School Lunches:
Why does she have entire chapter about "school lunches?" How could that possibly fit with writing?
"The contents of your lunch said whether or not you and your family were Okay. Some bag lunches were Okay, like some people, were Okay, and some weren't. There was a code, a right and acceptable way.
Something I realized from reading this chapter is that you can use basically anything as a prompt. Lamott likes school lunches, because it's a prompt that mirrors writing in and of itself in the sense that school lunches reflect our lives. In this quote she talks about how the lunches reflected the family. Maybe a piece of fried chicken and muffin were a sign of a good family (good people who cared) and a slice of bread with apricot jam (har, har) was a sign of neglect. This prompt of writing about your school lunches opened up a whole topic to write about that could be shaped to fit whatever.
Dialogue:
Describe some of the advice she gives about dialogue.
"Then when you're out in the world [...] and you hear people talking, you'll find yourself editing their dialogue, playing with it, seeing in your mind's eye what it would look like on the page. You'll listen to how people really talk, and then learn little by little to take someone's five-minute speech and make it one sentence without losing anything. If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days--listening, observing, storing things away, making your isolation pay off."
I loved this section about dialogue. I've heard this before with other authors and I discovered it's true. You want dialogue to be believable and have every word "spoken" to have significance. It's a lot like professional eves-dropping and a great way to characterize.
Set Design:
Why does she refer to setting as "set design?" What are the crucial elements of "set design?"
"[...] I'm working on a section of my of my book where we first meet a family of great wealth and breeding, and I was wondering if I could pick your brain about what sort of carpets and rugs and lighting and antiques they might have. For instance, let's start with the living room. Can you describe a really lovely living room in as much detail as possible?" And then you can ask what smells your friend remembers, in the living room and kitchen, and what the light was like, and what various rooms sounded like or what their silences felt like."
When she says "set design," she's referring to the type of environment the characters will be in. In terms of "crucial elements," I'm hearing a few things. I'm hearing that sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell are huge to set design. If writing about a chem lab, you want to know what all the five senses are going through. Does it smell like sulfur? Are there students or professionals - or empty? Are there bubbling noises, hissing noises, tapping noises, no noise?
So a "set design" for a zoo-keeper might be the zoo, smelling like manure and that special hot animal smell, sounds of chimpanzees and loud squawks, taste salt water from sweat or bitter from dirt, sticky skin, etc.
Why does she have entire chapter about "school lunches?" How could that possibly fit with writing?
"The contents of your lunch said whether or not you and your family were Okay. Some bag lunches were Okay, like some people, were Okay, and some weren't. There was a code, a right and acceptable way.
Something I realized from reading this chapter is that you can use basically anything as a prompt. Lamott likes school lunches, because it's a prompt that mirrors writing in and of itself in the sense that school lunches reflect our lives. In this quote she talks about how the lunches reflected the family. Maybe a piece of fried chicken and muffin were a sign of a good family (good people who cared) and a slice of bread with apricot jam (har, har) was a sign of neglect. This prompt of writing about your school lunches opened up a whole topic to write about that could be shaped to fit whatever.
Dialogue:
Describe some of the advice she gives about dialogue.
"Then when you're out in the world [...] and you hear people talking, you'll find yourself editing their dialogue, playing with it, seeing in your mind's eye what it would look like on the page. You'll listen to how people really talk, and then learn little by little to take someone's five-minute speech and make it one sentence without losing anything. If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days--listening, observing, storing things away, making your isolation pay off."
I loved this section about dialogue. I've heard this before with other authors and I discovered it's true. You want dialogue to be believable and have every word "spoken" to have significance. It's a lot like professional eves-dropping and a great way to characterize.
Set Design:
Why does she refer to setting as "set design?" What are the crucial elements of "set design?"
"[...] I'm working on a section of my of my book where we first meet a family of great wealth and breeding, and I was wondering if I could pick your brain about what sort of carpets and rugs and lighting and antiques they might have. For instance, let's start with the living room. Can you describe a really lovely living room in as much detail as possible?" And then you can ask what smells your friend remembers, in the living room and kitchen, and what the light was like, and what various rooms sounded like or what their silences felt like."
When she says "set design," she's referring to the type of environment the characters will be in. In terms of "crucial elements," I'm hearing a few things. I'm hearing that sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell are huge to set design. If writing about a chem lab, you want to know what all the five senses are going through. Does it smell like sulfur? Are there students or professionals - or empty? Are there bubbling noises, hissing noises, tapping noises, no noise?
So a "set design" for a zoo-keeper might be the zoo, smelling like manure and that special hot animal smell, sounds of chimpanzees and loud squawks, taste salt water from sweat or bitter from dirt, sticky skin, etc.
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