“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when we grow up.” – Pablo Picasso

In John Dufresne’s book, “The Lie that Tells A Truth,” (a guide to writing fiction) Picasso’s quote introduces the introduction, and I couldn’t think of a move appropriate quote. As teachers it’s important to allow students to be able to express their inner artist throughout the years, and writing is a fantastic way to do so—especially fiction.

Dufresne’s book is broken up into three parts: “the process,” “the product,” and “other matters.”

The process is referring to generating the writing before we get to the product, and to generate the writing Dufresne offers some great techniques.

·         

•      Write, just write. Take a breath and don’t think about, let your mind be free to release the words you want to put on the page.
• ·         Write about a memory that each of these words trigger: window, flowers, photograph, classroom, rain, crayon, wedding, vacation, pet, fear.
• ·         “A careful first draft is a failed first draft.” – Patricia Hampl
• ·         “Writing is exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” – E.L. Doctorow
• ·         Close your eyes and write about where you want to be right now. Imagine yourself there and situate yourself in that place. “Look around. Listen, inhale the air. Begin to write down the details of this place…Memory is imagination” (Dufresne 67).

The product is writing the work.

·       

•            “Don’t introduce a story—jump in” (Dufresne 121).
• ·         Emergency Fiction: How to Begin ( Dufresene 129)

o   1. A story follows an active character through emotionally charged experiences which change him or her.

o   2. Put things you like in your story.

o   3. Put things which make you nervous in the story.

o   4. Create a character

o   5. Create a setting

o   6. Create a situation

o   7. Create a second character

o   8. Emotionally charge the situation

o   9. Emotionally charge the situation again

o   10.  Add a small surprise to make the world of the story as rich as the world the reader lives, while developing character and suggesting the mental state of the character

o   11. Add emphasize for what has just happened

o   12. Intensify the situation

o   13. Further intensify the situation

• ·         A Stranger Rides into Town (Dufresne 156)

o   Who are the significant strangers in your life? Think back to when they came “riding” into your life, how they came, why they stayed or why they eventually left.

Other Matters

• ·         Watch television and pick your favorite character from a series. Typically characters on a television series don’t change, but take your favorite and imagine a changing point in their life.
• ·         “A fiction writer has to read everything from Wittgenstein’s Blue and Brown Books to the backs of cereal boxes” (Dufresne 273).
• ·         “Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of changes, windows on the world, ‘lighthouses’ (as a poet said) ‘erected in the sea of time.’ They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.” – Barbara Tuchman