I studied the violin for ten years. When I first picked it up, in the fourth grade, I immediately set to learning Dvorak’s New World Symphony, and could play the entire Bach canon by age 11. A year later, I got pulled out of my social studies class to fill in for the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Everyone was so excited about my amazing playing the town threw me a parade, and the governor declared my birthday a state holiday. And then I got a million dollars and a pony and only ate ice cream for the rest of my life.
Okay, obviously none of this is true. When I started playing the violin, I spent YEARS scratching out horrible renditions of “Hot Cross Buns” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” and it took me years of orchestra rehearsals and private lessons to attempt even a single Bach solo. Of course it did! It also took thousands of layup drills before I could actually land one in a real basketball game, and hours of banging up my mother’s bumper before I could manage a decent parallel parking job. So why do we expect to sit down and write the Great American Novel from page one?
Great writing takes practice, just like any other skill. Before you can write the Great American Novel, you have to write pages of nonsense and a few drafts so wretched and embarrassing you can only hope nobody stumbles across them accidentally. And just like any other discipline, your writing will benefit from classes, workshops, and practice practice practice.
So where do you start? If you dream of writing the Great American Novel, start with Fiction I. In just eight weeks, you’ll gain a strong foundation of storytelling craft, including character development, scene building, plot development, dialogue, and language, so that when you do sit down to start working on that short story or novel that’s been buzzing around your brain, you’ll have a much better chance of creating a draft worth keeping.
You want to write. You’ve never taken a writing class before, you haven’t written since the Clinton years, you’ve been writing in little journals since the seventh grade but you’ve never actually done anything with them. Everyone tells you that you should write a book about your life. You’ve never written a word but you’ve always wanted to. You can’t read a single magazine without throwing it to the ground in frustration, knowing you could write circles around the articles. You used to write all the time and now that the kids are out of the house, you want to get back into it. You’ve always wanted to write a novel.
If any (or all!) of the above apply to you, you’re in luck: we have exactly the class you need! Creative Writing I is designed to be an introduction to all kinds of writing, for all kinds of writers. Whether you’re looking to write fiction (short stories, novels) or creative non-fiction (personal essays, memoir, magazine), or if you’re not yet sure what you want to write, Creative Writing I provides a strong foundation of storytelling craft, including character development, scene building, plot development, and language.
This eight-session course is for writers of all levels, from beginners with little experience to published authors wishing to “go back to the basics” and solidify their storycraft. The focus is on building skills to tell a better story, as well as laying the groundwork for intermediate craft and workshop classes in both fiction and non-fiction.
For more information on Creative Writing I or any of our other course offerings, see our course webpage: www.storystudiochicago.com or give us a call at 773.477.7710.
With the film version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love coming out this summer, everyone’s talking about memoirs. Of course, I’m sure you could write a best-selling memoir if you had a whole year to do nothing but eat delicious food in Italy, meditate in a serene ashram in India, and hang out in a hammock in Bali… (not that I’m bitter!).
If your stories are closer to home, like the brilliant personal essays of Jo Ann Beard, then there are actually many publishing outlets and success of a different sort can be yours.
But how do you get there?
If you don’t have a year off to travel the world and write about it, have no fear; StoryStudio is here!! We have all kinds of ideas to help you tell your story… we even have a Writer’s Roadmap to help you find your way!
Writer’s Roadmap: Memoir & Personal Narrative
Start with Creative Writing I, which provides a strong foundation of storytelling craft, including character development, scene building, plot development, and language, and sets the groundwork for intermediate craft and workshop classes in both fiction and non-fiction.
From there, look to the Craft of Personal Narrative to delve more deeply into finding your writing voice and honing your craft skills. You can then move into the Intermediate Memoir Workshop or the Personal Essay Workshop (beginning in January).
Our advanced workshops are meant to be your long-term writing home, a place to polish your work and be a part of a supportive and knowledgeable network. We have the ongoing Advanced Memoir Workshop this fall and will launch the Advanced Personal Essay Workshop in 2011.
Along the way, if you’re looking to generate new material, there are the “WriteNow” classes, Just Get Me Started and Lifewriting to help you plumb the depths of your memory and find the stories you didn’t even know you had to tell.
Interested in writing fiction? Tune in next week, when we’ll map out paths to your novel, short story, and children’s literature destinations!
Yesterday I got a text from my friend Ben. “Now I know why writers live in cities,” he said. “Buses are full of characters.”
Ahhh, cityscape: buses, coffee lines, sports bars, public libraries, and outdoor concerts are chock full of round characters and curious actions. Lucky for me, I’ve mostly lived in and traveled to urban places. A nun riding a bicycle in NYC’s Central Park? A policeman chasing a hoodlum in the red light district of Sydney? A homeless person camped out with a hot blond under a lifeguard tower in LA? I’ve both seen it and ‘scened’ it: those images have catalyzed stories.
Ben’s text made me wonder. What would I write about without the urban inspiration of witnessing a near smackdown on the Broadway bus, or teaching an elderly woman how to text message in a Starbucks? Would wasps and mice carcasses turn into my loony tune characters, and pollination and decay into my action? Would I be a more attentive writer and a more patient person? Or would my prose grow flat and devoid of the zaniness I like to call my own?
Maybe I need to go on a camping writing retreat to find out. As long as there was a Park Ranger with a pet ferret to write about.
SSC congratulates our instructor Mary Hamilton on the publishing of her chapbook by Rose Metal Press!
As Rose Metal describes the work, ”WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE is a collection of 13 flash fictions in which worlds are made, torn apart, drowned. The stories go small: a girl ties a ribbon on a present. The stories go big: a war is raged against the evening sky. The characters in these short short fictions find themselves in less-than-desirable circumstances. They know their plights. They acknowledge their situations. They give in. They overcome. They daydream a world where everything will be all right.”
Mary will debut her work, which won the Fourth Annual Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook Contest, at a reading at Open Books this Wednesday at 7.
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