I have a one year old: Up at 5 am it is then!
I'm not going to lie - the course venue I am at isn't the greatest. The lesson plan went a bit off track today where two of us spent a good twenty minutes sorting out a sound issue with the computer. I feel a complaint coming on (I have become quite the Victor Meldrew). The course administrator had done a runner so with a bit of trial and error - that is pressing everything on the computer that looked remotely like a speaker - we were able to sit back and watch a movie. Ten minutes into Far from the Madding Crowd I'd forgotten I was in an advanced writing class and was engrossed. So I was dissapointment when the film was stopped - cue booing and popcorn throwing (just kidding, there was no popcorn!).
Here we looked at how the film makers picked up on Hardy's style of writing and character development. It was interesting just how much we learn about the two characters in just the first ten minutes. Having said that we are a writing class and not a film studies class so on with the writing I say!
We then compared the opening paragraphs of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd with Andrew's Marr's Children of the Master. Both writers give little snippets of character description rather than huge chunks. We are rewarded with little crumbs along the way.
Homework
- Read sections 2, 3 and 4 of Stephen King's 'On Writing'
- Review the Hodder and Stoughton website - if you like me decide to do this now, do so at you own risk. Somehow I found myself on facebook and then shopping for clothes.
- Review handouts on dialogue and psychology of character