2017 March | Madelon Smid

WRITE YOUR LIFE – Session #5

Posted by Madelon on Mar 3, 2017 in Words in Action | 0 comments

Shape your ideas, dreams, anecdotes and memories

into fascinating stories to share.

Exercise #1

Take the brief write-up of your dream and analyze it, identifying the following: POV, tone, mood, setting

Exercise #2

Using your dream paragraph as a starting point, write a short story, expanding the dream in any direction you want. E.g. fantasy, horror, comedy e.g. add characters, change setting, set POV.

Exercise #3

Work through the checklist below, writing out your answers, and using them to flesh in the character(s) in your story.

Checklist for Character Development

I think my characters are very normal, very typical people.

But I’m assuming the range of what is normal is very wide.

Mary Gaitskill

Ask yourself why? for everything your character does. Know your character’s motivation.
Do you know how your character will act in the situations you place her in? Show how.
Does your character have a dominant character trait and a subdominant trait? i.e. loyalty (strength), stubbornness (weakness). These can be effective tool for writing short stories.
Do the characters experience conflict?
Do you use one of the following to allow the reader to see the character’s emotions?Dialogue – words, tone and attitude show character’s emotionInterior dialogue thoughts – not about feelings but about what is causing feelings
Setting – becomes a metaphor for the character’s feelings
Action – behavior expresses feelings (i.e. striding, charging, tiptoeing)
Does your character pull on the reader’s heartstrings?
Does each character have his or her distinct voice?
Do you make clear from whose Point of View you are writing?
Is the dialogue effective?
Do you use the simplicity of a minute detail to describe your characters? (read the great Russian writers: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Chekov – they are masters at this technique)
Do you hear the underlying voice (your voice)? What picture of the writer does the reader get?
Do you dole out character information a small bit at a time throughout the story, rather than dump it all on the first page.

A writer’s knowledge of himself, realistic and unromantic, is like a store of energy on which he must draw for a lifetime;

one volt of it properly directed will bring a character alive.

Graham Greene

How To Use Your Stories as Gifts

Tell a story about a person on a special occasion (wedding, anniversary)
Make a video and share it on a special occasion or at a family gathering.
Tape an absent member and play for gathering of connected people.
Self-publish a collection of your stories – family, community – give them as gifts or market them
Write out a story or collection and give it to each person in the family (Christmas, Easter or Valentines)
Sell your stories to periodicals or local news media
Send copies of your published stories to the people you interviewed for them
Use stories as quotes or inserts in photo albums
Use them as Eulogies at memorial services
Collect them as valuable information for an adopted child or a parent who has given up a child.
Write letters to a particular person (grandchild) that are collected for them to have as adults, these letters trace events in their life from your POV
Write or present poems or stories that honor someone you know –e.g., roast of a colleague
Write dramas for local church, community events, special occasions

Affirmation: My life has value. People are interested in knowing about me. My words have value. I am creative and able to write my stories and the stories of others.