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    Wording Around with Prose: Getting a First Draft out of Your Head and Onto the Page: Wording Around
    Wording Around with Prose: Getting a First Draft out of Your Head and Onto the Page: Wording Around
    Wording Around with Prose: Getting a First Draft out of Your Head and Onto the Page: Wording Around
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Wording Around with Prose: Getting a First Draft out of Your Head and Onto the Page: Wording Around

    By Kathy Mac

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    About this ebook

    Wording Around with Prose provides a how-to guide to prose writing that covers everything from the practical (How to structure a story) to the philosophical (Why write?) with loads more writing topics, resources and prompts in between.

     

    During the COVID-19 lockdown in the spring of 2020, poet and creative writing professor Kathy Mac (St. Thomas University, Fredericton) volunteered to teach a free online course called Wording Around with Prose, under the auspices of the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick. Wording Around with Prose: Getting a First Draft Out of Your Head and Onto the Page expands upon her notes for that course.

     

    "I like the way you teach, keeping it friendly and colloquial. Thank you for that." —Carlos Morales

     

    "Wording Around [with Prose] is one of the best creative writing classes I have ever taken." – Linda Glencross

     

    "The class was useful, containing a mix of theory and practical advice. I think it is a good first delve into the art of writing." – Rick McConnell

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWording Around Press
    Release dateNov 16, 2020
    ISBN9781777373917
    Wording Around with Prose: Getting a First Draft out of Your Head and Onto the Page: Wording Around
    Author

    Kathy Mac

    Kathy Mac loves dogs; helps run the Odd Sundays Reading Series in Fredericton NB, Canada; published her first ebook  “Wording Around with Prose” in 2020, her third poetry book in 2017, and a book of essays (under the name Dr. Kathleen McConnell) in 2012; is starting to envy retired friends though she still enjoys teaching creative writing at St. Thomas University; has won a couple of writing awards and been nominated for more; has brown eyes; used to have brown hair; is somewhat allergic to social media (sorry!); and has a website at kathymacpoet.com.

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      Book preview

      Wording Around with Prose - Kathy Mac

      Wording Around Press

      2020

      Copyright © 2020 by Kathy Mac.

      Cover image and design by Delaney Crawford, Milly Squires, and Katy Johnson. Cover model Neomi Iancu Haliva.

      Final Copy Editing & Proofreading by Dominic Kent, Carly Mason, and Salima Tourkmani-MacDonald.

      Hard Copy preparation by Claude Chartier, Neomi Iancu Haliva, and Rae Thomas.

      Digital preparation by Sara Lamk, Erika Ruiz Arenas, and Caelin Sullivan.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

      Wording Around Press

      345 Oxford Street

      Fredericton, NB, Canada

      E3B 2W6

      Wording Around with Prose: Getting a First Draft Out of your Head and onto the Page. / Kathy Mac

      November 2020.

      book: isbn 978-1-7773739-0-0

      ebook: isbn 978-1-7773739-1-7

      Contents

      Land Acknowledgment, Thanks.................1

      Dedication, In Memoriam......................2

      Preface

      1. Why We Write, and Why We Don’t

      2. Time Management Tips and Tantrums

      3. Research

      Part A: Overarching Research

      Part B: Internal Research

      4. Pre-writing

      5. Point of View

      Part A: Narrator

      Part B: Parataxis and Hypotaxis

      6. Primary Characters

      Part A: The Protagonist

      Part B: The Telling Detail

      7. Openings

      8. Plot and Structure

      Part A: Plot

      Part B: Structure

      9. Secondary Characters

      Part A: Types

      Part B: Diversity

      10. Conflict

      11. Setting

      12. Dialogue

      Conclusion: The Story So Far

      List of Prompts

      Suggested Resources

      Appendix 1: Character Questionnaire

      Appendix 2: Seven Basic Plots

      Works and Authors Cited, by Chapter

      Land Acknowledgement

      Wording Around with Prose was written in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Fredericton is in the traditional territory of the Wolastoqiyik, (Maliseet) whose ancestors, along with the Mi’Kmaq and Passamaquoddy Nations signed Peace and Friendship Treaties with the British Crown in the 1700s.

      THANKS

      Wording Around with Prose wouldn’t be in front of you now if it weren’t for St. Thomas University Fredericton’s ENGL 3153: Literary Publishing class, doughty literary warriors who came back to university in autumn 2020 even though in-person classes had to be cancelled due to COVID-19:

      Claude Chartier, Delaney Crawford, Neomi Iancu Haliva, Katy Johnson, Dominic Kent, Sara Lamk, Carly Mason, Erika Ruiz Arenas, Milly Squires, Caelin Sullivan, Rae Thomas, and Salima Tourkmani-MacDonald.

      Thanks to Bridget Canning (author of The Greatest Hits of Wanda Janes) for compiling the fifteen questions in the middle part of the Character Questionnaire (appendix 1), including question 15 Compare this character to a door, which she got from Cassie Stocks (author of Dance, Gladys, Dance). There are thousands of such questionnaires online; but this one is the best.

      Thanks also go out to editor and teaching assistant Jamie Kitts, who kept us in line online and helped prepare the manuscript in August, created the Wording Around website, and undertook a hundred other tasks to keep the project of publishing this on track.

      And thank you to AJ Ripley who came up with the name Wording Around, lo those many years when they were my creative writing course assistant and we needed a title for a blog. (Congratulations, Dr. AJ!)

      Dedication

      The book version of Wording Around with Prose is dedicated to the participants who made it to the end of the Wording Around with Prose course in Spring 2020. It would have been lonely teaching without you:

      Shari Andrews, Zev Bagel, Sandra Bunting, Jim Doyle, Brandi Estey-Burt, Barb Fullerton, Linda Glencross, Lori Henderson-Stickles, Albert Katz, Stella MacLean, Colleen Marie, Michelle McLean, Denise McClure, Rick McConnell, Mad McDaniel, Denise McClure, Lauren Michelle McWilliam, Mary Mesheau, Carlos Morales, Melanie Mosher, Janet Patch, Pat Post, Kim Renton, Brigitte Rivers, Edrick Robichaud, Louise Somerville, Jane Tims, Maria Thibault Nason, Ana Watts, David Watts, and others who tuned in for many of the talks.

      IN MEMORIAM

      In the pauses from reading Wording Around with Prose, please remember Dr. Lissa Beauchamp Desroches, Mary Louise Luck, Sheila Nelles, Joe Blades, or anyone else you knew who died during the COVID-19 lockdown in the spring of 2020.

      At the time, memorial services were just not possible, so I ask that you to let the sight of this book remind you to celebrate their lives.

      Preface

      THE WRITERS’ FEDERATION of New Brunswick’s 2020 WordSpring Festival coulda bin a contendar if it hadn’t been cancelled due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Since I was Chair of the Organizing Committee, the cancellation freed up some of my time. I also felt responsible to the members of the WFNB missing out on the festival. That’s why I volunteered to provide an online course, and Wording Around with Prose was born.

      The course was a better idea than I realized. In late March, we were just starting to realize how long we might be stuck in social isolation. (That’s what we called it then. It took another month or so to be spun into the more user-friendly physical distancing.) Once Wording Around with Prose ended, I requested evaluations from the participants. In them, I read things like:

      Your course helped me make it through these strange times; gave some structure to my week; and always left me with something I did not know before. —Jane Tims

      The content was helpful, your delivery fun, clear, and accessible, and I truly appreciate you offering your time in this way during this stressful and difficult chapter of our lives. Thank you. —Michelle McLean

      It made me feel close to my friends as I saw them check-in. —Ana Watts

      Obviously Kathy was thinking of the well-being of people in creating and delivering the course. That was a very generous gift to the world. —Barb Fullerton

      I’LL LET YOU IN ON a secret: prepping

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