Tell What You Know

A way into the story

Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash

A couple of years after I earned my MFA, I went back to Spalding*, my alma mater, to participate in the writing residency as a PGRA, otherwise known as a graduate assistant. One of my duties was to sit in on the daily writing workshops and add pithy (hopefully) comments on student work.

At Spalding, at least in those days (I am a proud member of the first graduating class of the low-residency MFA back in 2003), writing workshops were led by two faculty members. One of them was a beloved mentor of mine from my years at the school and the other a newbie. Said newbie and beloved mentor did not necessarily see eye to eye on how the workshops should proceed and let’s just say that there was some tension.

But I digress.

Newbie mentor had a very specific way of leading a workshop. Beloved mentor did not agree. And while my instincts were to follow the lead of my beloved mentor, I had to admit that the newbie’s way had some merit. Here’s what he did (and who knows, this may well be a known pedagogical thing):

He, or a student, would start the discussion of the work by describing it. They’d tell the story as they understood it in as objective a way as possible and then what they thought it was about, what they’d gotten from it. This gave the person whose work was being reviewed an entry point for the discussion because it immediately showed the impression the reader got.

I’ve not used this technique in teaching much, if at all, but lately I have started using it in my writing. The other day I was stuck on where to go in my current WIP, a novel, and I wrote out what I had so far. I told myself the story and what I knew about it. I found this quite useful because it’s a way of orienting yourself and sinking into the story. Novels have a lot of moving parts and it’s easy to forget one or several. By doing this, you’re cementing all those elements in your brain. And then you can move on.

Because most writers I know tend to get panicky when they get lost. At least I do. I flail, I mutter, I moan, I decide I’m never going to finish the stupid story and nobody is going to want to read it anyway. None of which is the least bit useful in finding a way through. When I get into such a state my first reaction is to give up and wander away from the page in search of a glass of wine.

Here’s the thing: the brain loves novelty, as in new ideas, those things you need in droves for your writing. But the brain likes consistency, too—and it is far more likely to allow in novelty (aka, ideas) if it is calmed and centered. (Which is why working with the nervous system is so useful for creatives, but that’s a topic for another day.) By telling yourself the story you are helping your brain to settle so that it can think up lovely new plot twists and character quirks.

So give this little trick a try. And come back and tell me how it worked out for you!

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*Thanks to a generous (as in a million bucks) donation by an alum, the program is now know as the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing, but that’s a lot to fit in a sentence. And besides, I still think of it as Spalding.