Lit Lessons on Flight School

A Behind the Scenes post that is also a scene-by-example, an invitation to be part of an international workshop, and the continuation of our Exclusive Writing Lab on writing scene

Welcome into Flight School:

We have a live thread for paid subscribers coming this week. More on that in a moment. For now, a scene in about 550 words. Your task is simple: Can you spot the integration of the ingredients in the scene recipe card and tick them off?

What to Give the Girl Who has Everything?

The screen of my cell is dusted with a smattering of rice flour and via a set of headphones, I listen to my daughter talk about her critique. She’s in her final year at a high end, boutique art program in Chicago that draws students from around the world.

“The feedback was good,” she says on the line, her twenty-one-year old voice holding both the little girl she used to be and the woman she’s becoming. High notes mixed with lower tones. “But there’s always that random person...”

I chuckle to myself. That random person.

Before me, the countertop is strewn with bags of potato, tapioca, and cassava starches, bins of millet, brown rice, sorghum, and oat flours, a tin of psyllium husk (not powder, mind you…husk), a scale, measuring cups (glass and metal), salt, baking soda and powder, and last, the all important gluten free sour dough starter.

“So?” I ask, measuring out the starches first. “What exactly did Random say?”

“I don’t even know. It doesn’t matter,” she says. “It was just so off point…anyway…whatever.”

“The teacher?” I ask, measuring the flour next. “What did she say?”

“She’s great. She talked about the progression of the series and my areas of growth...”

“There you go,” I say, weighing out psyllium and adding water. “She’s the one you’re there for anyway.”

“True,” Jo says but there’s a flatness to her voice reflective of mood. That’s how it goes when you’re in your twenties. High. Low. High again. Like the weather, just wait an hour and everything will change. Today, I’ll be changing her mood dramatically sooner than that.

Rather than drop my bomb, I dust flour away from the phone’s screen and study the tapestry under evaluation. It’s nothing short of brilliant (to me) and more so because I know she dyed the warp (or is it the weave?) hung it to dry, winded it in a very particular way, then threaded it on a huge loom where she hunkered over and had to shuttle back and forth for hours upon hours to create the cloth. Back breaking work. And rather humble compared to the more celebrated painters and potters and drawers of her world. Perhaps that’s what brings her down, this quiet calling she’s decided to devote her life to…weaving.

“Well,” I say, tone casual. Calm. “I’ve been thinking about graduation.”

“Yeah?” she says, still distracted.

“And…” I continue, whisking the sour dough starter into the psyllium gel, the brownish goop turning a creamy white. “I’ve been wondering what exactly do you give the girl who has everything?”

She laughs on the line, the lightest sound. Too far away.

“So…” I say, dumping all the flour and starches into the mixing bowl with a soft thud, “what do you think…about Paris?”

Fine dust rises and hovers before me and for a long moment, it’s so quiet on the line, I think maybe we’ve been disconnected.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” she finally says, voice all little girl again and full of that boundless joy. “Are you kidding? No way!”

I laugh and laugh and she does, too, the energy back in her voice. Her critique is so yesterday and it’s about this now.

“Paris,” we both say, making our plans while I mix and shape my bread and toss it into a basket to rise. “We’re going to Paris!”

Your invitation to an international workshop in June

Thanks to reader support, Flight School has been elevated to the sight line of The Paris Writer’s Workshop. I’ve been locked in to teach a five-day class on creative non-fiction and will focus on what I call “The Third Pillar” or the “wisdom” part of your essay or memoir too often buried. It’s not what happened, but what you make of what happened, that matters most but how to suss it out? That’s our work.

I hope you’ll consider joining the workshop that features Lan Samantha Chang for fiction, Don George for travel writing, Diane Lake for screenwriting, Heather Hartley for poetry, and Kevin Brockmeier for speculative fiction. Plus agent consultations.

Registration: Early Bird—975€ till March 15, 2024 Full price —1,100€ March 16 onwards

Agent consultations: For an additional fee, you can register for one, or two, agent consultations.

Your turn:

* What Scene Recipe Ingredients were used here? Which ones were left out?

* Paid subscribers: Can you show me how your scenes are progressing? Post in the chat and let’s see how you’re doing. I’ll comment aggressively on the first three that go up, the ones that follow…I will certainly comment on but more lightly.

* Paid Subscribers: Look for a thread on Wednesday, Feb. 14th, on what you’re reading and why.

See you next week, Jennifer 🐦‍⬛

PS: Want to do some gluten free baking? Here’s where I learned…surprisingly simple.

An open mic post and free teaching on theme, why it matters and how applying yourself to the study of theme can take some of the sting out of your memoir writing.

Welcome:

Who cares about my story? My book? Me?

If you are a writer of any form, you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t ask these questions. But as memoir writers, these questions infiltrate nearly every moment of our creative process. “Who cares? Who cares? Who cares?” we ask ourselves as we type away our most challenging lived experiences.

What if I told you I could help silence these questions via a better understanding of one simple idea known as theme? Would you be interested?

In my last post, I used the personal story of “a protagonist” (myself) selling her book through perseverance and sheer determination while also struggling mightily with an underlying problem of feeling unworthy. And as I wrote last week, because of that post, we’ve entered the rocky terrain of theme, which I’d like to unpack.

On the Hierarchy of Story chart, which is a template I use when teaching at Blackbird, theme nests close to “idea” and “concept.”

Idea is obvious. It’s your book idea.

Concept is a process of turning that idea into a series of questions that act as the first outline of your book from beginning to end. To go there, you’ll need to take a Foundations Class because it’s too big a lesson for Flight School or this post.

But theme is not too big. Theme is amazingly simple…

SIDEBAR: I’ve encountered writing teacher after writing teacher who scoffs, rolls their eyes, and tosses theme out as if it’s a bag of moldy bread.

So, if you’ve been taught the theme is not necessary or worthy of your time, I’m asking you to open your mind for this post.

In my opinion, theme matters greatly to the memoir writer who often gets mired down by the idea that their book is ONLY about them. Don’t get me wrong. The story is about the writer…for a while; the first and second draft perhaps, but eventually, it must be about the reader too.

What is it then? What is theme?

Theme is the relevance of your story to life. To reality…Theme is love and hate, the folly of youth, the treachery of commerce, the minefield of marriage, the veracity of religion, heaven and hell, past and future, science vs. nature, betrayal, friendship, loyalty, Machiavellian agenda, wealth and poverty, mercy and courage and wisdom and greed and lust and laughter.

Theme is life itself, as manifested in our stories, as seen through our characters, and as experienced through our plots.

~ Larry Brooks, Story Engineering

Story Engineering isn’t the best teaching book out there; in fact, it’s annoying on many levels. But I have to confess, MOST teaching books bug me. Too many seem to hold an underlying agenda on the writer's part, or too much ego, or a general pissy-ness and bossy-know-it-all-itis that makes my head hurt. But, I appreciate Story Engineering for two reasons: 1) straight-talking simplicity and 2) smart lessons.

In the above quote, Brooks’ definition stands as a first lesson. Let’s look closer and go to work by using my story from the last few posts, which is about…

* The minefield of marriage

* The treachery of commerce

* Wealth and poverty

* Courage

* Wisdom

Now that I have my list, I can start narrowing it down to write one primary statement about my story that is so strong, it will act as a compass for my writing and slay any doubts about relevance.

Robert McKee calls this primary statement a controlling idea:

A CONTROLLING IDEA may be expressed in a single sentence describing how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end.

~ Robert McKee, Story

McKee is a theme naysayer. He writes, Theme has become a rather vague term in the writer’s vocabulary. “Poverty," “war,” and “love,” for example, are not themes; they are related to setting and genre. A true theme, he writes, is not a word but a sentence that expresses a story’s irreducible meaning.

His agenda is to blow off theme and point writers directly into making a singular statement, and I’m after that, too. We differ essentially on terminology here. And process. So, let me give it a shot.

POSSIBLE CONTROLLING IDEA: Despite doubt, fear, and seemingly insurmountable obstacles (how things were at the beginning), perseverance, sheer will, and inventiveness in the moment are all it takes to get the job done (how things are at the end).

McKee’s controlling idea isn’t wrong because eventually, you will want to narrow your overall thematics down to a controlling idea…if only to be wickedly clear about what you’re writing…but I don’t think a controlling idea is comprehensive enough. And well, it’s….boring. Or what I’ve written is boring, because it’s rather vague.

I like to take a little from Robert McKee and a little from Larry Brooks, and with both in mind, write a primary statement that includes a balance of the specific and the general.

To help you understand, let me try again: (How things are at the beginning) With a demanding husband hounding her to make money (specific), a needy baby clinging to her side (specific), and a history of crippling doubt (specific and general), an American woman (general) takes her innate skills of perseverance, sheer will, and inventiveness (general) and dives into the cutthroat world of publishing (specific) determined to sell her book, provide for her family and save her marriage (specific). (How things are at the end)

Now I’ve done it. I’ve written a balanced thematic statement that tells the whole story in one sentence. This still isn’t a singular statement of what I want the reader to walk away with but this is: Women struggling with marriage and children can overcome any obstacle through perseverance, sheer will, and inventiveness-in-the-moment.

Boom! I know what I’m writing. I no longer wonder, “Who cares?” And I have a plan (as well as some pretty snappy marketing copy for when I pitch my story to an agent).

Your Turn:

Theme is easy, but I find that working with it well is also a process.

I’ve outlined my method above. Now, see if you can try it on for size:

* List your thematics.

* Write a “life-was-this-way and then then-became-that-way” statement.

* Write your singular statement.

Post in the comments section.

~ Jennifer, 🍎

Flight School is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Welcome into Flight School:

Every person in your story deserves careful attention, even those who appear only briefly. The best writers know this - they make every character memorable through precise, thoughtful description. Let me show you how they do it.

The Masters at Work

Look how these writers bring passing characters vividly to life:

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr: A pair of monks, small as gnomes, push past, talking animatedly, onions on their breath.

Truth Serum by Bernard Cooper: The waitresses at Burl’s wore brown uniforms edged in checkered gingham. From their breast pockets frothed white lace handkerchiefs. In between reconnaissance missions to the tables, they busied themselves behind the counter and shouted “Tuna to travel,” and “Scorch that patty” to a harried short order cook who manned the grill.

And though this isn’t memoir, I have to share one from my favorite book and author, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving: Mr. Tubulari—was also away for Christmas. He was also a bachelor, and he had insisted on the fourth floor—for his health; he claimed to love running upstairs. He had many female visitors…Mr. Tubulari was fast and silent and thrived on catching the boys “in the act”—in the act of anything: shaving cream fights, smoking in their rooms, even masturbation. Each floor had a designated common room, a butt room, so-called, for the smokers; but smoking in dorm rooms was forbidden—as was sex in any form, alcohol in any form, and drugs that had not been prescribed by the school physician. Mr. Tubulari even had reservations about aspirin. According to Dan, Mr. Tubulari was off competing in some grueling athletic event over Christmas—actually, a pentathlon of the harshest-possible wintertime activities; a “winterthon,” Mr. Tubulari had called it.

None of these characters appear again. Yet we'll never forget them because each writer took the time to render them fully human.

Character Study: Norman Ollestad's Father

Let's return to Crazy for the Storm to see this technique in action. Notice how Ollestad builds his father's portrait - not through police-blotter details of height and weight, but through specific, revealing actions:

* A newspaper-reading, apple-gobbling surfer

* Drives a '56 Porsche

* Gives his kid peanuts for lunch while calling him "Boy Wonder"

* Bets on a horse named Scooby Doo

Through these details, we understand not just what this man looks like, but who he is. His pride, his complexity, his relationship with his son - all emerge through carefully chosen specifics.

The Essential Elements

When developing any character, major or minor, consider:

* Names and their significance

* Mannerisms and speech patterns

* Attitudes and behaviors

* Physical details (clothing, accessories)

* Desires, hopes, and dreams

Many writers rush past character description, particularly of minor characters. But this misses an opportunity to deepen your story. Every person who appears in your narrative can add texture and meaning - if you take the time to see them fully.

✍️Your Turn

Return to Chapter One of Crazy for the Storm. Study the other two characters in the scene:

* What specific details does Ollestad provide?

* How do these details shape your understanding of who these people are?

* What assumptions do you make based on these descriptions?

Remember: Every character who appears in your pages is an opportunity to enrich your story's world. Give them the attention they deserve.

~ Jennifer 🐦‍⬛

Join our deep-dive analysis of "Crazy for the Storm," featuring marked-up pages that reveal exactly how a master writer builds tension. Plus, discover the moment when craft becomes invisible and story takes over, and learn to create that magic in your own work.

Hi and welcome:

It’s time to continue with Crazy for the Storm and the answers to the questions I asked. First, the pages marked up for you to see.

Now here are my answer to the questions:

* There are two scenes here, and my reasonings goes like this: The outer environment has shifted dramatically. While those inside the plane remain in the cockpit, the external environment has changed to such a degree that the primary goal has now shifted and a new tension mounts. What was a standard trip becomes a series of decisions that alters the destiny of all in the plane. So…in that case, I’m going to say that the first scene did the work of set-up, but that is still a veritable scene, a unique pearl of its own, held together via that connective tissue of the flashbacks.

* The pink lines under and to the side represent when the writer incorporated an element of the SRC. Does this align with what you noticed?

* Finally, I asked when you stopped paying attention to the elements of the Scene Recipe Card and fell fully into the story? What was that “little something” that drew you in? Captured your attention? This is called a hook, and hooks vary person to person.

✍️ Your Turn:

Continuing with the Scene Recipe Card

Take some time with the people and personality ingredient to include the names of everyone (even a study of name origins). Include description of mannerisms, speech patterns, attitudes, what people wear, what they carry with them in the form of jewelry, purses, bags as well as their desires, hopes, dreams.

Looking forward to reading how this goes for you!

~ Jennifer, 🐦‍⬛

Take your Scene Recipe Card into the field with an interactive study of "Crazy for the Storm." Follow along with downloadable materials as we discover how Norman Ollestad brings scenes to vivid life, and learn to spot the essential elements that make memoir memorable.

Hi and welcome:

In my last post, I broke scene into seven basic elements and gave you the assignment of writing the first three into your current work or something new. To recap, they were: location, wider location, and the natural world. Keep going on that. And as you do, I offer up a concrete example that brings the SRC into clearer perspective.

Norman Ollestad’s Crazy for the Storm draws the reader in and holds her close with lovely scene writing.

This is not a scream-memoir (which makes you want to scream and throw the book across the room). Ollestad goes to the heart of a boy who becomes a true hero.

✍️Your turn

Grab your Scene Recipe Card and read (listen) to this opening chapter.

And this chapter:

Instructions:

* Listen to the story (which is the audio portion of this post) with your SRC handy. Underline when Ollestad incorporate one of the elements.

* Note the number of scenes in this chapter. Not flashback or representative scenes, but the scenes that move the story forward in linear time.

* There could be a time when you stop noting the elements of scene in this chapter. If and when this happens, for whatever reason, make a large X on your copy.

Next post, I’ll debrief.

Answering these questions in the comments:

* How many of the elements did Ollestad use?

* How many actual scenes were there (signaled by change in time or location)?

* When did you stop notating?

~ Jennifer, 🐦‍⬛

Learn the essential building block of great memoir, featuring a practical tool that transforms good writing into unforgettable storytelling. Plus, discover why mastering scene is the key to moving from reporting to art.

Welcome into Flight School:

Generally speaking scene is the building block of creative nonfiction...the widespread notion that nonfiction is the writer's thoughts presented in an expository or summarizing way has done little but produce quantities of unreadable nonfiction.

~ Brenda Miller and Suzanna Paola, Tell it Slant

Think of scene as a perfect pearl. Each one complete, beautiful, singular. As you write, you're stringing these pearls together to create something whole. A narrative essay might need five to fifteen pearls; a full-length memoir could require three hundred. But each pearl must be crafted with care.

The Anatomy of Scene

At its simplest, a scene is a moment in time where something happens to move the story forward. Note the singulars: "a moment," "something." Many writers, rich with thoughts and memories, try to pour everything onto the page at once. But great scenes require containment - one moment, one action, brought fully to life.

The Scene Recipe Card

To help writers master scene, I created a simple tool that breaks down the essential elements:

* Location (immediate surroundings)

* Wider Location (neighborhood, city, world)

* Natural World (weather, seasons, environment)

* People & Personality

* Dialogue

* Sensory Detail

* Verticality

You can do this right now as you read this post.

🛑 STOP and look up. What’s over your head? Sky? Ceiling? Write it down.

Look down. What’s under your feet? A hardwood floor, or sand, or grass, or a carpet? Describe it.

What’s off to your right... 🗣 "Oh my Gosh, that’s so boring,” your head will insist. “Give me something more interesting to do.”

Okay…this interruption to the lesson is expected, so please go to the line on the SRC that reads sensory detail and continue through to “movement of mind.” Note the asterisk which I’ll add here: Movement of mind describes thoughts: associations, future, past, memory. Mind, or ordinary mind, is considered a “sense.” Not the driver!

Let’s get back to work.

We were looking right and describing what was there in your imagination or in your memory.

Then left.

Then forward.

Then behind.

Location is that simple. Slow down. Follow the recipe. Start describing.

Carrying on with the SRC to wider location, look out the window and describe your particular neighborhood with it’s particular streets, and street names, and land marks. You are also in a particular city, in particular state.

Time for the natural world now. What’s happening outside? Does the wind blow? The rain fall? Or has the sun just burned through the clouds? Are the birds are busy gathering twigs? Does one perch on your porch (say a Black Phoebe) and tweet tseep while cocking its head to one side?

Now lets look at people and personality. Perhaps you have a daughter just home from school who wears something very particular, her hair arranged just so, and her bag over her shoulder. She smells a certain way. Smiles a certain way. Hugs you in a certain way (or not).

Capture what she says (dialogue) and see how her words reveal her character, “What’s for dinner?” Or “Are we out of cookies?” Or, “Can I borrow the car?” Or “Why are you staring at me like that???”

All this is dialogue. Welcome to the party.

Then comes sensory details which I’ve already alluded to with the arrival of the daughter in our scene. She smells a certain way. She touches in a certain way. The feel of her hand on yours is very particular, and if you take a moment to consider how that touch feels and write it down, you are now in the realm of the sensory in your scene. And you are bringing that scene to life for the reader by including that sensation.

Verticality is about multiple concrete and specific details.

For example: She held a cup.

What kind of cup? What is the shape? Color? Is there something particular about that cup, something memorable or meaningful?

With verticality, you keep going vertical (rather than horizontal along the expository line of your story) until you arrive at the deeper meaning of the thing.

For example: She held a greenish blue cup that, if you looked closely, seemed cracked a thousand times over as if the potter who made it had no idea what they were about. It was actually not a flaw but an intention of the design. The cracks within the cup, when she looked at them, formed a spiral from the bottom to the rim and when drinking her tea, she studied the spiral for a long time and often felt she was dropping into it or perhaps emerging from the center.

Scene writing is basically attuning yourself to life itself. We are all living in scenes in every moment of our life. When you write a scene, your bringing yourself present to what is. And when you can learn to write this way, you are on your way to imparting this gift, first to yourself, and then to anyone who is lucky enough to read your work.

✍️Your Turn

Choose one moment you want to bring to life. Using the Scene Recipe Card, write down:

* What's immediately around you

* The wider world of this moment

* The natural elements at play

Remember: You're not reporting - you're creating a moment readers can step inside and live.

~ Jennifer, 🐦‍⬛