Jump start : how to write from everyday life PDF
Preview Jump start : how to write from everyday life
JUMP START This page intentionally left blank JUMP START How to Write from Everyday Life ROBERT WOLF OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2001 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2001 by Robert Wolf Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording^ or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wolf, Robert, 1944- Jump start: how to write from everyday life / Robert Wolf, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-19-514043-5 (Pbk.); ISBN 0-19-514042-7 1. English language—Rhetoric—Problems, exercises, etc. 2. Creative writing- Problems, exercises, etc. 2. Creative writing—Problems, exercises, etc. I. Title. PE1413.W65 2001 808'.042-dc21 2001033132 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper CONTENTS Introduction vii CHAPTER ONE Preliminary Matters i CHAPTER TWO Strategies 7 CHAPTER THREE Observation 33 CHAPTER FOUR Genesis & Metamorphosis 63 CHAPTER FIVE Conversation & Dialogue 83 CHAPTER SIX Memoir Writing 113 CHAPTER SEVEN Group Activities 135 Bibliography 151 Credits 155 This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION Jump Start is meant to be used by individuals and groups, in col- lege classrooms, by the aspiring writer studying on his own, and by writing groups, whether teacherless or not. The exercises work best, however, when done with a group, for many rely on feedback and questions from others. Jump Start grew out of twenty years of teaching writing to people at all levels, from elementary school youngsters to college students to adults in community workshops. The foundation for the work grew by happenstance, when I began asking composi- tion students at Roosevelt University in Chicago to tell the sub- stance of their stories and essays to the class before writing them, to assure us that they had a strong theme with supporting details. One way for the class to discover potential strengths or weak- nesses of the idea and/or story was to ask the teller questions about them. When neither was strong, the student would pick another theme or story. This laid the basis for what has become an orally oriented method of writing instruction in which a telling, followed by class questions, always precedes writing. This classroom experience in the late 1970s and early 1980s was augmented simultaneously by my experience writing for Chicago theaters. The chapters on "Conversation and Dialogue" and "Group Activities" owe much to my collabora- viii JUMP START tive experiences with actors and directors. And much of the spirit of play that I hope infuses the book comes from this experience. Both the classroom and theater experiences in turn contributed to the adult writing workshop that I began running for homeless men and women in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1989. This, for me, was a turning point. The workshop began accidentally, in a shelter for homeless men, where I had been assigned by the Nashville Metro Board of Education to teach G.E.D. subjects to the shelter's residents. Since most of the men already had their G.E.D.s (some even had college degrees), I was told by my supervisor to improvise until the transient clientele changed. So I began talking with them in the common room, asking them how they became homeless, and soon I had them writing their stories. This was the commencement of the workshop, which soon expanded to include homeless women and, later, aspiring writers from the Nashville community at large. It was an exciting group. After four months of writing we held a public reading, and a month after that the Board of Education published an anthology of workshop writings. Eventually a friend and I decided to establish a nonprofit press whose purpose would be to publish writings of the home- less. Free River Press was incorporated, but it soon became clear that a publishing company that limited itself to homeless writings would not flourish. That, added to the fact that I had an insatiable desire to understand all aspects of American life, led me to expand Free River Press's mission to collect works from all regions of the country and by people from all walks of life. The goal, then, was to develop and publish America's collective autobiography, written primarily by people without literary ambition. Thus, when I moved to Iowa in 1991 I began working with farmers, and by the time the first farm book was published, it Introduction j x appeared in tandem with Free River Press's sixth volume by a homeless writer. Two more farm books followed, then volumes by small town residents. Along the way the press published a vol- ume of fairy tales written by Iowa grade school youngsters, a memoir by a west Tennessee farmer, and a history of Chicago jazz. By that time Oxford University Press had expressed an interest in publishing an anthology of Free River Press writings, and in 1999 An American Mosaic appeared, with selections from writings by the homeless, by Midwest farmers and small town residents, and by people in the Mississippi Delta. The majority of writing samples in this book come from peo- ple who participated in Free River Press writing workshops in various parts of the country. Only two samples did not—Rod Haynes's and Jack Hudson's pieces—and they were done long distance via mail and e-mail. All the samples make clear that people without specialized training in composition, relying upon the innate wisdom of storytelling that we all have, and working in a group, can produce good and meaningful work. Jump Start is an introduction to a variety of forms. It begins with suggested exercises—the strategies in chapter two—to get the beginner writing. After that the exercises are focused prima- rily on observing the life around you: eavesdropping on conver- sations, listening for patterns of speech, taking notes on behav- ior and environment, and using these as the raw material for stories, one-act plays, essays, and novellas. Through these series of exercises in observation, the student is guided towards real- ism. This is obviously not the only route the beginner can take, but it is the easiest. The inspired student who is impelled to write eventually may explore fantasy and horror, surrealism and postmodernism. She may even explore an iconographic style that is the antithesis of detailed realism. But the method I am presenting will at least provide a solid foundation for other explorations.
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