Realistic dialogue is one of the most powerful tools at a writer's disposal. Done well, dialogue advances the story and fleshes out the
characters while providing a break from straight exposition (telling rather than showing). It results in immediacy. The reader feels as if he/she is in the room and part of the situation. However, just as realistic dialogue is one of the most powerful tools
at a writer's disposal, nothing pulls the reader out of a story faster
than bad dialogue.You can find some examples of BAD dialogue HERE:
* They avoid stilted language. Instead, they write in natural speech patterns. What's a natural speech pattern? Well, think about the things you say over the course of the day. Your
statements are
surprisingly short. You might also find that you rarely speak in
complete sentences. When having a conversation, we rarely lapse into
dramatic monologue, wherein we're speaking in paragraphs before someone
responds.
Hint: you might need to tune your ear to the patterns of normal
conversation. To do this, you certainly should study the dialogue you
find in the short stories I've assigned, but you should also engage in a
little spying or eavesdropping. Find a crowded place such as a
restaurant, a bar, or a shopping mall
and listen to the conversations you hear.
* They avoid Filler. They don't include any dialogue that does not further the plot and does not deepen your understanding of the characters
.
* They don't use it to explain the plot or repeat information for the benefit of the audience.In some instances, backstory will be necessary to the plot of a story.
However, dialogue isn't the best place to deliver that data.
*They don't use people's names in dialogue. People almost never say other people’s names back to them.
*They don't use too many attributive tags (e.g. shouted, exclaimed, cried,
whispered, stammered, opined, insinuated, hedged, etc.). A good writer can express the tone of a conversation and the emotions behind it without having to resort to using attributive tags. It's all about precision of word choice. If they use them, they usually keep them simple (e.g. said, told, asked, etc.), and they only add them when it's absolutely necessary.
Assignment: Write a short scene (let's say that, if it was a double-spaced, MLA-format document, it would be 1 1/2 to 2 pages long) in which one person is listening to two other people have
an argument or discussion. There should be some sort of conflict or tension. For example, maybe you'll write about a child listening to her parents
argue about money. Have the third character narrate the argument and
explain what is going on, but have the other two provide the entire
dialogue.Think of this as primarily a script. If you gave your writing assignment to a couple actors, those actors should be able to act out the that script primarily via conversation. Try to follow the rules of a good fiction dialogue that I've outlined above.
Notice how Raymond Carver's story, "Popular Mechanics," reads like a script with very little in the way of blocking. That is, we don't get tons of setting description. We don't get tons of physical description about appearance or action. Almost everything we know about the characters and the plot (particularly the conflict and it's climax or point of most tension) is delivered within one conversation.
You can see his story played out in cinematic form here:
If you look on your schedule, you'll notice that we aren't too far away from a cumulative poetry test. The test will be administered on Tuesday, February 26. The class period prior to that is generally dedicated to preparing for that test via small-group test question development and via large-group review.
HOWEVER, as I've mentioned, on February 21, the majority of our test preparation day will be replaced by a teaching demonstration. As such, let's divide test preparation into smaller sections, with a little bit of review each class period.
Step 1: Begin by going back and re-reading the text chapters you've been assigned thus far. Also, review the notes you've taken in class. You are responsible for basic comprehension of poetry terminology introduced in your text and/or discussed during class time. Perhaps more important than simple memorization of terminology, you should have the ability to APPLY that terminology.
Step 2: Isolate ONE term which either 1.) WAS NOT discussed during class or 2.) WAS discussed in class, but you didn't understand it fully.
Step 3: Use this blog post #7 to help you and your classmates to understand the term more fully by doing AT LEAST TWO of the following:
* Find and post a link to a website that offers a related creative writing exercise.
* Find and post at least one example of a poet and his/her work that hasn't been offered in your text or in lecture.
* Find and post a video on YouTube or elsewhere that will further illuminate your understanding of the particular term.
* Post one or more potential test questions you devise that will help your classmates get better acquainted with the poetry term you've chosen to work with. Devise questions that can be answered quickly (e.g. true/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer, etc.)
Although you've been assigned to read "A Supermarket in California," Allen Ginsberg's more famous poem is "Howl."
Assignment: Write a "Howl" imitation
Step 1: Watch the video above to hear the poem read out loud. Step 2: Write your own version. In your own version, make use of some of the same conventions that you see showcased in both "A Supermarket in California" and "Howl":
*Use long lines. In fact, your text prints the lines like paragraphs. Each of those things that looks like a paragraph is actually a line!
* Use anaphora. Match the poet in the phrases he repeats.
*Make specific references to the times you live in.
* Make reference to political or social problems you see present in your neighborhood or your nation.
Step 3: It might also help to see these examples written by other ENGL150 students:
EXAMPLE #1
I saw the minds of my
generation…
Turn into dope smoking hippie
professors that think they’ve been everywhere, experienced everything, know
more than me, and yet, in the process of all that, forgot how to teach “the
damn class,” so they ramble on and on about non-sensible crap and hop that we
don’t realize that they really don’t have a clue.
Who watch reality TV, what is
the point. People go on network TV and make idiots of themselves, people who
are desperate enough to look for their future partner, live in the wild for
money when others are already forced to do it every day for free.
For drivers refusing to pull
over while a long train of vehicles are forced to follow traveling 30 miles an
hour behind it.
Who accept people talking on
cell phones while driving and screaming “Check me out! I’m all foam, no beer!”
Who pay money for a parking
permit only to park on the street because they have either torn up or blocked
off the main parking lot.
Who use Mario and surround
sound zenith as babysitters turning their children into electronic game
obsessed television freaks.
And guys who obviously don’t
know their waist sizes but feel the need to share their Calvin’s and Tommy’s
with the world.
I saw the minds of my
generation obsessed with no carbs, no fat, no calories—no taste that will make
us think and look like someone else’s idea of perfection and beautiful.
Who break promises made to
loved ones by saying they will do something but never do.
Who live in a male
chauvinistic world where men believe women are doormats, who should cook and
clean and bear their children and are not worth any more than that, we are to
be neither seen nor heard only material objects, not living beings, forced to
perform for the man’s glory and gratification.
I saw the minds of my
generation accept a justice system based on the premise of “if you do the
crime, you do the time” unless you know someone, you have the money, or your
victim isn’t perfect.
Who have rights unless some
pencil pushing holier than though carbon copy of whoever is in power at that
time decides that you have no more rights.
For a government’s need to concern itself more with who I sleep with
rather than if I have sufficient healthcare or the means to pay for it.
Who accepts a President’s
lack of international leadership by alientating all countries for whom, if they
are not with us, are against us.
Who saw the minds of my
generation accept their political leaders sending other parents’ children
forcefully into another country based on the premise of weapons of mass
destruction: who are content with a terrorist free to terrorize again.
Who have seen a country
change its demeanor everytime yellow changes to orange and god forbid ever to
red.
EXAMPLE #2
I saw the best minds of my
generation wallowing in huge piles of garbage
Who drive gas hog SUVs to
McDonald’s, crying, “Fries with that?”
I saw the best minds of my
generation drowning in debt—for here today, gone tomorrow material items.
I the grocery they buy their
peanut butter tubes, Gogurts, individual pudding and Jello, chip grab bags,
tuna salad sacks.
Drivng down the road in their
SUV’s talking on their camera color picture cell phone, eating their instant
microwaveable foods and pulling into Starbucks
Waiting in line in the drive
through for $4 cup of double shot double mocha latte,
Wondering what is on sale at
the Bon that they can charge to their plastic.
I saw the best minds of my
generation contemplating bankruptcy or worse yet
Thinking of whether they can
charge the bankruptcy fee, but then Scott Peterson comes to mind.
I saw the best minds of my
generation taking new medications.
Who turn on their TV’s to
hear of the latest medicines they have to have
Who cares what the side
effects are as long as we receive satisfaction.
I saw the best minds of my
generation getting shipped home in a box with nothing but a flag to show
Who and what are they
fighting for?Does anyone really know?
I saw the best minds of my
generation wasting away their time,
Who seeking redemption from
their daily .lives gazing into the world-wide web
Who go to Ebay to buy more
material possessions and charge them on the web, to their credit cards.
Who can gamble away their
home on web casinos.
We pull out our electric
toothbrush and leave the water running.All the lights are on in the house.There are phones and TV’s left on in every room.
The cable, electric, water,
cell phone, credit card, mortgage, car, mechanic, hair dresser, computer,
insurance, pharmacist, doctor, dentist, and tax bills are all laying on the
floor.
EXAMPLE #3:
I saw the best minds of my
generation stuck in school on the East Coast
Who drive beat-up cars down
jam-packed streets craved pizza and luke-warm beer
Medical minds of the
fast-food joint
Who escape the pressures of
school by their pilgrimage to the bar
Who then meet what’s her name
from out of state-single-one night stand
Who are at the financial
burden of their parents, waste away in a one room dorm.
I saw the best minds of my
generation contemplating quitting school, in the quietness of the school
library
Who have no fear of never
meeting their parents expectations and successful 6-digit salary
Who chanting basketball lingo
and obscenities found that Jordan
was God.
Who then later, after
burn-out of college ways, ventured pilgrimage to the dean’s list.
And, after 3 years achieved
the process of mental maturity, returned to the library
I saw the best minds of my
generation, standing at the podium,
Pharmaceutical supplier of
many lethal campaigns
Whose dependency and dazed
character worshipped the pills in which they consume
Who on a cold-sweaty night
lay shivering from their last fix
Who turn in every direction
to pay for their addiction
I saw the best minds of my
generation perfecting deceit
Who then stare their parents
in the face tangled in a web of lies
Who lost and lonely gaze at
the walls of a rehab center
I saw the best minds of my generation
replaying life of an addict in his mind.
Clean cut members of the Taco
Time franchise
Who maxed out credit and on
his own tremored in his on reality
Who on the anniversary of
graduation got stuck in the library with someone in his shoes yelling nonsense.
EXAMPLE #3
I see the best minds of my
generation becoming incredibly shifty.
Department of Corrections
reports high population of child sex offenders
The priests, the pope, the
hooker, the hoodlum, the mechanic, my friend all out 4 money
I see the bestminds of my generation sucking dick.
Same sex marriage, Girls
wanting foursomes in the bar. Exstasy and meth strange sex. Who’s next what’s next
In the paper yesterday an
article on rampant child porn increasing among teacher’s computers.
I see the best minds of my
generation chasing self-gratification in an existential nature
Who was the good Samaritan?
Where does he live so we can
take his life
Steal his wife while he sits
humbly at the table.
Girls Gone Wild, kids going
wild, Government out of control.
If it makes you feel good, do
it. God won’t care, doesn’t care about the end is nothingness.
Jealousy, Envy, Strive are
consequence, $3.00 cup of Starbucks coffee and gas at $2 a gallon
Greedy minds and greedy times
in the season of giving.
Happy
minds and good times drunk from a bottle mixed with green leaf trees in ziplock
baggies…
EXAMPLE #4:
I saw the best minds of my
generation burdened by a state school board’s manipulations
Who willingly purchase
parking permits only to end up parking with the dead
Who are forced to purchase
books at unrealistically inflated prices
Whose dorm inhabitants are
wrenched with the smell of sweaty gym socks, jock straps, and mold
Who eat pizza drenched with
government cheese which is as touch as the cardboard crust after sitting under
a heat lamp since last semester
Who share their higher
education double latte with the caffeine addicted squirrels
Who are shuffled through the
system by an uninformed staff of advisors
Who struggle with intro
classes while breezing through 200’s
I saw the best minds of my
generation stimulated intellectually despite the downfalls of the institution
Who are packed into a
desk/chair donated by the recently condemned elementary school
Who are at the mercy of the
corrupt financial aid department hovering over its weak victims
I saw the best minds of my
generation climbing trees to get their morning fix from the thieving squirrels
I saw the best minds of my
generation contemplating transfer to the U of I.
Wilding away endless hours of
mind numbing violence transfixed upon the gory images of Halo
Who are satisfied with
mediocrity working dead end jobs coming home to their bongs in order to pass
away valuable hours, hours that should have been spent rearing their children
in a more positive light.
Whose ears are permanently
attached to cell phones, selfishly risking the lives of others while recklessly
weaving in and out of rush our traffic
I saw the best minds of my
generation trap themselves into credit debt because of their materialistic
necessities, a brand new Saab and pimped out to the max
Who lack respect for all
other life forms but themselves, loud thumping music that vibrates the streets,
screeching tires, flicking pierced tongues at the elderly, but we can because
we are generation X
Who take the lives of others
while still children themselves
Who strip the innocence of
young children while entertaining their demented thoughts only to be slapped on
the wrist after having shattered irreplaceable lives.
I saw the best minds of my
generation who take free handouts from the government in order to sustain their
own slothful laziness, more children = more money
Whose raising their children
or lack thereof is inevitably leading to the irreversible downfall of our
society
Whose personal freedoms are
being stripped by the assholes that govern us
Who search for short cuts and
half ass getting GED’s being satisfied with their pathetic minimum wage only to
return to mommy and daddy while pushing the age of 30
Who prefer to live their
lives watching others on reality series as if our own lives aren’t real enough,
is it necessary to gain personal enjoyment off other drama?
I saw the best mind of our
generations heavily self medicate in order to take away their problem or ease
their pain.
Who destroy themselves
mentally and physically to gain what society views as the perfect image, the
Barbie doll image
Britney Spears, Christina
Aguilera, and who can forget Mary Kate Olsen
Who tear down others to make
themselves feel better to make up for their own insecurities because we are
afraid of that which is different
Who artificially enhance
their bodies in order to satisfy the absurd opinions of others as to what is
acceptable, extreme makeovers
Who are more concerned with
what’s on the outside than what is in the inside
Who live by the motto party
today for tomorrow we shall die, sex, drugs, and rock and roll
Who run away from life and
their problems not considering the
future at hand
I saw the best minds of my
generation fall apart, giving up on life, all of this without a care
Who knowingly transmit STD’s
without the thought of any others in mind, thus ultimately committing murder
I saw the best minds of my
generation crumble under the constant pressures of everyday life.
In some of the poems you've been exposed to thus far, meter and rhythm are the driving force of the poem. Imagist poets shifted attention from meter and rhythm to the power of the image. Image-driven poetry began with the Imagism movement in the early twentieth century. The movement began with poets such as Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) and eventually dovetailed into the Modernist movement as exemplified by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, for which Ezra Pound was the editor. There are three basic rules that the imagists followed:
Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective.
To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.
Ezra Pound’s most famous application of this concept was the poem: In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. The concept, as exemplified in Metro, was to reduce a poem down to its most essential images, leaving out all the chaff that traditional poetry, especially iambic pentameter, seems so prone to. This does not mean that most poems should only be two lines, but rather that poetry should not waste time or space.
The Imagist and Modernist movements led to today’s widespread use of free verse rather than meter and rhyme. While the Imagist movement itself was fairly short-lived and not widely embraced (Wallace Stevens famously commented that “Not all objects are equal. The vice of imagism was that it did not recognize this”) it opened up the possibilities of poetry and influenced future movements such as the Objectivists and the Beats.
Assignment: Write a poem that follows the three rules of the imagists. I know you all are probably tired from your sestina work, so feel free to work within the tiny constraints of the Pound poem:
1.) Title should suggest the place or thing on which your meditating. 2.) The first line should concentrate on one portion of the whole thing you've identified in your title. 3.) The second line should compare that portion of the whole thing you've identified in your tile with something else. The comparison should be figurative rather than literal, and you should use a metaphor.
Key words in describing a sestina are "obsession," "repetition," and "complexity." The poetry form is attributed to Arnaut Daniel, the Provencal troubadour of the twelfth century. The name "troubadour" likely comes from trobar, which means "to invent or compose verse." The troubadours sang their verses accompanied by music and were quite competitive, each trying to top the next in wit, as well as complexity and difficulty of style. Troubadours often wrote poems about courtly love. Later, the sestina migrated to Italy, whereDanteandPetrarchpracticed the form with great reverence for Daniel, who, as Petrarch said, was "the first among all others, great master of love."
ASSIGNMENT CHOICE #1: Write a poem consisting of 39 lines. Those 39 lines should be broken up into 6 (SIX) stanzas and a 3-line envoi. The end-words of the first stanza through get repeated in different patterns throughout the next 5 stanzas and the three-line envoi. The form is as follows, where each numeral indicates the stanza position and the letters represent end-words:
The envoi, sometimes known as the tornada, must also include the remaining three end-words, BDF, in the course of the three lines so that all six recurring words appear in the final three lines. In place of a rhyme scheme, the sestina relies on end-word repetition to effect a sort of rhyme.
STEP 1: It might help to preselect the 6 words that you'd like to be emphasizing in various patterns at the end of your 39 lines. Most of the time, you want those to be nouns or verbs. Some poets find it helpful to choose words that are HOMOGRAPHS - words that have the same spelling but are pronounced differently and have different meanings. This allows a poet to use the same word but to extract multiple meanings from that word. You'll find a link to some examples of homographs:HERE
STEP 2: Once you've selected the 6 words, you might want to use the Sestina Generator website. Plug in your 6 words, and the sestina generator will do all the work for you of showing you how the end of each of your stanzas will look. You can find the sestina generator at: http://dilute.net/sestinas/
STEP 3: To get a feel for the form, read some examples of sestinas. Ezra Pound and John Ashbery were poets who took on the form. See Pound's "Sestina: Altaforte."Pound chose: "peace," "music," "clash," "opposing," "crimson," and "rejoicing." The words, while general enough to lend themselves to multiple meanings, are common enough that they also present Pound with the difficult task of making every instance fresh. Here are the first two stanzas (after a prefatory stanza which sets the scene):
I Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace. You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let's to music! I have no life save when the swords clash. But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson, Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.
II In hot summer have I great rejoicing When the tempests kill the earth's foul peace, And the lightnings from black heav'n flash crimson, And the fierce thunders roar me their music And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing, And through all the riven skies God's swords clash.
STEP 4: Publish the sestina to your blog and give it the following title: Sestina
ASSIGNMENT CHOICE #2: Thirteen Sets of Eyes
Write an imitation of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," which is an exercise on perspectivism. The poetic exercise is related to philosophical nominalism. Basically, we can grasp the whole world by concentrating on each of its facets--just like we can appreciate a diamond more when we're noticing the qualities that each of its facets brings to the whole gemstone. The poem takes its cue from haiku. Check your textbook from a brief lesson on haiku and examples. The poem also has links toimagismandcubism.
In this poem, sight is the dominant perceiving. Each stanza is almost cinematic, as though a camera focuses on a mountain panorama and then zooms in to the blackbird. Each stanza zooms in on an element of the blackbird that we might not have noticed in any of the other camera shots.
You can find imitations and parodies of the famous poem all over the internet. The subject matter of the imitations includes but is not limited to M & M candies, burritos, tortillas, Pringles, trees, etc. You might check out the following imitations:
