Comedy Writing Draft

For those of you confused with the stories you were to have read for homework, here's a bit of an explanation.

• The Scrolls: A few years before the book was published, the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered. In the early 70’s this sort of thing caused a lot of controversy between religious scholars and scientists. They wondered if these scrolls were part of the Bible. Allen is also Jewish, so the humor relates to this fact as well.
• Lovborg’s Women Considered: The playwright Henrick Ibsen is the bane and love of many literary scholars and theatre students. Woody Allen is poking fun of the field of literary criticism (scholars who write about books, authors, and their “private” lives).
• The Whore of Mensa: Allen is parodying the hardboiled detective novel made popular by writers like Dashielle Hammett (The Maltese Falcon). Think of Humphrey Bogart as the narrator and you’ll have the idea. Mensa is a national program/club – entry into which is based on I.Q. The idea then of whores who intellectually stimulate their johns is a very funny idea.

Today in the lab, choose one of these activities:

1. Write a draft of a comic story for your portfolio (this is required, but you may opt to do this at home if you wish. Length and subject matter is up to you.) Use the comic techniques discussed last class to create a parody or funny story. Hint: choose a non-fiction format of writing and lampoon or make fun of it. For example: write fictional funny cookbook entries, a zany how to manual, a zombies guide to dating, a review of a fictional author who is similar to Charles Dickens, etc.
2. Read the homework (pages 107-127)
3. Study for the test on Thursday
4. Workshop your fiction with a friend.
5. Revise one of your drafts (a requirement for the portfolio)
6. Prepare your portfolio

HOMEWORK: See post below.

Workshop/Revision; Fiction Portfolio

We have arrived at the end of the marking period. So, what major projects are due?

Your portfolio is due Thursday. In your portfolio you should have these items:

• --5-10 Hint Fiction pieces (March 18)
• --At least 1 Micro Fiction/Dribble or Drabble Fiction piece (March 21, March 25)
• --1 Sudden Fiction fiction draft (March 26)
• --1 Bradbury Project: 3 Interconnected Stories (April 8, 10, 11, 16, 18, 22)
• --1 revision from your fiction workshop. You should add length (for example to a hint or micro fiction story), plot, character, etc. to one of your pieces. Arrange plot in a different way from the first draft (consider using a different beginning or narrative structure (April 26), use stream of consciousness and/or flashback as a narrative technique (April 16), change the ending to a different kind of ending (April 22), use advice from famous writers to strengthen your work (April 26, April 8, March 21, March 18). Your second draft should be labeled and should LOOK and READ differently from the original draft.
• --A comic story draft (see above)

Because of poor test scores (class wide), we will also have a test on the following material:

• Fiction techniques: stream of consciousness & flashback (April 16)
• Fiction techniques: different narrative techniques (April 26)
• Fiction techniques: different endings (April 22)
• Fiction techniques: Beginnings and middles (handouts)
• Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s advice for writers (April 26)
• Damon Knight's advice for writers (April 8)
• Information about Hemingway, Bradbury, Woody Allen
• Comedy writing techniques (April 26)
• Martian/Sci-fi history in literature (March 21) 

HOMEWORK: Please study for the test and prepare your portfolio. Please read: "The Early Essays", "A Brief, Yet Helpful, Guide to Civil Disobedience", "Match Wits with Inspector Ford", "The Irish Genius" (pp. 107-127)

Narrative Structure & Revision

EQ: Are you aware that we have some choice in narrative structure? What advice does Vonnegut give young writers? Who is Woody Allen?

Period 7:
We could write a story:
1. Chronologically - the story is told from beginning to end

advantages: It's easy; Moving a story ahead chronologically is linear and less complicated, often avoiding literary traps and convoluted plot devices; it's simple (we are used to telling stories like this)
disadvantages: It's difficult to tell a complete textured story without shifting time; Without flashbacks--a technique in which you interject a scene or scenes that happened prior to the current action--your storytelling options are limited; it's so familiar it's boring; We often don't know when to stop or where to begin, feeling like we need to cover everything that happens within the characters' lives and histories.

2. Total flashback: starting in the present (for the character), you flashback to a previous scene or event in the character's life and write back up to the present. This can also be called a frame story because the beginning and ending start and finish in the same time.

advantages: Opens up the story and allows the writer to include information that would be absent in the chronological tale; a flashback allows the opportunity to add critical backstory or commentary from the character/narrator, comparing past with present--this adds texture and depth to a story; After the frame (when you flashback) the story is just like a chronological story.
disadvantages: It is possible for a reader to be confused when the switch in time occurs; it is more complex to pull off than the chronological story.

3. A combination of the two (the Zigzag method): the zigzag allows for a back and forth structure utilizing the strengths of flashbacks AND chronological sequences and scenes.

advantages: allows for complexity and texture in the story; needed background can occur at any time; it is intellectually more compelling; it can increase suspense; it can create layered and developed characters
disadvantages: It takes some skill to tell a story both back and forward in time; it is a more complex narrative form; readers may become confused as to events.

Lab Activity: Select a fiction piece that you originally wrote as a chronological narrative. Switch the narrative by placing the ending sequences at the beginning (and then again at the end), (i.e., use the flashback or zigzag method.)

Writerly Advice: Vonnugut’s Advice On Writing

On pages 9 and 10 of his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. listed eight rules for writing a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that the greatest American short story writer, Flannery O'Connor, broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.
Look over your own writing and see if you are following any of Vonnegut's rules. Go back to your hint, flash, or micro fiction and add to it. Perhaps start in a new spot in the plot or add details to flesh out your characters, settings, and themes. Add dialogue where none existed before. Create scenes.

Period 8: Learn a little about Woody Allen here. Take some notes using the graphic organizer-side one (to hand in as participation credit). Let's pick up Woody Allen's book Without Feathers and in small groups of 1-3 read "Selections from the Allen Notebooks", "Psychic Phenomenon", and "A Guide to Some of the Lesser Ballets." As you read, identify the comic techniques on your notesheet (side 2).

The title of this collection of short stories and humorous pieces is an allusion to Emily Dickenson's poem. You can read her here. 

HOMEWORK: Begin to prepare your fiction portfolio. Read the stories: "The Scrolls", "Lovborg's Women Considered", and "The Whore of Mensa" (pages 24-41). As you read identify comic elements in the stories. See post above for more details and notes.

Comedy Techniques in Writing

Why do people laugh?

• Incongruity or Non sequitur. Humans are rational (supposedly) and laugh at anything that breaks a pattern or does not logically follow.
• Farce or physical humor (often pratfalls, slapstick, hurting people, etc.) What doesn't kill us makes us laugh.
• Superiority vs. inferiority (we laugh at those weaker or in a worse situation than us)
• Mistaken identity (using aspects of feeling superior or inferior, when the true identity of a character is revealed, this also includes surprise--so we laugh)
• Absurdity (if it doesn't make sense, and we are logical people, we laugh)
• Surprise: humans may laugh when startled to release adrenaline. It's part of our monkey brain.

How can writers use these techniques in their writing? Like everything else, choice allows us to skillfully craft our work for a desired effect. You may want to try a few of these techniques in addition to the ones listed above:

Hyperbole: an exaggeration
Understatement: Often used at the end of a paragraph or idea, an understatement reverses the importance of the subject matter.

• Selections from the Allen Notebooks & The Early Essays: Both these essays parody the publishing industry’s love affair with memoir, creative non-fiction, and publishing a well-known author’s private writings after they have died. Hence, the humor of these weird insights into the famous “Woody Allen” journals. Traditionally, creative essay form always used the same form: the word “ON” and then the subject of the essay.
• Examining Psychic Phenomena: The supernatural is always a good subject to parody. In this case, a review of a newly published “non-fiction” book on Psychic Phenomena. Look up Psychic Phenomena on the internet to see the sort of thing Allen is parodying.
• The Guide to Some of the Lesser Ballets: When you attend an opera or ballet, inside your program you often get the story synopsis. Since opera is usually in another language, and ballet is hard to follow if you don’t know the story, these sorts of program notes are helpful in interpreting the performance. Allen, of course, is poking fun.

In the lab: Try writing something funny using the techniques described above. You can combine many of these elements to make your writing funnier.

HOMEWORK: Begin to prepare your fiction portfolio. Read the stories: "The Scrolls", "Lovborg's Women Considered", and "The Whore of Mensa" (pages 24-41). As you read identify comic elements in the stories. See post above for more details and notes. (see post below)

Fiction Workshop & Revision

Please get into the following workshop groups today and workshop your fiction pieces. Please note that you are part of a class and should be able to work with all members of your class. It's good practice for real-life, where you may have to work with people you don't know well. i.e., no complaining! Keep an open-mind. Help each other!

Group 1: Frances, Isaiah, Damarys, Kayli
Group 2: Gena, Khamphasong, Diamond, Ben
Group 3: Nicole, Branden, Alexis, Carly
Group 4: Ethan, Thiery, Imani M., Shayozinique
Group 5: Imani G., Grace, Jahni, Nathan

For credit, you will need to fill out a response sheet for each piece of writing that you conduct a workshop for.

In your comments, please try to be as specific as possible. It can be very helpful to a writer to have specific advice and/or commentary from another reader. Vague responses are often misunderstood and not worth the time it took to write the comment. Check this handy rubric if you have questions:

5: Excellent comments: Comments are helpful specific, insightful, accurately pointing to errors or weaknesses in the peer's writing. Peer reviewer has spent an excellent amount of time and energy in helping his/her peer. Offers comments and questions that make the writer think.

4: Good comments: Comments are mostly helpful, specific, and somewhat insightful, but the peer reviewer may have missed commenting on something minor. Peer reviewer has spent an appropriate amount of time and energy in helping his/her peer. Offers comments and questions that are appropriate.

3: Fair: Comments are somewhat helpful, somewhat specific (some comments are more specific than others), accurate, but may not be insightful. Peer reviewer has spent limited time and effort in helping his/her peer. Does not offer comments or questions that help or assist in pin-pointing specific problems in the peer's work.

2: Poor: Comments are general, non-specific, inaccurate or vague. Comments are not really helpful in improving a writers' work. Peer reviewer spends little time and little effort in helping his/her peer. Does not offer comments or questions.

1: Abysmal: Peer reviewer did not comment at all; may have been a distraction during the workshop, and was, otherwise, unhelpful or uncooperative in the workshop setting.

After conducting your workshop, please use the time in the lab to revise, restructure, and rewrite (craft) your fiction. A fiction portfolio will be required for all students. Due Thursday, May 2.

HOMEWORK: None.

Endings

As you revise and prepare your portfolio, consider how you ended your stories. If you are unsatisfied with your endings, look below for some advice regarding new endings:

Endings can be:

Circular: The beginning and the end reflect upon one another, often using the same situation, setting, characterization, or even repeating the same line or idea presented in the opening. This provides a sense of parallelism in your story structure. It is best used when suggesting that the past and future of a character/story is similar.

Matching vs. Nonmatching: similar to a circular ending, the first image is transformed, and is repeated at the end. This is most like the pattern in music: theme and variation. The first image of the story foreshadows or suggests the last image. Sometimes this is obvious, othertimes the image is subtle.

Surprise ending: Often an ironic ending, or an ending that surprises the reader. The American writer O.Henry was a master of this kind of ending. It is often found in horror/suspense or mystery fiction. The "surprise" needs to be planned by the writer, who should include details that prepare the reader for the surprise, instead of "shocking" the reader, who usually resents this strategy.

Summary ending: A summary of the outcome of the story – this kind of story wraps the plot up very tightly, suggesting the future for the characters. No loose ends. This sort of ending has fallen out of favor lately, so use it at your own peril.

Open ending: used largely in contemporary fiction, the story doesn’t end nice and neatly (like the summary ending). Instead, it leaves an important question posed to the reader, so that the reader must interpret the ending. Caution: this can sometimes confuse a reader. It is best used for subtle effect.

Ending with an image/idea: ending a story with an important detailed image or idea that reflects the theme of the story can "stain" the idea or image in the mind of the reader.

Hemingway Quiz; Bradbury Project & Preparing a Fiction Workshop

After our quiz and essay on Hemingway and the short story collection: The Snows on Kilimanjaro, please complete your Bradbury project today in the lab.

• Rearrange the three stories in any way you deem necessary to create ONE longer story made up of the three shorter stories. 
• You want to consider the structure of your placement. In other words: what story should be read first, which story should be read second, and which story should conclude your interlocking story? Generally we want to end a story with a climax, or thinking about the theme, message, or point. It is often good to end a story with an important image--hey! Just like a poem! 
• Title your story. No story should be nameless...

See previous posts for further details.

If you finish early, please either read the article handout on endings, dramatic structure, and narrative authority, the blog post above on ENDINGS, or prepare one of your stories for next class' workshop.

What is possible to revise and revisit?

--Hint fiction drafts
--Micro fiction draft
--Sudden fiction draft
--Bradbury Project draft

LAB (AFTER THE TEST)/REVISION: Add a FLASHBACK or steam of consciousness scene or two to one of your already written drafts. This will essentially change the draft number and style of the work. That's okay. Add the details necessary to incorporate the technique.

HOMEWORK: Please read the article handout and the post above on ENDINGS. As you read, consider your own work and how you ended your stories. Are there other options you could have chosen? Which endings would you like to try?

Bradbury Project: Story #3

At this point, you should have two stories that have interlocking characters, settings, themes, or plot events.

Today, please start fresh with the same instruction as the second story. Change the dominant character, switch perspective to an incidental or minor character, allowing this character to become the protagonist, keep the same setting, but use the setting with a whole new group of characters or events, choose a similar plot event and repeat it with new characters, etc.

LAB: Write a draft of your third story. Use the time in the lab to write. Really. Write. Now. Go.

WHAT IF I'M DONE with my 3 interlocking stories (the Bradbury project)?

• Rearrange the three stories in any way you deem necessary to create ONE longer story made up of the three shorter stories. 
• You want to consider the structure of your placement. In other words: what story should be read first, which story should be read second, and which story should conclude your interlocking story? Generally we want to end a story with a climax, or thinking about the theme, message, or point. It is often good to end a story with an important image--hey! Just like a poem!

More information about endings will be presented to you next class. 

HOMEWORK: Please complete the collection "The Snows on Kilimanjaro" please read the stories: "A Way You'll Never Be", "Fifty Grand", and the "Short Life Happy Life of Francis Macomber." Again, as you read these stories, please connect them Hemingway's life, Hemingway's style of writing, and the use of stream of consciousness & flashback as narrative techniques. Try to notice these connections. They will be useful to you when you take your essay test, next class.

By the way, there will be a unit test on Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" next class. You should be familiar with the basic plots of each short story in the collection, as well as the major plot events, the settings, and themes of his work. In addition, you should be able to draw some connections between Hemingway's life and the short stories in the collection. Perhaps for an essay, hint, hint.

Hemingway & Bradbury Story Project

Today you will have 5 minutes to complete the Hemingway quiz. After our quiz, please complete the handout/graphic organizer provided to you. Consider how "Snows of Kilimanjaro" reflects what you have learned about Hemingway from your research. Find examples from the text.

After we have completed this assignment, please consider these key narrative concepts:

Stream of consciousness: a narrative device or technique a writer uses to develop character (characterization). The writer does this by presenting the THOUGHTS of a character as they would occur in the mind. It is similar to an internal monologue that a character has about his/her situation in the narrative of the story. The character is speaking to him/herself in stream of consciousness. This technique is unique to fiction or poetry. It is similar to the voice over (VO) in film or the soliloquy in plays. It is useful to:

• Provide characterization or develop character
• Explains the attitude or POV of the character's mind or thought process

Flashback: a narrative technique useful in plotting. Usually stories are written in chronological time (i.e., a story is told from the beginning to the end). A flashback, however, allows the writer to insert a scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point (present). Flashbacks are used to:

• Provide important background or story details
• Develop details about a character (characterization)
• It helps to develop setting
• It can be used to create suspense

Take 5-10 minutes today in class to work with a partner. Find an example of FLASHBACK in the story "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS in "A Clean Well Lighted Place." Record your names on an index card and identify the page # in which you found an example of flashback and stream of consciousness. Turn this in as credit today by the end of class.

Once you have completed the assignments above, please continue writing your Bradbury project. Continue and conclude your 2nd story of the Bradbury project draft (if you don't finish today, please complete the draft of your second story by Thursday).

HOMEWORK: Please read the stories: "The Gambler, The Nun, & the Radio", "In Another Country", and "The Killers" for Thursday. As you read these stories, please connect them to today's lesson, Hemingway's life, Hemingway's style of writing, and the use of stream of consciousness & flashback as narrative techniques.

Bradbury Short Story Project, Story Daft #2/Hemingway Research

You should have completed a draft of one story by this class. Today, please begin or continue writing your second of three interlocking stories.

Choose a character, setting, object, event, or theme from your first story (it should not be the protagonist of your first story) and write ANOTHER story connected in some way to the first.

For example: If my protagonist in the first story meets a minor character, my second story might make this minor character a major character in the second story.

or--If my setting occurs in the 1950's in an American city like Chicago, my second setting might be set in 2050 in the same city. I have changed the setting for the second story.

or--if I wrote about a young couple falling in love, I might write about their lives when they are in their 80's. I might also link the story thematically by writing about another couple falling in love in a different circumstance, etc.

During period 8, please return the Martian Chronicles to the library and pick up Snows of Kilamanjaro by Ernest Hemingway. Please take some time during 8th period to research and complete the notes on Hemingway.

Please consult this website and read about Hemingway. Watch the video (it's 4 minutes long), then read the article about Hemingway. Answer the questions on the handout. Turn in by the end of class today.

HOMEWORK: Please read the first three stories in the collection: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", "A Clean Well Lighted Place", and "A Day's Wait". As you read, consider how the stories reflect what you have learned about Hemingway from your research. We will take a quiz on these 3 stories and discuss the use of flashback, stream of consciousness, and POV next class.

Bradbury Story Project, Story #2

After the test, please complete your first story if you didn't complete it last class.

For those of you who have completed your first story draft, please do the following SECOND related story:

--Choose a character, setting, object, event, or theme from your first story (it should not be the protagonist of your first story) and write ANOTHER story connected in some way to the first.

For example: If my protagonist in the first story meets a minor character, my second story might make this minor character a major character in the second story.

or--If my setting occurs in the 1950's in an American city like Chicago, my second setting might be set in 2050 in the same city. I have changed the setting for the second story.

or--if I wrote about a young couple falling in love, I might write about their lives when they are in their 80's. I might also link the story thematically by writing about another couple falling in love in a different circumstance, etc.

HOMEWORK: By next class your FIRST story should be a completed draft. If you have not yet finished your first draft of your first story, please complete it for homework.

Martian Chronicles Project

The Martian Chronicles writing project will consist of 3 interlocking stories (similar in style to Bradbury's structure in his novel). This week, you will be asked to write 3 stories (completing them by Tuesday of next week). You will have time to write in the lab and can progress your stories and their length at home, if you need to. But first, some writing advice:

According to Ray Bradbury in his non-fiction writing guide: Zen in the Art of Writing, Bradbury mentions a technique he uses to come up with ideas. He says that he imagines a hallway with a door at the end. When he begins a story, he imagines himself walking down the hallway, turning the doorknob, and entering this "room" or "space" behind the door. Then he starts writing what comes to mind. Try this exercise as often as you need to complete your stories/poems/plays, etc.
Some good advice from Damon Knight (Science Fiction Author):

1. "You can't write about a general character in a general setting--[to keep a story going] you need a paricular person in a particular place, feeling a particular way, in a particular situation."

2. "Each time you answer a question [about character, setting, situation, feeling] you will be closer to finding out what happens in the story."

3. "Editors are often reluctant to publish any short story that ends with the death of a sympathetic viewpoint character."

4. "After writing a 1st draft, go back over your story and: criticize your own story. By asking questions [about craft] now, you will save yourself the embarrassment of having others ask them later."

5. Remember to draw on your own experiences if you need to, but also rely on research to flesh out an idea.

6. Constraints (like prompts) can help limit your imagination and give you a good place to start writing.

7. "In a story we expect a quality of completion, of roundedness, which sets it apart from a sketch, an incident, or an anecdote."

8. "There is an implied contract between the author and the reader that goes something like this: Give me your time and pay your money, and I'll let you experience what it's like to be...a trapper in the woods, an explorer in the Martian desert, a young woman in love with an older man, a dying cancer patient...etc. You must look hard at the offer you are making: would you accept it, if you were the reader?"

9. "A story has a shape; you can't see it all at once, but it's there. A good story has a pleasing shape, like a vase or a violin; a bad one has a meaningless, haphazard shape, like a pile of junk."

10. "Every story is a machine designed to evoke an organized series of responses in the reader. When the writer is clumsy, the mechanism shows. In a good story it is concealed and we are not aware of it, but it is there just the same, and every part of it has its function."

Use one of these techniques to write a short story draft.  

Story #1: Write a story of your choice of genre (Romance, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Mystery, Adventure, Western, Realism, Historical Fiction, Horror/Suspense, Literary, etc.) You should have a central character and write from this perspective, either in 1st person POV or 3rd person-limited (or over the shoulder) POV. Identify a setting and a problem (essentially a situation and a complication). You will be writing two stories that are eventually linked with this one, so keep that in the back of your mind. Instructions for the 2nd and 3rd stories will be forthcoming.  

HOMEWORK: Please complete The Martian Chronicles. There will be a test on this book Wednesday. Complete your first draft if you didn't finish in the lab today.