Another smorgasbord. Choose, adapt, get inspired and create your own activities.

 

• Richard Currey: Ordinary people are the heroes. At the top of Richard Currey’s home page, there is a quote from him that says: “Ordinary people are the heroes in stories and in life. Everybody struggles to live their life. They try to put the pieces together, try to make it work.  And I think that, in ordinariness is often seated a great deal of dignity.”  Listen to him read that quote.

  • Activity 1: Write a first-person composition that starts and ends with comments on Richard Currey’s quote and, in the middle, introduces us to at least two ordinary people you feel are heroes, who faced problems with dignity. Use “Word movie” techniques to paint a brief glimpse of that person. For example, “Every day, I was glad to see the school bus coming because I knew Mr. Boone would give me a big smile and tell me how glad he was that I was on his bus…” Go on to tell about Mr. Boone, why he is “ordinary.”  Another example: “In 2005, I fell down in the street just as the light was changing, and a skinny little elderly woman stood in front of me, facing the cars while …”  Go on to tell about that woman. Refer back to Currey’s quote at the end.

  • Activity 2: Choose another quote from another writer and use it to develop your own writing challenge.

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• Mary Lee Settle: Researching historical fiction

  • Any student interested in writing about history – or setting fiction in history – will probably want to listen the Mary Lee Settle program. She talks a lot about her historical research, which included getting in a bear pit and examining scalps of early American settlers in the British Museum.

    • Activity: Listen to the Mary Lee Settle program. Then write. What did you take away from hearing Mary Lee talk about research? Did she say things that help you get ready for writing about history? You may never have a reason to feel a bear, but how does her example apply to you?

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• See other activities related to historical writing on the WV History page.

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• Irene McKinney: Symbolism:  “Deep Mining,” Irene McKinney (Tracks 6-9). In these tracks, Irene reads her poem “Deep Mining,” then discusses the layers of symbolism in her poem about coal mining, looking at the people on the surface and underground. She discusses the symbolism, then reads it again. These tracks are an excellent way to lead students into an understanding of symbolism in writing.

  • Activity 1: Irene says there are at least three layers of symbolism in her poem. What do you think they are?  Use details from the poem to support your view.

  • Activity 2: Think of a place or activity you know, indoors or out. Now think of that place or activity as a symbol of something deeper. Write a story poem that includes actual detail and detail that makes the symbolism clear.

 

• Irene McKinney: One great poem / two great activities: Irene McKinney’s discussion of her poem, “Stained,” (Tracks 10 – 11) gives us valuable insights and tools:

  • Activity 1: The writer’s image. Irene says “I no longer care to come out wonderful in a poem, come out smelling like a rose.” What does she mean? She’s talking about the way she wants readers to see her and her own willingness to write about her imperfections. How important is that to a writer? How might it limit a writer to want to smell like a rose? If Irene wanted to “come out smelling like a rose,” how might her poem, “Stained,” be different?  Mix her quotes with your own thoughts. Use first person if you like. 

  • Activity 2: Concrete details and abstractions. Irene says that “If you name three real things, you may have earned the right to use an abstraction.”  That statement is like a Nashville songwriting rule of thumb: “Give your ideas furniture to sit on.”  Read Tracks 10 – 11 until you think you know what Irene means, in the context of her poem, “Stained.” Then write a scene that has a lot of emotion beneath the surface, conveyed by concrete objects, expressed only once.

    • A tip: Picture concrete objects that mean something to you, that you could put in your scene. That line of thought can lead to the start of a story. Another tip: Think of concrete objects that mean nothing to you or frighten you. That line of thinking can start a story too.

 

• Plotting a children’s book: Cynthia Rylant / Marc Harshman. Because they are short and relatively simple, children’s books can offer a way to practice shaping a plot that keeps the reader turning pages.

  • The three-part bell-shaped plot. Cynthia Rylant’s The Relatives Came (Track 4) provides a great example of a bell-shaped curve for a three part plot: Part 1: The Virginia family drives to see their West Virginia relatives; Part 2: They do many things while they are there, then (Part 3), they drive back to Virginia. 

  • Another example: Marc Harshman’s A Little Excitement (Tracks 5 -7) moves along with three parts: (1) the calm period before the excitement; (2) the excitement (a chimney fire, neighbors helping); and (3) the relief of disaster averted, lessons learned.

    • Activity: Read/listen to passages relating to The Relatives Came and A Little Excitement. Sketch out a story that follows the basic bell-shaped plot pattern: three sections, the longest in the middle. Your assignment: Write the first part of the story, setting up the second part. Turn it in along with your 3-part sketch for your story.

 

• Maggie Anderson. Painting a picture in words. Maggie Anderson had a unique, loving relationship with her Aunt Nida. She tells about it in Track 10 of her program. Her poem, “Sonnet for her Labor” paints a picture of Nida in a situation that told us a lot about Nida's life, without editorializing. Maggie doesn’t really say what she thinks till the last line.

  • Activity 1: Write a prose poem (or a structured poem) that does the same thing. Choose a person people in the class will not know. Model your poem on Maggie’s poem. Show us that person in a situation when other people are present. Let us know what you think in the last line.

  • Activity 2: Ask an older person you know to tell you a story from their childhood.  Take good notes on the story. Then write it as if it was a children's book, a few sentences on each page. You can change a few details if you need to and if you change the name of the character. Draw a picture(s) to go with it.

    • Group discussion to get ready: What questions would it be good to ask somebody when you ask about their childhood? What questions might get them remembering stories?

  • Group practice to get ready: If the teacher has a story to tell, ask students to take notes as it is told. Show them how they can write just a few words to remind them of a part of the story

 

• Jayne Anne Phillips. “What is home?”  In Machine Dreams, Jayne Anne Phillips gives us a compelling scene between a daughter and her invalid father, in which the father asks the question: What is home?  (Track 19)

  • Activity 1: Students read the passage, then write a third-person paper that examines the question and both answers: the father’s and the daughter’s. Write what the father and daughter said, then summarize the case for both points of view, with a detached narrator.

  • Activity 2: Now try to write the same paper in first person, including anything from your own life that might be relevant. Which person do you prefer? Why?

 

• Jayne Anne Phillips. Setting a fictional story during an event in local history: Jayne Anne Phillips learned that, in the 1800s, when the railroad company was laying tracks past Buckhannon, a Chinese worker developed leprosy and the railroad company confined him in an isolated area to die.  Jayne Anne brought that incident to life in her novel, Machine Dreams. She made up a woman who was hired to feed him and created a moving scene between the leper and that woman. (Tracks 4 – 6)

  • ​Activity 1: Write an essay about the scene with the leper and Jayne Anne’s comments about it. Tracks 4 – 6. 

  • Activity 2. Write a fictional follow-up that takes place after the scene in Track 6 ends. Give us glimpses of what the leper did that night and what the woman did. You can jump from one to the other with “hinge phrases” such as “at the same time” or “an hour earlier” (jumping in time) and “two miles away” (jumping in space). But they do not interact.

  • ​Activity 2: Find a piece of local WV history and write a scene set in that time and place. Locate old newspapers from any part of West Virginia. Look for a story that catches your attention. Make up two characters and put them in that situation. Write a scene that happens between them, using Jayne Anne’s passage for inspiration.

 

               For more exercises in historical fiction, see the West Virginia History page.

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• Pinckney Benedict: Writing emphathetically.  Reviews of Pinckney's work often focus on his use of violence, overt and implied.  Yet the main characters of "Odom" (Tracks 32 - 33) and "The Sutton Pie Safe (Tracks 10-14)"  are portrayed with great empathy.  He focuses with great insight on the emotions hopes and reactions of people who are fighting the odds. In this case, a man who dynamites stumps and a struggling farmer and his son confronted with a predatory, patronizing town woman.

  • Activity 1: Listen to Pinckney's entire program. ​Contrast the overt violence in Odom to the psychological violence of "The Sutton Pie Safe."  Provide examples of Benedict's ability to get inside his characters in both stories. 

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• Breece Pancake. Turning to the woods. Poet Irene McKinney said Breece Pancake’s characters always go to the woods to find comfort when things get rough, hunting, swimming, hiking.  She says that is typical of rural West Virginia people. She also fears that many people are getting disconnected from the land as they connect more with the Internet.

  • Activity 1: What do you think? A discussion: In your experience, do you think the Internet has lowered the number of people who find comfort in the woods?

  • Activity 2: Read Irene McKinney’s prose poem, 

 

• Rewriting / Revision. Breece Pancake’s students say he often told them to “Look upon your stories as a fine wine, one aged and well-made, not as a cup of instant coffee. Rewriting is the key to refined fiction.”  Marc Harshman compares rewriting to polishing stones till they shine. But students often hate to rewrite. “It ruins my spontaneity,” they say. Writing teachers may reply that that’s like saying “I want to win the Boston marathon, but don’t want to do daily runs.” Or "I want to play the guitar like Jimi Hendricks, but I don't want to learn any new chords." If you want the fine wine, they would say, rewriting is your daily run. 

• Activity: Make rewriting easier: Take Keith Maillard's advice: become an ear writer. Listen to the sound of your writing. That means reading it aloud.

  • ​ Find a piece of your writing that you know could be better. You’re going to rewrite it and make it better, but first, try this:

    • Think of a friend you like to talk with. When you and that person talk, you are articulate and funny, relaxed.

    • Imagine you are saying your piece to your friend, telling them a story, talking. Read it out loud, with one change: Put your friend’s first name at the beginning of each sentence.

    • Say that sentence out loud with your friend’s name first, as if you were saying it to that person. If it sounds weird or doesn’t come out easily, you probably need to rewrite it.

    • How? Ask yourself: How would I say this to (your friend’s name)? If you like the way your answer sounds, write it that way and tweak it. See if you like it better.

    • Do that with each sentence. Put your friend’s name first, then say it out loud. It will change the way you write. It forces you to hear what you wrote, not just see it: to be an ear writer as well as an eye writer.

  • Activity 3: Find a copy of Rocks in My Pocket, by Marc Harshman and Bonnie Collins, and read it. Explain how that story can be seen as an allegory for revision and rewriting - and a parallel to Breece Pancake's comments about fine wine and instant coffee.

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• Put yourself in the brain of somebody who differs from you.  Keith Maillard wrote Gloria from the perspective of a teenage girl growing into adulthood in Wheeling. See his Writer Home page for a sample and an activity.  This is a risky approach. How did he pull it off, with such detail? His wife and girls answered a lot of questions, for one thing. See Tracks 3-6 for a detailed description and a reading.

  • Activity: Do what Keith did. Try to write an ordinary scene from the perspective of somebody who is very different from you, in age, nationality, whatever.​

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• Varying sentence length to enhance action: Richard Currey knows how to use his sentence length to speed things up or slow things down in a story. The general rule of thumb is: Longer sentences slow the action down. Short sentences speed the action up: They say "Something is happening or is about to happen." If a short sentence follows longer sentences, it says, "Look at this. It's important." Below is a passage Richard Currey wrote (from Track 11). A striking coal miner beat up a mine guard, and he's sitting on his bed with a shotgun, waiting for them to come after him. ​

  • The passage: Upstairs I pulled off my boots and socks, loaded the gun with two shells full of number six buckshot and sat in my bedroom in the dark, shotgun in my lap, terrified of every little sound I heard. I had the time, sitting there, to think about my situation, to consider the plight of a man who dispatches his family to innocent country and sits afraid for his own life in his own home simply because he wants to trade his labor for a decent wage, and the Baldwin men stepped up on the front porch. Knocked politely at the front door. I kept my seat. I heard them speak to each other, quietly. Then one said my name, calling me Mister, still polite as Sunday morning. He tried the front door, rattled it gently against the latch, then walked sideways along the porch, a heavy pair of boots under the room I was sitting in.

  •  Activity:  Study the sentence length here. Richard is conscious of what he's doing.  The sentence length is longer while he's just sitting there. Look what happens after "the Baldwin men stepped up on the front porch."  Then write a 3-5 paragraph scene in which the level of action changes suddenly. Play with your sentence length, modeling on Currey.

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