) It was re-written slightly for the portfolio (having been castigated for use of archaisms and tonality), but basically I gave up on trying to make anything worthwhile out of it.
The first week was a "get to know each other" session, leading into the overcoming of social taboos with a paired exercise on who could write the most obscene limerick (if I ever find it, I'll get it up. Ooer, missus. Etc.)
The first section of the course was mainly poetry, to attempt to instill a knowing and controlled use of language. Previous to this...well, I hated most poetry, and my first submission is redolent of all of the things I hate about it. The brief was, having listened to a piece of music called Lento (often described as 'monolithic'), write a similarly repetitious piece. Had lots of nice vocab scribbled down in preparation, none of which lent itself to any form of poem...wrote it, read it to my ex-girlfriend, and she laughed (no, that isn't the reason for the ex- thing! ) It was re-written slightly for the portfolio (having been castigated for use of archaisms and tonality), but basically I gave up on trying to make anything worthwhile out of it.
Sonnets, on the other hand, are supposedly a difficult and constrictive form to work with. Not really (in my opinion) — just get some graph paper or make a 14 x 10 table in a word processor, print it out and fit your syllables into this. Eventually you'll find that the line length is fairly automatic. I still quite like the sonnet I submitted, as it (apparently) combines elements of multiple traditional sonnet rhyme schemes, splitting thoughts over line endings in a slightly confused manner. Perfect for the subject matter. Phew.
The first prose exercise was equally enjoyable. We were given the first chapter of a serial novel by Jackie Collins, went through it looking at the redundancy and cliches present in the narrative, and our task was to use those elements to parody the pulp novel form; this draws awareness to poor writing technique, and makes inconsistencies more glaringly obvious when you come to write your own work.
Next up were songs. Not modern ones exactly (the examples we were given mostly dated back several centuries), but since I tend to slip archaic language into sentences ('ye cannae be serious', etc) I wanted to drag my thoughts forward in time and, well, they settled at around 1970. There's still a fair amount of word contractions, but I think this enhances rather than detracts from the subjec' ma'er.
Free verse...again, we were warned that it can be difficult to control without a formal rhyming scheme, but I didn't find this. Having read both Auden and a bit of Larkin recently, the weighty diction was already foremost in my mind, and I would agree that free verse certainly lends itself to communication of anger. This piece was also scrawled the night before the seminar, which I feel helped me focus greatly...
The second portfolio section opened with ballads. Oh dear. Ballads, to my mind, are either old and established, or modern, humorous and stuck in my head without any hope of removal...thus, another piece of writing about the process of writing. Damn.
The short tale? Again, I fear I wasn't entirely compliant with the task as originally framed. This underwent significant unchecked rewriting before inclusion, going from a fairly shapeless metaphysical monologue to a no-less metaphysical monologue with stronger characterisation. It isn't really orally-transmittable, for which I hope I don't have to apologise too strongly — the voice is stronger on the page than spoken aloud.
Character sketching...and yet another f#ck-up. Initially I wrote the character sheet as presented at the end of the portfolio...because this is how I would actually plan a character for a novel: Get the salient and interesting facts down on paper with a few snippets of in-character dialogue, and append any alterations due to plot at a later date. This is the 'role-playing' approach to characterisation. However, it wasn't precisely the aim of the exercise, so, using that prepared information, I laid out a snippet of a first chapter...the results of which I'm very happy with. Maybe I'll write more in the future.
Description and defamiliarisation? Ah, finally on home territory, where a decent vocabulary and having read lots of modern novels is actually more help than hinderance. Again, I find writing 'in-character' the easiest method, and highlighting the unreliability of narration within fiction is something which interests me as much as dialectic inflection. It was...fun. [/Shatner]
Character and plot development through dialogue was next...cue more pillaging of my cultural memories, and more packing of references into the text for those with the background knowledge to pick up on and hopefully appreciate. Also fun.
My apologies for having turned this into more of a diary than an explanation, but seriously...give it go! Moving from poetry to prose has the aforementioned benefits of making you more aware of the flow of language and practising the ability to write in a variety of formal styles. Looking at bad writing and observing the things which jar your appreciation of the the text will lead you to avoid such irritations. Then, 'tis simply a case of practising, as there is no substitute for writing. Set yourself deadlines and write frequently if possible, even if only letters or e-mails. Good habits and convenient dictionary/thesaurus software are perhaps the best productivity tools...which is not to suggest that a wordlist is a substitute for reading around and seeing words used in context. I rarely need to check a thesaurus, but I do enjoy adding to my understanding of things half-remembered and having it a couple of seconds away without needing to pull a large book off a shelf is great.
Another word about writing technique: It was suggested to me at the start of this course that I should give priority to writing rather than typing directly into a word-processor. Well, I partially agree. Scribbling a few lines and a structure onto paper is much preferable to staring at a flashing cursor. However, as soon as I have something to type up, I'll do so and expand from there. Something I would suggest, however, is keeping as many saved versions of material as you can keep track off — or make prolific use of the 'strike-out' text style (available in most word processing software) to represent excisions. Paper is definitely better for preserving previous versions, unless you get into the practise of using incremental filenames...however, I find 'tis rubbish for editing (or reference when writing), and this is where the computer comes in.