Some Other Character

I'm teaching Writing Short Short Fiction for the second time, though I've taught Fiction Writing for years. I know what I want to fix in this class and what I want to keep, but I definitely want to take the class in a different direction.

One thing I want to do right away: direct students away from writing about their immediate and personal lives. Personal writing would be an interesting course, but that's not what I'm aiming for. I want their pieces to take place in the world of fiction, in the world of dreams rather than their immediate realities.

On the first day in class I'm going to have them do a meditative exercise. I want them to close their eyes (really or imaginatively) and remember the face of someone they have seen, a face that stuck in the mind. It's important this not be someone with whom they have relationship in their personal lives, especially not a family member--just someone they have seen who stuck in their minds for one reason or another.

Then I want students to describe this face in as much detail as possible, on paper. See the face as completely as possible; write it down. Next, I want students to recall the person's body and do the same: describe it as completely as possible, including how the person was dressed, how he or she gestured, and so on. Anything they don't exactly remember in this part of the exercise may be filled in by something that seems to fit.

Now, I want everyone to imagine that person doing a simple action: sitting down in a chair, picking something up off a table, turning around to look at the person looking at them. The action takes place when the character doesn't know he or she is being watched--surrounded by silence.

Once we finish this exercise, I want them to use this specific character as the main character of a very short story written to follow a skeletal structure I have already designed, which will make them write something that has a beginning, middle and an end--sort of. I will give them enough problems to solve that it will distract their conscious mind enough that their unconscious mind, their dreaming mind, can walk right out in the open and dance.