A sequence of six exercises from Marisa Clark's ENG 323 (Intermediate Creative Nonfiction)

EXERCISE ONE: Significant memory

Due: Thursday, August 25

In a scene of approximately 2 – 3 pages, write about a significant memory concerning education. This memory should have occurred prior to the time you were 10 years old. To write a scene, use sensory detail (that is, concrete detail, not abstractions), and incorporate elements of characterization, setting, dialogue, etc., as necessary. Write only the memory. Try not to comment on it, explain its significance, or otherwise reflect upon it. (That’s what we’ll be working on in Exercise Two.)

If you need to familiarize yourself with the differences between scene and reflection, please read the relevant section in Tell It Slant.

In all your work for this class, I expect you to give your best effort. This means paying attention to craft, proofreading your work carefully, and not turning in first/rough drafts.

EXERCISE TWO: Significant memory, integrating reflection with scene

DUE: Thursday, Sep. 1

In Exercise One, you wrote a short scene of a significant memory from a time before you were 10. Your goal in Exercise Two is to integrate reflection with this scene, to use your adult narrative voice to comment on its importance. Why this memory? What makes it so significant that you remember it now? What does it reveal to you as an adult about your relationship then and now with education of the kind you wrote about in the scene? How does that moment, that memory define you now? Do you as an adult recognize yourself in the child you were in this scene? In what ways are you the same? In what ways have you changed? What, to paraphrase Hampl, is the relationship between your former self and you?

Rather than attempt to answer all these questions, let them guide you toward reflection. “Risk wisdom,” as Professor Greg Martin often says.

An important objective of this exercise is to mesh scene and reflection, to revise what you already wrote in Exercise One in a way that allows you to integrate reflection comfortably. In Hampl’s essay, the scene of the memory precedes her reflection, but the reflective component draws on specific objects, characters, and concerns from the scene. Consider trying her method, or if in writing Exercise One you found yourself wanting to reflect and explain in the midst of presenting the scene, try that method of incorporating reflection. By all means, include the scene you wrote for Exercise One as part of this exercise. Do not merely staple or cut and paste it in—revise the scene and let the reflective voice flow from it.

EXERCISE THREE: Creating dimension in another character through SCENE

DUE Thursday, September 8

DESCRIPTION: Think of a person, other than yourself, whom you know well—preferably someone you were or have been in close contact with for several years or more and care about very much. However, please do not write about a significant other with whom you are currently or were very recently involved. Use this person as the main character of a SCENE in which you show the person acting out of character while interacting with another character. That person can be a characterization of you; your character should somehow be part of this scene—whether as participant or direct witness. Write an active scene, featuring description and significant sensory detail, setting, dialogue, forward motion. Set the scene in a particular place. Keep summary, exposition, reflection to a bare minimum. If you are unsure how to punctuate dialogue correctly, refer to any published work that uses conventional dialogue, or to a handbook like The Elements of Style.

OBJECTIVE: This is a "show-don't-tell" exercise. Let the scene's action, dialogue, and pertinent description do the work of revealing character. Try to keep your narrator's interior observations to a minimum. If you need an example of effective scene-writing, look to Luis Alberto Urrea's work, particularly the sections featuring dialogue. The idea here is to highlight through dramatization particularly illustrative moments. It also emphasizes the important skill of rounding out characters, providing dimension and depth to the people who populate your writing. 

EXERCISE THREE: Characterizing oneself in memoir

DUE: Thursday, September 15

ASSIGNMENT: Write a scene in which you as narrator reveal yourself at a moment of behaving in a way that you consider out of character. This exercise will work best if you put the narrator in direct interaction with another character and make the scene dynamic through forward-moving action, significant sensory detail, dialogue, and setting. Keep exposition to a bare minimum. Avoid reflection upon the scene. Obviously, the challenge of presenting this scene dramatically, rather than taking the opportunity to comment on it, is to reveal the narrator as a multi-dimensional character.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this exercise is to offer you insight into creating a round character of your nonfiction persona. In memoir-writing, this persona must be narrow enough to help focus the piece; it is not necessary that you tell the whole story of your life but rather one story from your life. At the same time, you must present your persona with enough dimension—roundness —to make of yourself a credible character.  A reader is less likely to believe that you—or any of your characters—are only cruel, only righteous, or only anything than if you acknowledge coexisting strengths and weaknesses within your personality. This exercise, then, invites you to look at yourself as a character through a variety of lenses. It also emphasizes the benefits of using scene to provide heightened dramatic effect and reinforces the use of contrast as a powerful tool in good writing.

EXERCISE FIVE: Contrasting setting and event

DUE: Thursday, September 22

DESCRIPTION:  Write about a particularly terrible, sad, disturbing, or otherwise upsetting event that happened in a beautiful or somehow awe-inspiring place. Your narrator might pose as either a direct participant in or a witness to the event, but should remain active in the scene. Try to select a specific location, just one, so that you can describe it in full. What I'd like to see in this exercise is a strong, active use of setting that contrasts with a dramatically rendered scene that takes place with at least two characters present and interacting. (By active setting, I mean pertinent to the action of the characters, with well-selected details, and not just one or two static blocks of description.) Use dialogue and include relevant descriptions of setting and people. Use exposition and reflection only if necessary, but if you use it, try to remain exact rather than abstract; describe with significant sensory details rather than generalize; and by all means, try to resist stating what’s been made obvious by the scene!

OBJECTIVE: to practice the use of contrast, which often makes for increased narrative tension; to discover how setting affects character and how the narrator’s first-person perspective affects the creation of setting; and once again, to practice writing scenes and balance them with sparing use of reflection and background information.

TIP: I recommend you either sketch the setting in advance (yes, a drawing) or freewrite a detailed description of it so that you’ll have significant details to select from toward the creation of clarity. 

EXERCISE SIX: Object as metaphor

DUE: Thursday, September 29

DESCRIPTION: Think of an object that has taken on major significance to you, something tangible/concrete that you’ve had for a while. Perhaps it represents an achievement; perhaps it has a talismanic, almost magical quality to you or is loaded with sentimental value. In writing about it, describe the object in rich sensory detail, so much so that if your reader saw it apart from you, he/she would know it was the same object you’d described. Write a scene illustrating its importance—either the moment you acquired it or something that happened that made you realize its importance. Reflect on the object’s importance—try not to state the obvious on this part! For the assignment to be complete, you must have all three components: a rich sensory description, a scene, and reflection. These three components should be integrated to the best of your ability.

OBJECTIVE: To reveal character through object; to let object serve as metaphor for character. (I’m thinking of Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” and Scott Russell Sanders’ “Buckeye.”) To balance scene and reflection, to practice lush sensory description.