Hello Writers!
Our exercises for this month are:
- Hemingway's Iceberg - Starrt by taking your page and dividing it into 1/3 and 2/3 by drawing a wavy line. The line represents Water, and the top part will be the exposed iceberg with the bottom part being the submerged iceberg. Start by writing a detailed character profile below the water line. You might imagine you are at a dinner party and describing the person sitting opposite you or choose a family member. Once you have written the detailed profile, try to convey the same key observations, character traits and backstory in only a couple of lines - enough to achieve the same sentiment, if not more, in the "exposed iceberg" space.
- Six Word Story - Write your own six-word story. The story needs to project a backstory and perhaps a future story. Hemingway's six-word story was "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn." In this story we can see a past, a baby's death. And we see a present, selling the shoes either due to hardship or for closure.
- Pace - You can control pace with sentence length and rhythm. A lot of short sentences together can feel like constant punctuation. But they can add balance to a proliferation of long sentences. Sentence length can also match action. For example, consider the sentence "Her hand twitched." A short sentence that mirrors the twitch. Observations of passing scenery on a train journey might be mirrored by long sentences. Choose a piece of writing you have done previously that has at least 10 continuous sentences. Or write a similar length piece describing a journey you have made. Read you writing back, paying close attention to the rhythm of the sentences and whether you linger over certain parts and stop abruptly at others. Is there a certain beat to it? Is there a constant "stop, start" of short sentences, or not time to come up for air with numerous long sentences? Perhaps consider rewriting the piece, interchanging long and short sentences and see the effect on pace and rhythm.
- A historical crowd - Imagine you are in a crowd of people in a place of your choosing, in each of the following years. Describe the crowd and write down as dialogue anything that you hear people say or shout.
- 1205
- 1855
- 1925
- 1965
Good writing! and email or text me if you have questions!
ALSO! I have a Board meeting on the 15th at our meeting time - please Silent write on your own and we will come together on zoom on the 22nd. Thanks!