![Picture](/uploads/3/7/9/0/37903231/4079666.png)
Goal for the day: To understand the importance of the five senses to creating powerful images
Welcome back from the long weekend! This week we’re starting the second part of the course, which focuses on specific elements of craft. First up are images.
Images are the root magic of creative writing. If words are atoms, images are the molecules they create. (Sentences in creative writing are the way we parcel out words; what we care about are images.)
For images to have impact, they have to activate emotion. But how do you do this in your writing? This has to do with details, specifically details about the five senses. This is where we’ll start today using Kim Stafford’s The Barn and the Bees as an example. We’ll spend a bit of time with this essay, so I encourage you to mark it up.
Kim knows wood and barns and bees. But you’re experts on things too. We’ll spend the last part of class plumbing the depths of your own expertise for the sense details that are in your bones but that might not have crested the waves of your consciousness.
Assignment for Tuesday, September 3rd
You’ll do a short word association exercise to bring into class. Most of your out-of-class time this week should be spent on the description of life moment that’s due on Friday.
Welcome back from the long weekend! This week we’re starting the second part of the course, which focuses on specific elements of craft. First up are images.
Images are the root magic of creative writing. If words are atoms, images are the molecules they create. (Sentences in creative writing are the way we parcel out words; what we care about are images.)
For images to have impact, they have to activate emotion. But how do you do this in your writing? This has to do with details, specifically details about the five senses. This is where we’ll start today using Kim Stafford’s The Barn and the Bees as an example. We’ll spend a bit of time with this essay, so I encourage you to mark it up.
Kim knows wood and barns and bees. But you’re experts on things too. We’ll spend the last part of class plumbing the depths of your own expertise for the sense details that are in your bones but that might not have crested the waves of your consciousness.
Assignment for Tuesday, September 3rd
You’ll do a short word association exercise to bring into class. Most of your out-of-class time this week should be spent on the description of life moment that’s due on Friday.