30 Scenes in 30 Days: A Writer’s Sketchbook
My first class for Writers.com begins on March 1
If you’re new here, read this quick primer on the Story Energies, a new way to talk about storytelling.
I have another post in gestation, about DNA being a story, and the liberal and conservative angels on the shoulders of each of your characters, but I’ve been busy this week (amongst other things) preparing my first class for Writers.com, which kicks off on Saturday.
It’s called 30 Scenes in 30 Days: A Writer’s Sketchbook, and here’s the pitch:
Imagine a great artist’s sketchbook, carried everywhere in an inside pocket, to open whenever a moment presents itself: on the train, while her baby is sleeping, when she rises early to sit at her desk with her morning coffee. Onto its pages she scribbles and shades an image that might become her masterpiece, or another she will soon forget about, or she makes nineteen attempts to get an ear just right. The sketches help her develop and perfect her craft, and they help her come up with new ideas for larger works, and they have a beauty and a value all of their own.
This course will guide you as you create your own 30-page sketchbook with words. Each morning, you’ll wake to a new prompt that will help inspire you to write a brief (100-300 word) scene, from either your life or your imagination. Each prompt will come with a note on craft you can try to implement in your sketch—a tool to add to your kit—along with a note on process to help keep you motivated. And each sketch can act as a starting point for a new longer work, it can be incorporated into one of your ongoing works-in-progress, or it can be appreciated as a work-of-art in itself, or a mistake to be learned from.
For inspiration, we’ll start with the senses, work our way through people and places, literature and art, before we start delving into your personal history, and the recesses of your preoccupations. You can share your creations with your classmates, or keep them private, and you’ll have the option of reading and commenting on your classmates’ sketches. Each week your instructor will offer gentle, generative feedback on one of your submissions, and by month’s end, you’ll have thirty new creations to be developed, revised, or left just as they are. And you’ll have had a lot of fun.
As an advertisement for the course, or a freebie for you Substack subscribers, see below for the first of these prompts, along with its corresponding notes on craft and process. It is of course just the beginning of a month-long writing-fest, but if you’re interested give it a shot, or sign up for the class here. I’m really looking forward to this one.
THE PROMPT
Let’s begin with a straightforward one:
Write what you see.
Maybe you’re sitting at your desk in your office, or your favourite living room chair. Maybe you’ve gone out with a notebook to your favourite park, or the mall. Maybe you’re in the mind of a character in the sci-fi universe you’re creating, gazing out at an unusual sky. Maybe you’re looking at a person you’ve just fallen in love with, or maybe you’re changing your baby’s diaper.
Whatever it is you are looking at, in your own life or a fictional realm, describe it in clear, specific, concrete detail. Don’t get carried away with metaphors or other figurative language, and leave the other senses (sound, touch, etc.) for later. Just write what you see.
NOTE ON CRAFT
Remember, when you’re looking, to look closely. Think of yourself as one of those classic detectives, like Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple, who is always on the lookout for the unusual or out-of-place details that might turn out to be a key part of the final story. The spot where the dust has been wiped clean, the smudge of a thumbprint, the missing button.
As writers, we should always be paying attention. And when we write a scene, we can bring it to life by including details that we come up with by looking closely with our mind’s eye at the scene we are observing or remembering or imagining.
We can direct our reader’s attention, and also improve the quality or perceptiveness of their gaze, with the details we offer them.
NOTE ON PROCESS:
This is the first of your thirty scenes you’ll write this month, and even though the job at hand is to focus on specific details, I would yet advise you to not get hung up on them. Don’t spend too long looking for the choicest characteristic or the perfect particular. Just write, and try not to let your inner editor or critic slow you down. Whether you’re writing from memory or using your imagination, try to lose yourself in the flow of your words. If you can guide your half-unconscious gaze to look closely into a darkened corner and come up with something fresh and inventive, that’s fantastic. If you find your first attempt still lacks that special sparkle, don’t worry—we’re just getting warmed up!
Again, here’s the link to sign up for this course on Writers.com.
If you’re looking for something more workshop-based, enrolment is also open for my upcoming 8-week Short Story Workshop at GrubStreet—this one’s online via Zoom, on Thursday evenings at 6pm Eastern, and it starts on March 6.