Some thoughts on internalized monologues...

Nice work with exercise number three. I thought everybody did a fine job of staying in the interior of the character while maintaining the simple, visual aspects of good storytelling. I found myself thinking that these would make good full stories with some development. I did find myself wanting even a little more visual data (the television news images in Doug's piece, the Jay Leno stuff in Lance's, the salamander in Jess's, the image of the cold coffee pot in Wendy's). It strikes me that these kind of interior views might be even more reliant on detail than other forms of storytelling. Something to think about... After break I may ask each person in the class to pick other person and post about their blog entries so far--not so much a critique, as that's something that happens in other classes, but a couple of questions or observations raised by the blog entries so far. Or maybe each group should be responsible for a larger post. Any suggestions are welcome--I want this to be the freeform area of the class. It's interesting to contrast the interior monologues here vs. the "character through action" exercises. Did one seem more effective at revealing character than another? Which one went deeper? Were different aspects of the character revealed in one exercise than in the other? What are the possible pitfalls of moving this close to a character? Anyway, off again. Good luck. David