Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

Kurt Johnson and his daughter, Ellie Johnson, who have collaborated on a new novel titled The Barrens: A Novel of Love and Death in the Canadian Arctic (Arcade). 

This week I have two Write the Book Prompts to offer, thanks to the generosity of my guests. Kurt Johnson suggests writing a paragraph the beginning and end of which you know ahead of time. Allow the middle to be more stream of consciousness. Ellie suggests writing an adventure. This could be a story, or a scene, or the beginnings of something longer. Pick an area of the world where a character is camping, and write about what goes wrong. 

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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Maya Rodale, best-selling and award-winning author of funny feminist historical fiction and romance. Her latest novel is Mad Girls of New York (Berkley).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Maya Rodale, who said it was inspired by our conversation. Take this scenario and write it forward: 

She was in a rush to get downtown–the sooner the better and definitely before it was too late. But when she turned onto Broadway, what she saw shocked her. She would not be getting downtown any time soon …

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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Michelle Huneven's latest is Search, a funny novel about a congregational search committee, told as a memoir with recipes (Penguin).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt comes from Michelle Huneven’s book, Search. It’s one that the search committee is offered when they begin working with the consultant named Helen:

IMAGINE YOUR LIFE AS A MOVIE THAT YOU’VE STEPPED OUT OF TO BE HERE TODAY. WHAT’S THE TITLE? THE SETTING? THE PLOT?  

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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An interview from the archives - complete with the old music! - with Robert Boswell, award-winning author of seven novels, including Tumbledown (Graywolf Press).

Robert Boswell published a book on craft in 2008, The Half-Known World. In this book, he details how important it is for writers to give themselves over to what he calls the "half-known world" of fiction, where surprise and meaning converge. Consider this in terms of an exercise: this week's Write the Book Prompt is to think about surprise converging with meaning.

An example of my own: a driver stops at a quick mart due to a mundane but necessary need: coffee, perhaps, or a bathroom break. Who might she meet or run into there? How does this affect her day, or the trip she's embarking on? Did she want to be seen? Has this person affected her life in the past? How will this encounter affect the story?

Consider this week how surprise might come up against meaning in your own work, offering an opportunity to change the narrative in a valuable way. 

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students, now alums). 

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An interview from the archives with Jacqueline Woodson, about her National Book Award winning memoir-in-verse, Brown Girl Dreaming (Nancy Paulsen Books).

Have you ever tried to write a story in verse? Not necessarily a long story. Maybe an anecdote you would share with a friend about something that happened to you on a random Monday afternoon. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider a story from your life, and write about it in verse. If it will help, set yourself some rules before you begin. If you don’t like rhymes, don’t worry about rhymes. You can make your verse fit some syllabic intention, you can create a pantoum, in which the last line is often the same as the first, or an abecedarian, which spells out the alphabet, word by word or line by line. There are many ways to write verse, and the poet is in charge.

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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An interview from the archives with Jacqueline Woodson, about her National Book Award winning memoir-in-verse, Brown Girl Dreaming (Nancy Paulsen Books).

Have you ever tried to write a story in verse? Not necessarily a long story. Maybe an anecdote you would share with a friend about something that happened to you on a random Monday afternoon. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider a story from your life, and write about it in verse. If it will help, set yourself some rules before you begin. If you don’t like rhymes, don’t worry about rhymes. You can make your verse fit some syllabic intention, you can create a pantoum, in which the last line is often the same as the first, or an abecedarian, which spells out the alphabet, word by word or line by line. There are many ways to write verse, and the poet is in charge.

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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