Lessons
Class Introduction: What Happens When We Keep Secrets?
07:04 2Name Your Obsessions
06:57 3Stick to Your Story
10:36 4Identify Your Journey
01:31 5What's the Worst That Can Happen?
06:23 6Descriptive Versus Interpretive Language
10:43 7Diagramming the Sentence
09:16 8Dialogue and Rhythm
08:59Lesson Info
Building the Arc
every sentence is its own little story. And ideally, there is drama in every single sentence on git has a motion, It has a shape, and the shape to me feels like this. It's building. It doesn't necessarily go down the way and ending does musical. I'm sure there are musical connections here, but it definitely goes up. The jury foreman unfolded the paper and said, We find the defendant guilty in a voice that was hard to hear, which may have been because she had a cold. Where is the big idea? What I call the power word in that sentence. Where's the big idea? Who knows? Unfolded the paper. Really? I'm going to ask for another suggestion. Guilty. The word guilty. The big news is guilty. Where is it located? Smack dab in the middle, embedded. And then we go on to the voice and the health of the jury. Foreman, if you've got a moment when a defendant is named guilty, put that at the end and maybe you have the cold. You might not even you might lose the cold, But, um uh, the voice of the jury fo...
reman was hard to hear. Is she under she unfolded the paper and said, We find the defendant guilty. He told me he liked my hair and my long legs and the gap between my teeth and my eyes off this list of details. And this has to do with lists of details in general, which is the one that stands out for you. The most interesting of this person's traits. The gap between my teeth. Naturally, the others pale by comparison. And with the gap, he told me, like my hair, my long legs, my eyes and the gap between my teeth feel the difference. Every sentence. There are always exceptions, but as a rule, let your sentences end on the power word. Let your paragraph end on the power sentence. Let your chapter and on the power paragraph and let your book end. Very powerful. E. I have to confess, Aziz, I say this that the the youngest of my sons said to me one day when he was a teenager. Do you know that every time you walk out of the room, you you as you're leaving you you close with a singer, I realized, okay, I maybe took that too far. There was a Tiffany style lamp on gold patterned wallpaper and stuffed heads of endangered species of animals covering the walls from his various trips to Africa with his uncle Billy, who used to work on Wall Street. What are you most interested in in this sentence? Yes, endangered stuffed heads of endangered species of animals in the middle.
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Ratings and Reviews
Robert Ellis
A wonderful introduction to writing memoir. Practical, moving, and wise. Joyce is an inspiration. I will definitely take the full course. Highly recommend.