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Stanzas To Stories

BORROWING FROM POETS TO WRITE BETTER EVERYTHING

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BILL GILLARD�TOM CANON

  • Goal-
  • to use the concepts of poetry to make prose writing resonate with readers.
  • Encourage writers to experiment with poetry.

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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SURPRISE- VOLTA�

Surprise in poetry is the use of unexpected shifts, imagery, or structural turns

—breaking conventions through off-rhymes, strange ideas, or sudden thematic reversals.

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PROSE & POETRY

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SURPRISE- VOLTA��

1)

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

2)

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

3)

today she met me at the door�Said I would have to choose�If I hit that fishing hole today�She'd be packing all her things�And she'd be gone by noon��[Chorus]�Well, I'm gonna miss her�When I get home

-Brad Paisley

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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SURPRISE- VOLTA�

Strive for the unexpected in prose as well.

  • In the Movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Gilbert is sacrificing his life for his special needs brother. He says you never hurt Arnie. And then he does

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  • In the TV Show, Serenity, Malcolm Reynold’s flips a action trope on its head, when he says to his first officer,

"Zoe, ship is yours. Remember, if anything happens to me, or you don't hear from me within the hour... you take this ship and you come and you rescue me.“

Orr in Catch-22.

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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  • Exercise 1: Write a scene about someone who has lost someone and is looking out the window. Do not use any form of the verb "to be" (is, was, were). This forces more active, concrete, and poetic choices.

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  • Exercise 1:
  • Step 1Write a scene about someone who has lost someone and is looking out the window. Do not use any form of the verb "to be" (is, was, were). This forces more active, concrete, and poetic choices.
  • Step 2 put something out the window, or in the room that stands for how they are feeling.

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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  • Exercise 1:
  • Step 1 Write a scene about someone who has lost someone and is looking out the window. Do not use any form of the verb "to be" (is, was, were). This forces more active, concrete, and poetic choices.
  • Step 2 put something out the window, or in the room that stands for how they are feeling.
  • Step 3 Now have them do something totally unexpected.
  • Step 4 Answer why they did that.

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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SURPRISE- VOLTA�

Donald Maas has an exercise where you insert at least three times in your manuscript a scene where your main character

-Does something she would never do

-Say something she would never say

-Thinks something she would never think

 

The result most likely will actually deepen their character. This will surprise your reader, and your creativity will come up with a reason why this happens. And deepen the character, the stakes, and the conflict.

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IMAGERY

  • Imagery makes readers feel like they’re inside it.
  • Imagery can establish that mood faster than exposition
    • “The room was quiet” vs.“Silence clung to the walls, broken only by the slow, deliberate ticking of the grandfather clock.” One tells, the other sets a tone.
  • Sensory detail can show emotion without a single “she felt.”

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IMAGERY

  • Include all senses
  • Use specific nouns and active verbs more than adjectives. Avoid adverbs.
  • Use Metaphors and Similes Strategically Make them organic to avoid the cliché.

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IMAGERY

  • A well-placed image can deepen theme, reveal character, or shift the mood of an entire scene. In a novel's architecture, imagery is the stained glass that lets the light through in color.
  • https://livinghappy.substack.com/p/how-to-use-imagery-to-strengthen

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Do you think classical literature �has an important place in today’s education system?

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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REPETITION

Essential part of poetry

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright"

“And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.”

Why?

To say this is the important part here. To emphaze and intensify emotions.

create layers of meaning. Reveal slowly the true significance of something.

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COGNITIVE EASE: OUR BRAINS RECOGNIZE PATTERNS INSTANTLY.

REPETITION REDUCES THE "WORK" A READER HAS TO DO TO FOLLOW YOUR LOGIC.

EMPHASIS: IT ACTS LIKE BOLD TEXT WITHOUT USING FORMATTING.

RHYTHM: IT MOVES PROSE AWAY FROM "INFORMATION DELIVERY" AND TOWARD "MUSIC.

CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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REPETITION

Essential part of poetry

Tyger Tyger, burning bright"

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Why?

To say this is the important part here.

To intensify emotions.

create layers of meaning. Reveal slowly the true significance of something.

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WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Do you think classical literature �has an important place in today’s education system?

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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REPETITION

  • Anadiplosis�The last word of a clause or sentence is repeated as the first word of the next one.
  • Example: "Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hatred; hatred leads to conflict; conflict leads to suffering." — Yoda, in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

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WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Do you think classical literature �has an important place in today’s education system?

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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REPETITION

Lieutenant Orr in Catch-22

From a Donald Maas exercise:

Find a prominent object, event or action that appears in your story. How can that thing you choose recur in your ending? Put it in your ending. Find three other times for it to be in the story.

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WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Do you think classical literature �has an important place in today’s education system?

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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THE POET FRAMES

John Keats tells us. A good poem also often has two subjects. The first is the scene or the image that triggers the poet to put pen to paper.

Then, in editing, the second subject is discovered. The more surprising and unique our reaction is to the first subject is, the better the poem.

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WHOSE EYES

Poetry- The author is the lens

Prose- Readers see the world you create through the lens of the POV characters.

Donald Mass in  The Fire in Fiction

  • The trick is not to find a fresh setting or a unique way to portray a familiar place; rather, it is to discover in your setting what is unique for your characters, if not for you.
  • Poetry- This image makes me feel…….
  • Prose-This image makes the character feel……… the imagery is the important thing to capture

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SETTING/ PLACE

Prose- write about how the place affects the character.. Have the setting mirror the character's values, perceptions, and emotions

  • Creates mood
  • It shows, not tells who the character is
  • How the character interacts with the setting shows change.

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SETTING IS THE FILTER ON THE MC

Maas- having a character return to a setting can show how they have changed

(think Wizard of Oz- Dorothy initial beliefs about the farm and then

her return.)

Poetry- Everything has been described in a poem. The subject becomes unique and vivid through the poet’s eyes

Prose “A place lives most vividly through the eyes of characters.” Donald Maas

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ADDITIONAL ADVICE

  • Like testing the rhythm and musicality of a poem, you should also read your fiction aloud. Make it part of your editing process. I read somewhere suggesting that you get someone else to read it to you. I have Microsoft word. Nobody loves me enough to read a whole novel to me.
  • Fiction and Poetry both benefit from techniques, but you must beware that they do not draw too much attention to them and not the story.

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WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Do you think classical literature �has an important place in today’s education system?

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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WHAT IS POETRY

  • Using language to evoke strong emotions
  • Leaves out information and details to facilitate the reader to complete the poem through their own experiences, emotions, and imagination. 
  • Often embraces negative capability.

This is where a poet embraces ambiguity. Instead, they focus on creating mood and sensory experiences.

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"Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know“- John Keats

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WHAT IS PROSE?

  • Prose answers a question. Either
    • What happen?
    • What would happen if-
    • Longer works to explore the how or whys behind the events, guiding the reader to a specific answer.

CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-repetition-in-poetry-definition/

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Prose tells a story. It is giving an answer.

Poetry asks a question

CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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PROSE MORE LOGICAL THAN REAL LIFE

Don’t want the reader asking

What is happening?

Why would that character do that?

Would those characters really do that?

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YET..

A prose writer can only show and tell what is absolutely necessary while leaving the readers satisfied.

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YET..

The author can and maybe should leave the reader asking,

Is the hero good?

Was she justified?

Even- Did the protagonist succeed or fail?

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NEGATIVE CAPABILITY

A poet embraces ambiguity and instead creates mood and sensory experiences. It focuses on the emotional. And emotions are a person’s truth and not the truth.

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A Poet embraces not knowing

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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NEGATIVE CAPABILITY

 “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”

John Keats

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CLASSICAL LITERATURE

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ICEBERG THEORY� (HEMINGWAY’S)

What is written in the story is only the tip of what is going on. Meaning and themes are left implied.

Like poetry, the goal is to leave enough space to bring the readers story to it.

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SPECIFIC TECHNIQUES OF POETRY

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Exercise 2

  • - Write a noun on a piece of paper. Write a emotion on another piece of paper. Now switch . Put the nouns in one basket and the verbs in another basket. Each take one of each at random. How is that object like that emotion?

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SOURCES

WEBSITES

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TEXTS

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  • Donald Maas-
  • How to Write the Breakout Novel
  • The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great
  • John Keats, the "Negative Capability" Letter

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