Last week in class we learned about abstraction and what power it has in our writing. When we first started the exercise I thought it was kind of silly. When it was over I looked back over what I had written down and Professor Quinlin was right. There is potential for a good poem just coming from the abstractions. I'm not really a good poet, but when I do write poetry I tend to write more from the heart and what I'm feeling at the time. I definitely never thought about picturing what I see in a word and what the next picture would be after it to come up with another word.
When we were discussing the first lines of stories or poems, I really understood everything that we were discussing. It's like writing a good paper for class. If the first line is complete crap no one is going to want to read it, but if the writer knows how to write an outstanding opening line, getting the audiences attention will be no problem. I've always tried to have one of those amazing first lines, but something always tends to go wrong with it. Most of the times its very cliche. I'm going to try and avoid that this semester.
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Blair,
I totally found that abstraction exercise completely confusing at first, but I do find it a bit useful to get the creative juices flowing.
On the other hand, it's probably a good exercise to use with your students (since you're teaching). I would use it in a different way..especially for the younger students.
Anyway, by doing this exercise it made me think of an awesome exercise to do with the younger students.
So here....
1. Pair students into groups of 4 or 5
2. Give each student a piece of lined paper
3. Have each student fold the paper acordian style into 4th
4. Have each student write an opening sentence to the story.
5. Pass the paper to the next student.
6. THe next student is to look at the sentence written and in the next folded section draw a picture of the sentence
7. Keep the original sentence folded back so that the next person only see's the picture and not the sentence prior
8. Based on the picture above have the next student write the sentence
Needless to say continue this process and in the end develop a funny, silly, and creative story.
I don't know my mind goes off to weird places, but I totally hear ya with this abstraction exercise.
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