FICTION
#1. Point of View Samples
--extend and finish the scene, maintaining correct point of view and imitating author’s
style (complete physical and emotional arc)
--about ½ page for each of the excerpts from the following works of fiction:
--2nd person: Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City
--1st person: Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”
--3rd person omniscient (distant): Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing”
--3rd person focused/limited (close): John Updike’s “A Sense of Shelter”
#2. The Couple in the Airport. Writing Internal Monologue…
—See the “couple in the airport” photograph.
—Write a scene or short-short story with an emotional arc—i.e. some value change (the arc can
be subtle; it doesn’t have to be a dramatic change from, say, happy to sad or sad to happy; it could
be from concerned to peaceful or from content to anxious or from happy to deeply loving).
—Create a physical arc, by first establishing the setting (in the airport) of the narrator…and then,
in the end, giving him or her some subtle action (so that the arc goes from non-action to action;
the action, ideally, should somehow complement the emotional arc).
—Capture, and stick to, the POV of the man or the woman in the photograph (first-person POV,
in the present tense, then using the past tense for backstory).
—Use triggers (objects or images) from the photograph to prompt, or “trigger” backstory.
—The goal here, as writer, should be to craft the scene so that the following happens: the
narrator begins stationary, contemplative; the setting stimulates thoughts and memories that stir
emotion; finally the mood shifts and compels some significant action.
—1-2 pages
#3. Short-Short Story in 3rd-Person POV (or 1st)
--Use and underline/bold the following words:
India, dinner party, young girl, colonel, veranda, (the) American, (the) hostess, cobra,
milk, scream(s)
--Consider the “classic” story elements: protagonist/character(s), conflict…crisis/climax,
resolution…
--1- 2 pages
OR
… Short Short Story in 1st-Person POV (or 3rd)
--Use and underline/bold 10 of the 12 the following words:
island, deer, Huntsville, one hundred years, high school sweethearts, Pacific, bone,
steering wheel, ambulance, apostrophe, dark stone, ball
--Consider the “classic” story elements: protagonist (narrator), conflict…crisis/climax,
resolution…
--1- 2 pages
#4. 3rd-Person Focused/Limited/Close Point of View SCENE
--Name your character in the opening line, and bluntly state his/her desire—see
below (Have a little fun with the name—what would be the perfect name for this
character? Or the perfectly ironic name?)
--Give your character an unlikely desire, playing against cliché. For example,
it seems likely, or even cliché, that a teenage girl might want a prom dress; but
what if a fifty-year-old man wanted a prom dress? Immediately, one wonders
why. This premise could lead to an interesting scenario—possibly comic,
possibly complex and moving. A construction worker might likely want or need
a hammer; but what if he wanted a manicure? (See the example below.)
--Set, or get, your character in/to the mall, or some such physical space/place, where
he/she wants (to buy?) something…
--What’s at stake for your character? (Why does he/she want this thing? What does
he/she have to lose if he/she doesn’t get this thing?)
--Begin with a paragraph with its own physical and emotional arc
--After the opening paragraph, introduce a second character into the scene
--Continue and complete the scene, using dialogue
--1 ½ - 2 pages
Henry Farnsworth wanted a manicure and didn’t care if he blew his whole lunch break trying to get one. He
gazed up at the elaborate arch over Twelfth Street, mesmerized by the ornate gold dragons, and wondered where the
heck he was. He’d never been to Chinatown before, much less gone there seeking any kind of beauty treatment, but he
had a feeling this was where he’d get lucky. He felt like a fool, not to mention a monster, stomping down the sidewalk
in his work boots, all these little ladies buzzing by, not a lick of English in the air. First thing this morning Stacy from
the office had stopped by the site; Henry had planned on asking her out for coffee, until she spat some insult about one
of the other carpenter’s bleedy-looking fingernails and Henry stuffed his hands into his pockets, nearly dropping his
hammer. He was determined to clean himself up; that was the only way he had a shot at Stacy, whose nails flashed and
heels clicked as she skipped back to her Explorer and drove off. Now here was Henry, lost; he couldn’t make heads or
tails of the Chinese letters on the sign, but the woman in the doorway smiled and waved him forward. He climbed the
stoop and asked the lady where he could get a manicure. When he flashed his grubby fingers, she flinched. “Three fo’
lonch?” she said, and handed him a thick menu.
“Uh, nails?” He, again, showed her his fingers.
She looked him up and down. Henry looked down at his own disheveled appearance, his paint-splattered
jeans, his dusty shirt. He could read her mind: Nails, she was thinking—as in hammer and nails.
“Manicure?” he clarified.
“Ah, Wandanails,” she said. “I show…”
“Wanda Nails?”
“Yes, Wanda Nails,” she repeated herself. “My sissah.”
“Wanda Nails?”
“Yes!” She nodded vigorously and stepped past him, onto the stoop. She took his arm, beaming. “My
sissah!”
Henry looked across the street, following the woman’s proud gaze, and found a mirror image of this woman
beaming back at them, “WONDER NAILS” aglow on the brick face overhead.
“My sissah! Wanda Nails. She the best. Go.”
The woman nudged him. Henry handed her the menu still in his hand. When the woman’s sister waved him
over, it was as if Stacy herself were calling to him. Tomorrow he would dazzle her.
#5. Creating Empathy, Beyond the Headline: Writing a Short Story Opening, Inspired by
the News
Explanation/Goal: This exercise challenges you to think beyond “plot” and to create an
“empathetic character,” right from the start—beginning your story in medias res.
First, find a news story about a person who committed an act that got him or her into trouble; you
should find this person’s behavior to be offensive, even appalling. Now, in your mind, “turn back
the clock” to a time soon before the act that gave rise to the news story, and create an empathetic
portrayal of this character. That is, create a character in whom the reader recognizes a certain
shared humanity, a character the reader can understand—not necessarily a likeable character with
whom the reader merely sympathizes.
If the headline is, for example, “Woman Robs Bank, Kills Security Guard,” imagine this woman
an hour before the crime, in a specific setting, already in the midst of personal conflict—that is, in
medias res, which in Latin means “in the middle of things.” Perhaps she sits in her car that won’t
start, outside the apartment from which she has been evicted; sobbing, she calls her mother, who
tells her she is a failure; in her purse is the gun she threatened to use last night, before her
husband drove off, promising never to return. In a flash, she dreams of California, and a new life;
her car starts—a stroke of luck—and, as she drives into town to withdraw her life savings from
the bank, her hope turns to despair as it occurs to her that her heartless husband has no doubt
already emptied their shared account…
Distance yourself from the details of the original news story, first by inventing a fictional name
for your character; also, write in the past tense, and from the third-person point of view. Write a
single scene that builds up to, but does not include, the crucial act of the original news story;
instead, emphasize the inner life of this character you are essentially inventing, and write toward
a compelling “hook” that would launch the story into action.
Perhaps you’ll decide to continue to write the story, returning to, or deviating further, from the
premise that inspired your well imagined opening.
#6. The Story Machine—The Payoff Ending
--on 4 cards write vocational terms (dentist, etc.)
--on 4 cards write strange or unusual behavior [not too mundane (brushing teeth, etc.) or too
dramatic (strangling the dog) but in between, odd and interesting (setting free the parakeet;
picking loose the tennis racquet strings; sewing shut the sweater sleeves)].
--Partner up or form groups of 3 or 4; shuffle the vocation cards; shuffle the behavior cards; form
pairs, vocation with behavior; pick your favorite pair
--Write last scene of story (1-2 pages), answering the question [for example], “Why did the
dentist pick loose the tennis racquet strings?”
--3rd-person POV, past tense
--You must supply the motive, the setting, and resolved conflict (imagine prior scene that
provided the severity of the conflict; also, imagine scene that demonstrated the initial difficulty,
perhaps weaving in backstory…).
[ex. Brainstorm: Maybe he used to be a tennis star in college and, now, a young dentist, he
botched a job on a rich patient’s root canal and his dexterity has been questioned, even his
commitment to this profession, even his commitment to his home life—still playing in tennis
tournaments, on weekends and even weeknights, his boss reprimanding him, his wife missing
him—and so in the final scene he sits before the final set of the championship match and begins
picking the strings of his racquet, destroying it, his wife watching from the stands, this act a kind
of penance, a commitment to his adult life, a kind of retiring of his tennis career.]
[ex. SCENE: Dr. Stanley Berkowitz, dentist, ex-PIAA state tennis champion, toed the line, eyed
his opponent beyond the quivering net, and glanced suddenly at his wife, who offered an
encouraging smile. 40-LOVE, he thought. This is it. He was a man now, or it was time for him
to be—that’s what she’d said to him last night, and it stung him to the bone. But she was right:
tennis was a boy’s game, and it was time for him to focus. The truth, though he hadn’t mentioned
this to a soul—and perhaps he never would—was that he really had been trembling last
Wednesday afternoon, just as his boss, Dr. Miller, had accused him; Stanley had been tired from
the match the night before and his muscles had been literally knotting up—he couldn’t control the
tools of his trade, and he’d botched it. He’d gouged the patient’s nerve, damaged it permanently.
Stanley’s serve. Advantage Stanley. He tossed the ball over his head and let it fall back
into his hand. The crowd let out a collective gasp, of anticipation, and then a disappointed—
concerned?—sigh, as he walked to the bench. The line judge whispered, “Everything all right?”
Stanley gazed up. He must have appeared delirious, insane. The first knot was stubborn,
unforgiving, but the next one came easily, and each one after that came undone without effort.
The strings popped off the racquet with grace, and all at once he held the tangled mess in a fist,
like a ball of floss, like some kind of sad trophy, and held it up to show his wife, who was already
approaching, her eyes awash with confused but happy tears, Stanley could see.]
#7. Anne Tyler’s “Holding Things Together”
--Describe the arc of each of the 8 scenes
#8. Outline of your own realistic, modern-day story.
--consider sample outline of “Holding Things Together”
--use an ellipsis for each scene to indicate the “space” between the beginning and end of
scene
--Your complete story will be 6-10 pages (longer is okay), typed, double-spaced, in 12-pt.
Times New Roman font
Braintstorming & Story-Generating Exercises
#9. Intensify Conflict: Write five “What if…?” questions, considering how you might create
new, or alternate, plot twists in the story you’ve already outlined
--ex. What if, instead of the cars colliding and the woman dying at the climax, the cars
swerve and she lives, which would force the protagonist to deal with her being alive rather than
dead…?
#10. Show, Don’t Tell: (1) Fear, (2) Anger, (3) Pleasure/Love (Or: Tell, Then Show…)
--Write one paragraph for each emotion.
--Ex. of Show, Don’t Tell (Jillie loved ice cream.): Jillie thought the ice cream sundae
was beautiful just to look at, and she let it sit in front of her for a minute before starting to
eat… When she was nine her grandfather had taken her to a corner drugstore in his old
neighborhood and introduced her to an aproned old woman who made thick vanilla
cream in the kitchen behind the candy counter. Now, at seventeen, she held the spoon
over the parfait glass…
--Ex. of Tell, Then Show: What Alex feared more than anything was rats—specifically,
the sound of the rats in the alley outside his window. He lay in bed as they scratched and
screeched, nibbling and darting about in zigzags over the gravelly macadam…
#11. Scene (or section of your story) with dialogue—with Subtext (no “on-the-nose” dialogue)
--see scene six of “Holding Things…” for example (of Lucy and Joel talking in the car)
--in the beginning of the scene, the protagonist doesn’t want to talk about the topic at hand
--have your protagonist doing something indicative of his character—not overly expressive action,
but, instead, subtle behavior that “distracts” him/her from the conversation
--by end of scene/section, protagonist talks about the topic, if reluctantly, not explicitly
--keep the emotional level of the scene moderate—“cool,” not “heated”
--use correct dialogue format/punctuation (indent for “new” speaker, etc.)
--physical arc and emotional arc
#12. “On-the-nose” dialogue
--consider as a model scene #7 in “Holding Things Together” by Anne Tyler
--in this scene (or section of scene) develop write expressive “on-the-nose” dialogue
--consider writing a follow-up scene/section to #13, in which your protagonist resisted
the conversation (now, your protagonist explicitly speaks his or her mind)