Metaphor by Metaphor

Fish and sentences

sdgibson — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:43:58 +0000

Let’s look at a few pages from Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence.

Outrunning the Critic

sdgibson — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:49:27 +0000

From The 3AM Epiphany by Brian Kiteley, this exercise is called “Outrunning the Critic.” I’ve summarized it here:

Write one hundred short sentences about a character in a piece of your fiction.
Don’t lift your fingers from your keyboard for all one hundred sentences (then go back and revise tomorrow).
The sentences should not connect, nor need they follow one another logically.
Be careful not to use the name of your character or a pronoun to start each sentence; the key to this exercise is to relax and let your mind find new material and detail.

Global revision

sdgibson — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:35:10 +0000

This is an example of global revision as the result of adding material.

Characterization and global revision

sdgibson — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:29:57 +0000

From Brian Kiteley’s excellent book The 3A.M. Epiphany, you’ll find this exercise useful.

Reflecting on your writing

sdgibson — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:38:07 +0000

Contrast the research you did while working on the last two essay assignments. How did differences in the assignments change the way you worked on each of them? Which was more difficult? Why? Which of the classroom activities gave you the greatest understanding of the assignment? Was the textbook more or less useful in understanding the assignment than our discussions in class? Why?

Examples of prose poems

sdgibson — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:19:45 +0000

From Great American Prose Poems, an anthology edited by David Lehman, here are some samples.

Example villanelles and sonnets

sdgibson — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:07:17 +0000

See this PDF for interesting examples of villanelles. Here are some sonnets.

English 2250 workshopping

sdgibson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:23:55 +0000

This PDF contains the first set of poems we’ll workshop this semester. They’re in the order I received them. This is the second set of poems. Here is the third.

English 4420 and characterization

sdgibson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:15:26 +0000

Address these questions:

How do your characters act in the face of opposition/desires that contrast with their own? Do they plan, try to persuade, take physical action, for example?
Describe three events that your central character remembers and that influence his or her current actions.
Who has power (physical, emotional, etc.) over whom and why? What’s the source of the power? How is it being used? Which actions express that power? Which actions lead to shifts in that power?
What actions by which characters show relationships at risk rather than overt/obvious conflict?
List scenes you currently feel you’ll need to write. Which actions should you summarize?

Continuing toward characterization

sdgibson — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:18:13 +0000

I found this exercise useful when trying to create characters. From Alice LaPlante’s Method and Madness, here is the PDF.