Febuary: The Bear At The Door

This month's topic will be taking us to a the pages of Jerome Stern's, Making Shapely Fiction. I thought it might be fun to look at another writer's perspective to writing techniques, styles, and a whole lot of other good stuff.

I had planned this month to begin with Stern's technique called "The Bear at the Door", if you'd like to purchase the book feel free, there are currently versions on both Kindle and hard copies available on amazon.com. he Depending on the lenght of each section will be looking at, I'll be include the text in our monthly blog posts.

We will also be making an addition the Making Shapely Fiction posts, by including a literary tool, with this month's literary tool being dialogue; the dialog topic will be posted separately.

Let's get started!

THE BEAR AT THE DOOR (begins:pg 45)

Write a story in which four characters has a problem:

"Henry, there's a bear at the door."

The problem should be significant.

"Henry, it's huge."

The problem should be pressing.

"Henry, I think it's trying to get in."

The story begnsi establishing not only that something is wrong, but that your character has to act. STories that begin by merly establishing that something is wrong--for example, that your character is depressed--still don't really signal whether anything willhappen. A charaacter can stay depressed for a very long time. The bear demands action. The story has already begun.

A good bear at the door will grab the reader's attention. But the problem that energizes this shape is not only the beat, the outside threat. If Henry is to deal with the problem, he has to find the bear within himself.

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What did you think? Is this a technique you could apply to your own writing, and how would you make it your own?

Happy Writing!