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2 - A writing lesson: the three flat tyres and the outer story

from PART I - GENRES AND TYPES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2012

By
Ron Carlson
Edited by
David Morley  and
Philip Neilsen
David Morley
Affiliation:
Warwick University
Philip Neilsen
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology
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Summary

This is not an essay for readers, but rather a lesson for writers. I want to speak to the artist first and the reader second by having us write a short short story as an exercise in examining the way writing can lead the discovery process. Our model is not going to be: knowing the story first and then writing it, but rather: writing to find the story. Along the way, we will write four additional brief practice exercises which illuminate various elements of a story. I know this is a brisk introduction, but we can talk later. Let's get started.

Get into the room alone and open a blank page.

Do it now.

Rather than studying the big book of swimming, we will swim.

Here is the exercise: The Flat Tyre.

We will write a short story of three to five pages (about 600 to 1,000 words) typed, double spaced.

Two people are in an automobile driving along a country road. (They can be any relationship: a married couple, brother and sister, father daughter, mother son, co-workers, strangers, etc.) In the first paragraph, first sentence if possible, they should become aware that they have a flat tyre. In the story, they will do their best to change the tyre. The story should be the process of them changing or trying to change the tyre.

The challenge being issued to us is to use the physical process and world of the outer story (plot/motor) to discover the inner story (character/freight). We don’t know the characters, we only know we have a flat tyre and we will use that problem to find our way towards what we do not know. (There are three examples included below.)

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing , pp. 9 - 23
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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