This year’s Writing Barn Advanced Writer Weekend Workshop series came to a close with the Thoughts, Gestures and Dialogue with award-winning writer Francisco X. Stork. It was an eye-opening illuminating weekend for all.
In the feedback survey of the event, participant Sue Cleveland wrote of her experience: “I came away from the weekend inspired, embraced, honored, challenged, encouraged and feeling a viable member of the supportive group. Writing that brought tears.”
As a writer myself, I am thrilled to hear comments like Sue’s. Feeling heard, challenged, encourage and supported as a writer is as important to us as water is. We must be accepted where we are and pushed to where we can go: deeper.
And, a weekend with Francisco X. Stork took us all a bit deeper into our characters, our works-in-progress and our writer selves. Francisco began by sharing that he didn’t begin writing novels until he was 45, but that he had been an avid journal writer all his life. He urged us to write journals as our characters, to embody their mind, hearts, and bodies and in doing so the thoughts, gestures, and dialogue we used to portray our characters would be universal but also purely individual. Francisco said his strength as a writer was in fully imagining/losing himself in his characters and anyone who has read his work, Marcelo in the Real World, in particular admires this strength. “My characters have gestated and lived within the womb of my imagination,” Francisco said.
Francisco urged the writers in attendance to have patience, with the characters, the process and even ourselves, “…part of the internal process is active thought, imagining, and a contemplative attitude—letting it come to you is the hardest part. More than doing, you have to not do. Let the character arrive…”
As a lawyer, Francisco had some excellent advice on the old adage “show don’t tell.” He compared the process to presenting evidence to a jury and letting the jury (our readers) actively wade through the evidence. This was a lovely moment of clarity for me as a writing instructor. A new way to present “show don’t tell” to my mentees. Francisco also shared, “Craft is knowing, what when and how much of my character to reveal the personality of my character…Parcel out descriptions of the character…so the reader, who like a detective, can actively participate.”
And after taking us this deep, Francisco guided us deeper—to essence.
“The art of the novel,” he said, “is that nothing is necessary except to capture the essence of the character. ”
Essence is not a simple evaluation. He went on to say essence is a messy mix of desires, contradictory emotions. And that “essence is revealed, discovered by the reader in a key revelatory moment and when identification between the reader and the character happens…we recognize a part of ourselves.”
How we convey this essence and set forth this evidence is through the thoughts, gestures, and dialogue.
He urged us to fall in love with our characters and to let that love deepen into a mature true love. “Like in life, literary love increases the more you get to know the person, a respect for autonomy of the character—put the interests of your character above your own.” And lastly, to remember characters are not a means to an end. They are not mouthpieces for our ideas, to convey a type, a condition, a foil. “Characters are not a mouthpiece for our wit, ideas, or views of the world.”
Francisco closed his talk quoting from the Velveteen Rabbit about how the real, once real cannot be made unreal.
For all of us in attendance, we were more real writers after listening to Francisco share himself and his craft with us. One weekend workshop attendee wrote, “The lecture was worth the price of admission.”
Going deeper. Falling in love. Revealing essence. Trusting ourselves. The work of a writer is not easy, but to have books like Marcelo in the Real World, that speak so deeply of one character’s human experience and to have that experience connect us to our own: our hard work is more than worth it.
- Workshop about to begin on day 2.
After Francisco’s lecture, the weekend continued with a Q&A, character deepening exercises, workshop of 6 writers and on Sunday a round-table discussion and 10 more writers being workshopped. With that, the 2013 Kick Off Season came to a close and what a season it was. Thank you to agent Alexandra Penfold, National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr, and Francisco X Stork for launching the Advanced Writer Workshop series at The Writing Barn and sharing their wisdom and work ethic with us.
And, in 2014 we look forward to expanding our programming. With us for the 2014 season, we have:
February 27-March 2 Agent/author Ammi-Joan Paquette and author, K. A. Holt
Date TBD contemporary novelist, Jo Knowles and fantasy novelist Robin Wasserman
December 4-7 Best-selling authors Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
March 23-29, we have a one-week Full Novel Session, Mastering the Middle Grade, with Newbery Honor authors Kathi Appelt & Rita Williams-Garcia, and award-wining authors Shana Burg and Bethany Hegedus
And September 18-21, we bring in 3 amazing names in picture books for The Complete Picture Book Workshop: Tips to Help You Write, Revise, & Sell with top-selling picture book agent Erin Murphy, Audrey Vernick, Liz Garton Scanlon.
Look for program details, pricing and applications for the 2014 Writing Barn Season coming soon!