Wedneday, July 30

Write a scene featuring 2 characters. In the scene, conflict should arise in escalating absurdity. Have fun with this!

Monday, July 28th.

Write a monologue in which a character defends a morally reprehensible act that he/she has committed. Thorough your monologue, it should be clear what the offensive act was, and why specifically the character feels the need to justify himself/herself.

Weds, July 23rd.

Write a scene involving 2 characters in which the conflict is rooted in something that both characters want, but only ONE of them can have.

Tuesday, 7/22

Craft: Pace (sentence-level)

Prompt: Write a piece that conveys a pace: very fast, slow, moderate, etc., and matches or juxtaposes it to the content.

Day 6: Intro to playwriting

Writing studio prompt: Write a scene in which both characters have just witnessed something horrific. In this scene, each character should have a clear desire/motivation. By the end, the characters should have swapped desire/motivation.

Master Class: Carolyn MacCullough

Author Carolyn MacCullough writes books for young adults. Carolyn MacCullough teaches creative writing to adults and teen-agers, composition to some very unenthusiastic freshmen, and more ESL. She published three books: Falling Through Darkness, Stealing Henry and Drawing the Ocean. Currently teaching creative writing at Gotham Writers, Inc. and a summer creative writing class for The New School.



Here is a link to her Amazon author's page and her Goodreads page.

Day 4

Prompt: Write a eulogy for a generally despised person.

Anther Option: Write a story that takes place in another time.

Day 3: Rants!

 “He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.
(writing about US President Warren G. Harding)”

--HL Mencken

Craft: (creative nonfiction) write a rant about your pet peeve.

Writing Studio:
Write a rant from the perspective of the character that you started this week.

Day Two: Character

“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”
― William Faulkner 

“The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.”
― Milan Kundera

Prompt for writing studio: You can use the character that we started this morning in craft class, or you can start a new one. 

Write a short story with your character as the protagonist. Think about what the character wants, what they are confident about, what they fear. The object of the character's desire can be be small or large, but the stakes should be high for him/her. Please keep this short and try to complete it: you could do a short-short story (up to 2500 words), or a short story (2500-7500).

CWI 2014!

Day 1: Show vs. Tell

Prompt: Writing studio prompts are optional. They are related to the element of craft that we are discussed. You can write from the prompt (s) of the day, or you can work on something that you've already started. 

1. Write a piece in reporting style that shows the text and subtext of a scene. Reporting style: just write what is said and done. Text and subtext: what is explicitly stated, what is suggested.