Niki Bippen

Learning the Ropes

There has been a lot that I have learned about the fiction genre from this course. From workshops to readings, my knowledge of the subject has vastly improved. However, there was a handful of advice and suggestions that impacted me the most.  The seven deadly sins and authenticity of personal experience from the readings, various workshops/discussions, and of course how these effected my writing are what I will ultimately carry from this class and apply time after time.

            Although Minot certainly rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning, I learned that there is an essence of truth in what he writes.  His suggestions are to be taken with a grain of salt and for the most part are nothing more than bias and babble.  However, if you should stick it out and continue through, you will find helpful advice.  For me, this came in the form of the seven deadly sins and authenticity of personal experience.

            Minot lists the seven deadly sins "not to discourage invention but to save you from spending valuable time on a story idea that may well be doomed from the start."  He lists them as the high-tech melodrama, the adolescent tragedy, the twilight zone rerun, vampires resurrected, the baby-boomer gone wrong, the temptations of Ernest Goodwriter, and my weird dream.  All of these share the same common ground: they are hackneyed and have been used for way too long. Minot is simply cautioning us as writers away from these.

            As an example, he elaborates on the twilight zone rerun. These types "usually depend on a gimmick... [Something] that surprises and entertains." He points out that the gimmick has become easily guessed and lackluster. He then demonstrates this with a scene in which "a nearsighted book lover who is the sole survivor... discovers an undamaged library for his private use.  When he reaches for a treasured book, he - you guessed it- drops and breaks his glasses." Point and case as far as Minot is concerned.

            What Minot does encourage is authenticity of personal experience.  For me at least, this was something new.  I had been taught to stay away from the use of personal experience in my creative fiction writing.  However, as Minot points out, it makes the story much more personal and relatable.  Like before, he warns against letting these experiences become hackneyed in our work. 

            He suggests taking people and events from our lives and transforming them.  You can alter them by "chang[ing] the physical appearance of their fictional counterparts" or even "fus[ing] two people you know into a single fictional character." This, again, helps the reader to better relate to the story because there is some truth to the characters/events. Using events and characters already in existence with some modifications will also help keep the story down to Earth and prevent it from going too far into left field.

            What helped me more than anything was the workshops and class discussions. Although I did not have a fiction piece that was work shopped, I paid attention to the advice and suggestions given to other writers.  I specifically paid attention to what appealed to everyone and also how much was too much profanity.

            For the most part, cursing in the stories did not bother anyone. There was an instance where Alicia did announce that one of the pieces had too much profanity in it.  She does not use profanity on a daily basis so each word stood out like a sore thumb to her.  I applied this to my own piece, tuning down the profanity.  In my opinion, there can be too much profanity though the rest of the class seemed okay with the piece and did not notice it for the most part.

            The manuscript, however, would still only appeal to a specific audience because of the profanity and I took this into consideration.  I want my piece to be one that is going to appeal to a wide variety of people and decided it is better to not take the risk. After all, the profanity is not a key element to the story in most cases and can be easily eliminated with no major harm done.

            What I also noted was what was funny and appealing to everyone.  For the most part, the class was very intrigued by the humorous pieces.  You could tell by a glance around the room when a humorous piece was being read that everyone was for the most part entertained.  However, some cheesy lines in the humorous pieces did get a shared sigh or rolling of the eyes.  As we grow older, we find the cliché remarks and not so witty comebacks obtrusive, specifically gimmick remarks.

            Something along the lines of throwing a DVD movie then quoting from that specific movie had everyone frustrated with one specific piece.  It is the easy route to go when writing for humor and definitely not the best one to go.  It may have worked when we were six, but certainly not now.

            In conclusion, I took Minot's advice of the seven deadly sins and authenticity of personal experience to heart and applied it to my own writing.  I learned that I am guilty of many of Minot's sins and had strayed away from personal experience because of what I have been taught.  Going back and revaluating my work and applying this has helped exponentially.  Paying attention to people's likes and dislikes in class as well as noting how much was too much has infinitely helped as well.