JULY Class Bulletin from the Grotto
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Lindsey Crittenden
Jul 21, 2015, 3:26:51 PM7/21/15
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Class BulletinWelcome to our monthly e-newsletter including tips about writing, our favorite books about writing, what we're reading now, and the latest news about our classes.
Summer session in full swing! Sign up now to benefit from terrific new workshops, intensives, and courses in fiction, personal essay, screenwriting, imagery, how to publish nonfiction, and more. Classes meet multi-weekly and in one-day and weekend intensives, and all are taught by writers published in the genre they’re teaching. Scroll down to Note Four or go to http://www.sfgrotto.org/classes/upcoming-classes.
Note One: Writing Tips from Our Teachers
From Joshua Mohr (Plaracterization: Marry Plot and Character, Saturday, July 25):
My just released novel "All This Life" taught me a new revision technique: focusing only on one craft element per draft. I’m not smart enough to fix 187 problems at once, but I can wrap my limited faculties around solving one narrative dilemma at a time. One draft, I’d only concern myself with POV. Another: psychology from my primary players. Maybe draft 6, a plot draft. This helped me manage my expectations and keep my morale up during a multi-year revision process.
Revising a novel is like living in an MC Escher painting. We walk down a staircase, only to end up at the top again. One door leads to another, leads you back to where you started. It can be so frustrating that a lot of people abandon their books, and I hope this trick helps you remain a non-abandoner. I, for one, can’t wait to read your novel.
Note Two: Our Latest Favorite Book on Writing
From Lindsey Crittenden (Stealing from the Masters: Using Existing Models to Craft Your Short Fiction, Sat/Sun Aug 8 & 9; and Craft of Fiction and Memoir: An Imagery Intensive, Sat., Aug 22):
“Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned. All I know about grammar is its infinite power. To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed. Many people know about camera angles now, but not so many know about sentences.”
Joan Didion wrote the above words in her essay “Why I Write.” Maybe you, too, were absent the year the rules were handed out. Maybe you’ve got a tin ear for dangling modifiers and comma splices, or pitch as perfect as Didion’s. Either way, her words are wise ones. Grammar isn’t a fussy nit-picker’s way to deaden creativity; it’s a tool of discovery and accuracy. It lets your words do all they want to do. As a teacher and a writer, I keep on my shelf several helpful guides on grammar and style, and I insist that my students find at least one that works for them. One might be especially clear on punctuation, another disarmingly enchanting on the foibles of the language. And a third, just plain informative. Here are three top picks:
SIN AND SYNTAX by Constance Hale
WOE IS I by Patricia T. O’Conner
CLEAN, WELL-LIGHTED SENTENCES by Janis Bell
And, with fascinating insight on her work as New Yorker copyeditor (including tidbits on grammar choices made by such supreme craftsmen as James Salter and John Updike), Mary Norris’s BETWEEN YOU AND ME: CONFESSIONS OF A COMMA QUEEN.
No, we won’t diagram sentences in my upcoming August classes, but we will explore what Didion calls the “infinite power” of how you arrange your words — to define character, reveal point of view, create tension, and more.
Note Three: What We’re Reading Now
From Jessica Pishko (Writing the Personal Essay, Sat., Aug. 1; and Writing for Social Change, starting Tues., Aug 4):
Because I write both fiction and nonfiction, I try to keep my reading diverse as well, diving equally into well-reported books as well as great fiction. A great reported book that I dove into was John Krakauer’s Missoula. He presents a well-rounded picture of a town torn apart that really reflects the way these women who have been violated feel – confused, betrayed and caught in a political net.
Another book that straddles the line between fact and fiction is Heidi Julavits’s The Folded Clock. (For full disclosure, I should add that Julavits was my teacher.) There’s something about this book that captures that brilliant fine line between what’s simply an accounting of events and what’s elevated art. It also raises modern ideas about being a woman and mother without being explicitly a book about mothering. And, if you are looking for a good novel about being a mother, I highly recommend Elisa Albert’s After Birth. Just read it; trust me.
Note Four: Upcoming Classes
Classes are listed in chronological order, by date of first session, for the next six weeks. For full descriptions and to enroll, click on each class or go to http://www.sfgrotto.org/classes/upcoming-classes for the complete catalog.
What would you like us to include in the Grotto Class Bulletin? What classes would you like to see offered at the Grotto? What books about writing have been particularly useful for you? Send your thoughts/comments/kudos & complaints to Lindsey Crittenden at lindseyec...@gmail.com
Note Six: Subscribing & unsubscribing
And of course, if you'd like to opt out of the Grotto Class Bulletin, you can always do so at http://groups.google.com/group/grotto-class-notes, just click on Edit my membership, and then Unsubscribe.
Thanks for reading!
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