Humainologie creative dialogue on characters and opening paragraphs tonight Wednesday September 29

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” - Helen Keller

Please bring pen and paper to the creative festivities this evening. A good bit of the evening will be a collaborative story writing exercise. Even that part (part three) will be much more productive if you can do some advance preparation, so please read carefully what follows here.

In part one, each participant will have a chance to share their characters and their opening paragraphs:

1. Create the main character and at least two additional characters for your story.

2. Write the opening paragraph of your story.

Depending on how many contributions we have, that part might take anywhere from twenty to forty-five minutes.

In part two, I’ll ask you which of those opening paragraphs by other authors made you most interested in reading the rest of the story. I’ve appended them again herewith, along with “A Happening.”

In part three of the evening, we’ll collaborate in creating at least three good characters for a story; then use those characters to come up with a quick sketch of a story idea; and then each of you will have a few minutes to use that collaboratively created material for writing an opening paragraph, which you can read to us at check-out.

First, I’ll ask each of you to take a few minutes to write down the details of at least one good character. Is the character an optimist or a pessimist? Are they similar to a character from one of your favorite movies, only different? What unusual strength do they have? What is their Achilles heel? What need or passion or goal do they have that drives them forward? What remorse or regret do they have that pulls them backward into their past? We’ll probably limit this part to about five minutes, so as with all parts of this evening’s activities, it’s best if you do some advance preparation.

Once we’ve heard the characters you’ve created, we’ll brainstorm and improvise the shape of a story, mindful of Kurt Vonnegut’s suggestions.

In the concluding part of the evening, we’ll each write an opening paragraph for the story, using the collaboratively created ideas. Using all you’ve heard and any of the characters contributed by the participants, you’ll have about ten minutes to write the opening paragraph of a story. Try to write it so that your readers / listeners will want to know what happens next. At our check-out, we’ll each have opportunity to read what we’ve written.

Here is the Zoom link for this evening provided by Shinobu:

Topic: Humainologie creative dialogue Time: Sep 29, 2021 06:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada) Every week on Wed, until Oct 27, 2021, 8 occurrence(s) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83728528644?pwd=VmxxbDRSdHoxbU1Jam5rYnlPbnB0UT09 Meeting ID: 837 2852 8644 Passcode: 12345

The game starts at 6:30 PM.

Come on, play!

Arthur

Opening Paragraphs and a happening

It was late and everyone had left the café except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference. The two waiters inside the café knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him. – Ernest Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”

On the drive over to the Nicholsons’ for dinner - their first in some time – Marjorie Reeves told her husband, Steven Reeves, that she had had an affair with George Nicholson (their host) a year ago, but that it was all over with now and she hoped he – Steven – would not be mad about it and could go on with life. - Richard Ford, “Under the Radar”

Downstairs, Meatball Mulligan’s lease-breaking party was moving into its 40th hour. On the kitchen floor, amid a litter of empty champagne fifths, were Sandor Rojas and three friends, playing spit in the ocean and staying awake on Heidseck and benzedrine pills. In the living room Duke, Vincent, Krinkles and Paco sat crouched over a 15-inch speaker which had been bolted into the top of a wastepaper basket, listening to 27 watts’ worth of The Heroes’ Gate at Kiev. They all wore hornrimmed sunglasses and rapt expressions, and smoked funny-looking cigarettes which contained not, as you might expect, tobacco, but an adulterated form of cannabis sativa. This group was the Duke di Angelis quartet. They recorded for a local label called Tambú and had to their credit one 10″ LP entitled Songs of Outer Space. From time to time one of them would flick the ashes from his cigarette into the speaker cone to watch them dance around. Meatball himself was sleeping over by the window, holding an empty magnum to his chest as if it were a teddy bear. Several government girls, who worked for people like the State Department and NSA, had passed out on couches, chairs and in one case the bathroom sink. – Thomas Pynchon, “Entropy”

Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing. – Donald Barthelme, “The School”

a happening

he was always a first-rate jock,

I’ve watched him ride for many years,

on many an afternoon at Del Mar, Hollywood Park,

Santa Anita.

early this year

his wife committed a terrible

suicide.

those who knew him well said that

he would never ride

again.

and he didn’t ride for a

while.

then one afternoon he

accepted a mount

and as the horses came out

for the post

parade

and he rode into

view

the applause

began – a gentle

steady applause – it

continued for many

minutes

and many a sentimental

horseplayer

had to

turn away

to hide the

tears.

then

in that race

he came driving

down the stretch

just to miss

at the photo finish.

all he said later to the

reporters was: “it seems so

strange to come home and

not find her

there.”

since then

he has been riding

with a style and an

abandon that is

unbelievable:

driving through small gaps

between horses

or dangerously along the

rail.

he is now

the leading jock

and

he continues to

win.

people have not seen

such riding in

decades.

he’s the tiger in the

sun.

he’s each one of us

alone

forever

fiercely ignoring

the

pain.

- Charles Bukowski