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yare yare
I’m not sure why I keep writing about grief. My characters seem willing to use any excuse to share their sorrows. In upstream, I sent a man and his granddaughter walking down a trail by a creek, and he was like, “Fish remind me of my dead wife.” *shrug.* My twitter friend George had a more upbeat response to last week’s prompt. Click here to read “Separate Beginning” by George Sanders.
I tried my best to give my monologuist some flavour with his movements in the story; his granddaughter got some as well. I think I got better at is as I went along. Let me know if you think I succeeded (or not!). Something I learned writing it was, at the end when Malphy is admonishing Aidy to “keep fighting,” the speech on its own moved by too quickly. This left it lacking weight and depth. I added a lot of description in between bits of his dialogue, and this drew out the scene, giving it the weight it needed.
when is a door not a door?
For this week, I’ll write another monologue, but with the focus on Interactions with Items. I’ll let Mr. Gardner lead the explanation:
The first line of the second paragraph, “Della’s hands were so small they could be put into small-mouth jars,” presents a new level of technique… It matters, of course, that the jars are a part of Della’s country culture, but that’s the least of it. No general statement, such as “Della had small hands,” could touch the vividness of this image. …we accept the metaphor and all it carries in its train—Della’s childlike character and delicacy, her dutifulness and devotion (canning food), her saintly abstractedness, a quality hard to account for in terms of anything Rhodes has said, yet somehow present.
John Gardner, On Becoming a Novelist; re: David Rhodes, Rock Island Line
Which is to say, I’m going to pack a lot of meaning into a small-mouth jar. I will characterize my speaker using the objects in the space, but also go a bit deeper and try to express something about their history, and the time and place they inhabit. Wish me luck!
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Please know you are always encouraged to share your writing, which I feel honoured to read and enjoy immensely.
Until next week!
keep writing, anne
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