Character Exercise

Okay, a lot of people have been having trouble with the character exercise, particularly with the exact meaning of 'thwarter'. The 'thwarter' thwarts the STORY, not the character: he or she deflects, shocks or bends the storyline. Let me clarify with an analogy from Newtonian physics.

Our protagonistic will, given the shape of their life and personality, either remain at rest or continue in motion with uniform acceleration in a straight line, right? Let's call this person A. The straight line is where the story is headed if nothing intervenes (usually a very boring direction)

Now let us introduce another person into this universe. Let's call them B. B can do the following:
1. B can attract A. A will curve towards B, and will then either attain B, or be thwarted by circumstances and remain frustrated.
So a new love interest, or a long lost parent, or a rich man to rob, or a new baby, or an escaping spy that A has to catch, or a gay man he's secretly attracted to, could be this kind of B. Actually all objects of love will be in this category.
2. B can repel A. A will move away from B and from his old line of movement, and either escape or be prevented from escaping by circumstances. A could also attack B in an effort to get back on track, or simply avoid B and solve the problem on his own.
Examples will include an overbearing mother, a jealous boss, a spy hunting him down, a wronged lover, an unwanted child, an enemy soldier, a besotted but unattractive lover, a rapist, or a terrorist who hijacks B's plane, or a man who steals his woman, or anything that does him harm and needs to be neutralised. B need not be doing this specifically to target A; it might be a by product of something else, but A will experience it as a personal effect. A could either rise above it an attack the root or take out a personal (deserved or undeserved) vendetta on B.
The reason why I want you to do the characters in pairs is that it makes it easier to work them into a story. A character in isolation isn't story material; two characters have to be.

An Interesting Set of Tips

This is a bit long and grey, but you might find it of use.
http://www.pjballantine.com/for-writers/

Guidelines

Well, people, I am back in action (sort of) after having been fried to a crisp by radiation at Thakurpukur for a month. It's taken almost that long to get back to normal, but I'm now in a position to at least have a stab at some work, including this blog.
Re the book of the course 2005, which was to have been done this semester. I almost completed the page setup before the radiation side effects got to me; I'm going to try and finish it before your exams in May, so I should be able to give you a progress report on that by then. Any of you who want your hard copies back contact me. Also just in case the book comes out after you leave, give me your contact details so I can send it to you. But with luck we should get it out while you're still around.
I'm confident that I'll be able to run the course next sem, so all you final years don't forget to sign up when we come back in July.
A word about the nature of the course. Lots of people seemed a bit confused last year as to what exactly the course was about, how much work it entailed and what they were supposed to be learning, so I'll clarify.
The course is meant for people who want to write, and have already taken a few first steps on their own, even if all they did was pen a few sketches and show them to family and friends. The course provides a friendly environment and a sympathetic audience (all the course members plus me) in which to test-drive your stuff. What I'll be giving you are a few essential keys to unlock your creativity and tools to polish up the results, as well as real time feedback on how you're coming across, with a little bit at the end about the big bad world of the professional writer. In a nutshell, DO take this course if any of the following are true:
1. You seriously want to keep writing in the future,
2. You want to learn how to reach out to an audience with your stuff (make 'em laugh, make 'em cry),
3. You enjoy producing work and have got enough creative steam to keep you going through the admittedly heavy workload, because boy will you be writing for us here. At first you'll be doing all your writing in class, and I'll be holding your hand, but there will be take-home assignments as you get more skilled.
4. You want to learn to be your own editor (note that i don't say 'critic', which is too dessicated a word for what the writer has to do to him/her self) and how to fix the glitches in your stuff.
I understand that creativity is a shy beast, and not everyone who wants to be a writer is necessarily ready at this stage in life to start on the nuts and bolts of writing, So DON'T take this course if any of the following is true:
1. You have a burning desire to write, but aren't able as yet to put pen to paper.
2. You want to nurture your creativity in private for a few more years.
This isn't meant to discourage you, but only to reassure you that being a writer follows its own timetable and has its own needs. People often ask me if I would have taken this course had it been around when I was in college. The answer is probably 'no'. I would have still done what I did, which was write huge quantities of stuff in private for my eyes only, against the day when it would all fall together. I had to wait till I was thirty before I felt ready to handle an audience, which is the point where I would have wanted to take the course (No course was available so I wrote a novel instead ;) .) Everyone is an individual when it comes to writing. You may not necessarily feel the same way at the same time. Also some of the stuff which I'll be telling you in the course is a kind of future investment which will activate when the time comes for you and you go 'Aha! Finally I have my idea for the century's next blockbuster!'
All the best
Rimi

Welcome to WIP

Hi everyone, this is going to be the blog for the Writing in Practice courses from now on. Remember that stories you post here can be read by anyone, so take that into account if you have intentions of publishing anything in print in future (as this may constitute prior publication).
Right now I am setting up last year's stories in book form as JUDE has kindly offered to sponsor a publication. Anyone who took the course last year can send me the stuff here.
here is the course outline for anyone who would like to take it next semester.

Writing in Practice
Optional Course for Autumn Semester (2/4)
Department of English, Jadavpur University
Dr Rimi B. Chatterjee

Maximum intake: 20 students

Course outline: This course is designed to give students the basic technical and stylistic skills necessary to write creative prose. It will use insights from critical theory but focus on the craft of writing and the art of evoking reader response. Students will develop their innate creativity through writing exercises and performance and become acquainted with the basics of writing professionally. They will be evaluated on the artistic quality, originality, and polish of their works. As endterm evaluation there will be four one-hour-long sessions of presentations (five per session) open to the entire department in the final week of the course, and a final written examination. Evaluation will be 5+5 (classwork) 10 (midterm examination), 10 + 10 + 10 (end of term presentation and written examination).

The topics covered will be as follows:

Week 1: Basics of writing and editing creative work.
Week 2: Creating a character: back story
Week 3: The basics of plot.
Week 4: The basics of dialogue.
Week 5: Practice on the above: students write a story from an assortment of plot elements which they must weave together credibly using the techniques they have learned. They will be marked on 5 for this.
Week 6: Critique session for the stories: editing
Week 7: Editing, fixing and changing fiction. Practice session for midterm.
Midterm: To be evaluated on 10 marks.
Week 8: The anxiety of influence: how to fight it. Exercises in boosting originality.
Week 9: The ethics of using personal incidents and information in fiction. Confessional fiction, autobiographical fiction. Exercises in fictionalizing reality.
Week 10: Advanced editing: tact and register. Exercises on style and taste. Students will be started off on writing their final evaluated works. All pieces must be no more than 2000 words and no less than 1200 words.
Week 11: Writing for the stage. Practice.
Week 12: Practice on the above. Students will write short skits to be marked on 5 marks.
Week 13: Revision and practice. One short session on the career structure of writing professionally.
Week 14: Public performance of students’ works: readings open to the entire department. Each student will get a ten minute slot. To be evaluated as 20 mark practical: 10 for presentation and 10 for text.
End term: written examination of 10 marks.
Total marks 50.

Plagiarism will result in the automatic failure of a student. There will be no appeal or excuses. Translating from other languages will count as plagiarism for the purposes of this course. We will be checking.
RBC