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Fans of the Peanuts comic strip may also remember Snoopy beginning his novel again and again, always starting with the line 'It was a dark and stormy night' ... In fact, since 1982, San Jose State University has run a writing contest inspired by 'It was a dark and stormy night' ... Charles Dickens opens stave one of A Christmas Carol with 'Once upon a time' ... Similarly, James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man begins: 'Once u..
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Christopher Beha |
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There's an exercise I'll do sometimes with a class in which we'll start with a word; I'll give everyone a word, and they'll write based on that word, and as they're writing I'll interrupt often and tell them to write more on the setting they're developing. I'll stop the process again and give intrusive instructions about developing the character in the setting, and on and on. The purpose of this is to allow the development of the fruit that..
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Christopher Beha |
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A few years ago, I listened to a rabbi give a talk and she was explaining what a blessing is. It is a naming of something, she said. What you are blessing already has to be latent in the person, otherwise it doesn't mean anything. But if it is (latent), and you bless what hasn't yet come forth - the fruit - it is a very powerful action. Think of your writing as bestowing a blessing. I'll leave you with that. (Aimee Bender, "On the Making of..
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Christopher Beha |
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We weep for characters, and then we go brush our teeth and have to face the fact that the world is warming at such a rapid pace that a terrifying number of amphibians are vanishing every month. And so through plays, through soccer games, through novels, through movies, through video games, through political elections - through story - we rehearse feelings we might eventually need in our own lives. ... Through drama, in the moments of greate..
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Christopher Beha |