their political folds has provide me an internal peace that seems impossible to reach.

Sofia, I wish I could be a little more straight forward, but I know that being hard with you has give results. I will soon see your beach pictures and be able to hear from your voice how great of honey moon you had. Ups I only have an hour before they arrive and I have not even start cleaning the kitchen. This guys will be tired and hungry I need to make something. Sofia told me that she will buy food, but a good home-made cook will be best for them. I will make some brisket. It will be great for them.

4 - Style - Week 3

 Objective

To say more with less. To push your language down to its essentials. To say only the best of what you mean.

Assignment

This week's story is the same as last week's... but you’re going to cut out half the words. Begin with the text you had for last week’s piece and start cutting words out. Do your best to cover the same material in half the words. You may add words here and there, but the idea is to build the same house on half the yard. The more work you put into last week’s assignment, the harder this is going to be.

Remember what to cut out:

• the wordy, the meandering, the unduly analytical

• the parts of speech that aren’t nouns and verbs—unnecessary modifiers, redundant prepositions, and so on

• throat-clearing or mealy-mouth words or phrases: “just,” “like,” “sort of,” “kind of,” “almost,” “very” . . .

• the teach-y, the explain-y, the crying out, the condescending

The kid was sobbing. The drops went down to his checks. The grandma hugged his grandchild. The brothers and sisters were carrying the first coffin. The mother. The body of the mother was recognizable, but with a horrible scar on her face. A second coffin behind. The father. He received the main damage. The grandpa made a spell to change his form. His grandson did not deserve see the face of his father after the accident.

After the funeral they took his grandson back home. The moment they arrive the child fall sleep in the coach. Grandma was furious. She has been a witch for 50 years and was unable to protect her daughter. The grandpa was sitting on the kitchen table and grandma was walking in front of him.

— We can bring them back! You and I can provide sacrifice our flesh and Philip the blood. I can purchase two bodies. Politicians owe me.

—NO WOMAN! NO. I won’t make my own daughter a zombie.  We don’t kill and we do not bargain with death. The family has rules. Commands to follow. 

—SHE IS MY DAUGHTER! I do not need you. I can call her soul. I can summon angels and demons. They will bring my daughter back. 

—Lala. Please. You and I are too weak and if we lose time and power trying to bring them back. We are not going to provide for Philip. He needs us.

The grandma started crying. She went from the kitchen to the living room and throw herself into the sofa. She needs to become a mother for the boy. 

—Maciel. He needs to be train. Commonly the parents teach the magic to their sons. 

—We need to be there for him lala.

 

Sophie McManus's Informal List of Words and Phrases to Cut

that	it seems	sort of	oh
even	even still/even as	still	or not
seem to/seems to	ah	and so	just
very	somewhat	somehow	at all
of course	especially	all right	little
small	world (often in overwrought sentences)	big	actually
certainly	tries to _____	for a long time	for a short time
only just	Because (starting sentence)	really	a bit
only	It was (starting sentence)	must have	all
very first (=first)	So/For/And (starting sentence)	sometimes	usually
anymore	some	suddenly	sudden
it. (ending sentence)	It (starting sentence)	and then	I know
you know	ever (e.g., "ever known")	then	thing/s
also	thing/s (if specific object)	such a	exact same
wondering	wandering

4 - Style - week 2

 Objective

In other parts of the Specialization, exercises focus more narrowly on one or another aspect of the story as a form. Meantime, this short assignment should help dispel any notions you may have that the ability to compose a piece of fiction is some kind of mystic gift. Of course, we can hope to improve them, but just getting one on the page does not require an advanced degree. We all tell stories all the time. Just write one. It will be fun, and it will be agony.

Assignment

Write a short story, complete with beginning, middle, end, characters, setting, plot, the whole shebang—in approximately 600 words. For reasons I’ll explain later, it’s important to keep it very close to 600 words, not much more, or much less.

Focus on writing with nouns and verbs—with people and things and what they do. Remember that a story at its basis is an imitation of action. Convey that action on the page with nouns and verbs.

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The kid was sobbing; the tears ran down to his cheeks. The cheeks were red and hot. He could feel the cold tears evaporating themselves at the touch of his cheeks. The grandma hugged her only grandchild and spin he to her. The brothers and sisters were carrying the first coffin. The mother, also known as the witch who healed all, had a body visible enough to see her face. The kid was unable to see his mother with a scar above her head. It was small but etched strongly in the boy's mind. The father was unrecognizable, the tall and strong man, the wizard of many politicians and businessmen, the master of reality. The grandpa cast a spell to change the form of his son-in-law. His grandson did not deserve to bear the image of his father, even in death.

After the funeral and back home, the family and friends wanted to have a reunion. The grandpa let them be and do something in the house of their daughter and son-in-law. However, Mister Maciel and Grandma Lala took their grandson back to their own home. Grandma was furious, a master in clairvoyance, unable to see the future, unable to provide for her daughter. The grandchild went to their grandparents' bed and fell asleep.

The grandpa sat at the kitchen table, and Grandma walked from the dorm with her hands on her chest.

— We can still bring them back. I can ask for bodies. We can explain to Hodas. He will surely accept and provide some blood. You and I can provide the rest of the blood. A call from past and future. I can acquire a body. The assistant of the president told me…

— NO, WOMAN! NO. I won’t make my own daughter a zombie, and that man had become a son of my own. He was a dumb boy who loved our daughter like no one else. We don’t kill, and we do not bargain with death. You know these family rules. It is our command...

— IT IS MY DAUGHTER! I do not even need you; I can easily send for her soul and find a recipe. It is mine. It is his mother. Our stupid commands. What good do they have? I can summon angels and demons. They will bring my daughter back.

The grandpa took his hand to his chest and started crying. The grandmother was furious and raised her hand to the air. She had a solution. He was destroyed. She was too but did not accept.

— Lala. Please. Please. All our family legacy will be it. My mother and father stopped being the guardians of this family after the death of Jazz. You and I are too weak, and if we lose the rest of time or power in trying to bring them back, we are not going to provide for him. He needs us.

The grandma was about to cry. She went from the kitchen into the living room and threw herself onto the brown couch. The woman knew that this was all. She now needs to become a mother to a little boy. The role of grandma just disappeared next to her daughter.

— Maciel. We need to train him. Normally, parents teach magic to their sons.

— We need to be there for him, even if he decides to stop our traditions.The kid was sobbing; the tears ran down to his cheeks. The cheeks were red and hot. He could feel the cold tears evaporating themselves at the touch of his cheeks. The grandma hugged her only grandchild and spun him around. The brothers and sisters were carrying the first coffin. The mother, also known as the witch who healed all, had a body visible enough to see her face. The kid was unable to see his mother with a scar above her head. It was small but etched strongly in the boy's mind. The father was unrecognizable, the tall and strong man, the wizard of many politicians and businessmen, the master of reality. The grandpa cast a spell to change the form of his son-in-law. His grandson did not deserve to bear the image of his father, even in death. After the funeral and back home, the family and friends wanted to have a reunion. The grandpa let them be and do something in the house of their daughter and son-in-law. However, Mister Maciel and Grandma Lala took their grandson back to their own home. Grandma was furious, a master in clairvoyance, unable to see the future, unable to provide for her daughter. The grandchild went to their grandparents' bed and fell asleep. The grandpa sat at the kitchen table, and Grandma walked from the dorm with her hands on her chest. — We can still bring them back. I can ask for bodies. We can explain to Hodas. He will surely accept and provide some blood. You and I can provide the rest of the blood. A call from past and future. I can acquire a body. The assistant of the president told me… — NO, WOMAN! NO. I won’t make my own daughter a zombie, and that man had become a son of my own. He was a dumb boy who loved our daughter like no one else. We don’t kill, and we do not bargain with death. You know these family rules. It is our command... — IT IS MY DAUGHTER! I do not even need you; I can easily send for her soul and find a recipe. It is mine. It is his mother. Our stupid commands. What good do they have? I can summon angels and demons. They will bring my daughter back. The grandpa took his hand to his chest and started crying. The grandmother was furious and raised her hand to the air. She had a solution. He was destroyed. She was too but did not accept. — Lala. Please. Please. All our family legacy will be it. My mother and father stopped being the guardians of this family after the death of Jazz. You and I are too weak, and if we lose the rest of time or power in trying to bring them back, we are not going to provide for him. He needs us. The grandma was about to cry. She went from the kitchen into the living room and threw herself onto the brown couch. The woman knew that this was all. She now needs to become a mother to a little boy. The role of grandma just disappeared next to her daughter. — Maciel. We need to train him. Normally, parents teach magic to their sons. — We need to be there for him, even if he decides to stop our traditions.

 

 

4 - Style - Week 1

 Objective

Artists learn to draw and thereby to learn to see. That’s what this exercise is about. Learning to draw with language and thereby to perceive more vividly.

Assignment

This is a simple exercise with a simple emphasis: writing with your five senses.

Write a three-paragraph description of a person or a place. Show the reader what it looks like, smells like, feels like, sounds like, even tastes like.

Try to put pressure on every word, every phrase. Make every sentence meaningful, sensible, and clear.

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Always chewing gum that tasted like spearmint, he really loved everything related to nature. His favorite perfume smells like dark wood. Skinny in size, with an average height above 1.75 meters. In case you arrive at his house, music will always be heard from outside. He loves the sound of the bass and the drums. The house feels like that of an old lady. He has a beautiful garden. His hands are stubborn and a little rough from all the work he constantly does. He never has a beard, always a clean face with short, long brown hair. He normally ties it into a small ponytail and brushes his hair backward. The long face makes him look older, but his dressing gives away his real age. A single 22-year-old man.

He loves to wear blue and black T-shirts without any drawings or logos. He wears on the jeans weekends, and during the week at work, he is always in white shirts and dress pants. He has the same white shirts but different pants to go to work. On Fridays, he always wears his white tennis shoes, which he only uses on Fridays. From Monday to Thursday, he wears several pairs of brown shoes. During the weekend, he opts for sandals or work boots, depending on the garden work.

He always speaks slowly but has one of those deep voices. However, when he laughs suddenly, he has a high-pitched voice. Some people believe he fakes the laugh or the voice, but since he hates smoking, we know his voice is natural. He is a very average or normal guy, except for the tiny difference of having purple eyes. The tone is dark, so in a normal environment, you won’t realize it until you are in front of him. It is something all his family has.

3 - Setting and description - week 4

 I would like you to set a story in your primal landscape – meaning, the place in which you were raised. If, like me, you moved around as a child, pick the place in which you spent the longest period of time, one you can remember – which for me would be the post-industrial Pennsylvania city in which I went to high school.

There are so many different kinds of primal landscapes on this planet. We live in dry and wet climates, we live on wind-swept hillsides or in the middle of traffic-choked cities. Small town life is unique, but so is urban, suburban, and rural life. All primal landscapes are interesting to the writer who lived there because the landscape is part of who he or she is.

Your childhood landscape is in your DNA. You grew up listening to the accent, attending the gatherings, playing in the weather, being nurtured or alienated by cultural practices.

The list of writers who mine their primal landscape over and over again is long. Here is just a brief list of some of the great American writers who kept (and some of them still keep) returning to their most personal landscape, even if they also wrote about many other places.

• William Faulkner, American South

• John Steinbeck, Central California

• Annie Proulx, Wyoming

• Raymond Chandler, Los Angeles

• Sherwood Anderson, the Midwest

• Garrison Keillor, the Midwest

• H.P Lovecraft, New England

• Edith Wharton, New York City

• Flannery O’Connor, American South

• 
  

One of my favorite writers of his primal landscape, and of place in general, is great stylist John Updike. Updike passed away in 2009, but left numerous novels and short story collections, as well as hundreds of poems and works of criticism behind. He wrote movingly of his primal landscape – Shillington, Pennsylvania – in an essay called “The Dogwood Tree.” Watch this clip to hear one writer explain how his primal landscape felt to him, and why he kept returning to it.

John Updike discusses “A Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood” (minute 3.44 to 8:52 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RApWC3Mn3UA. Note I DO NOT want learners to watch the entire program, which is old and rambling.)

Now, for your last assignment, I would like you to set the beginning of a story in your primal landscape. This is not a memoir, but rather a story set in a place you know deeply and even unconsciously. If it helps you to convert this story into fiction, be sure to write in the third person – he or she. You could call yourself “the boy” or “the girl.” If you write as “I,” it might be tempting to write autobiography.

You may use your 500-750 words to simply describe this landscape, no characters needed. Or, you may populate the landscape with characters. If you have already taken the course on character, use what you learned there to pick a character who is typical of your primal landscape. Either way, I firmly believe we are all highly influenced by the place of our youth. For better or for worse, our hometown is always our hometown.

Write 500-750 words. Let yourself go through the intense experience of remembering this landscape, its weather, people, its joys and sorrows.

Write hard, have fun.

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The afternoon arrived, and the sky was cloudy. The night before, the storm had started to hit the state, making it a peculiar summer for everyone. The summer of 2010 was a real cloudy and rainy summer. The school was already over, and kids were transitioning into teenagers, and the teenagers were experiencing broken hearts.

The graduation ceremony for the secondary kids had just concluded, and everyone hurried ran toward their respective families. We had all types of families. The one with elderly, old brothers and even baby sisters.

Our boy was talking with their friends and taking some pictures using his digital camera. Then he saw her and quickly realized that it might be the last time he would see her. Life was pulling them apart, and things would never be the same. He has always lived a city away of school and now will study at a more far away high school, and when you are fourteen years old love is one of the saddest yet strongest emotions in life.

The graduation was inside the school walls in the main hall because it was roofed. The school leased hundreds of chairs for the families of students. After the graduation ceremony the school leave some party music for students to dance and to enjoy among their families. After the graduation was done and all the party music stopped. She was still there taking some pictures with friends near the school exit. He was near her, just in wait for a moment alone the two of them. She started to saying goodbye to her friends and start to walk away of school.

As she walked out of the school, about to cross the street in search of her mom, the boy, eager for at least a farewell, flew behind her and shout her name.

—Jenny!

With her back in front of him, she spined herself and responded.

—You sure took your time, —her tone consistently angry as used to be.

—I just wanted to say goodbye.

—This is our last goodbye. Am I right?

—Yes.

She ran to him and embraced him. The boy reciprocated, realizing in that moment how skinny she was. He loved that of her. It was a special day for him. He was wearing a new white shirt. She had chosen her favorite perfume, waking up early to straighten her hair and put a pretty bow hair tie. The both were dressed for a special occasion. A last hug.

While they were hugging it appear world stopped. No sounds from parents waiting for their children, no teachers or school staff, neither their peers. Everybody had already went away with their families. Nothing existed beyond that magical hug.

She began to cry against his chest, and the boy felt a sense of relief—he knew she loved him. Overwhelmed, she couldn't contain her emotions any longer. She was always proud of herself, but today was inevitable. She conveyed her feelings through tears, expressing what he longed to hear and see.

"My mom will be here soon. I wanted you to talk with her."

"For you, whatever you want."

She was simultaneously happy and nostalgic. Aware that this would likely be their last meeting. A few exchanged smiles and a final goodbye hug—that would be it.