Create settings both familiar and unfamiliar to you, while avoiding common missteps. You will be guided through several meditation exercises as you practice "imaginative research".
Let's talk about something that comes up in my conversation with Amy a little more.
And then, I'll give you your third assignment.
I asked Amy about cultural sensitivity.
How can we write about places and people we don't know intimately?
Or to which we're not related and do it well?
She said, among other things, that bad writing is bad writing.
A cliche, is cliche in any context, no matter where it's set.
beyond the arbitrary boundaries of region or nation.
I believe in what the Roman playwright, Terence, said.
Nothing that is human is alien to me.
Believing what Terence says is a precondition of writing about the other.
should write about every kind of human experience, not just your own.
talking about in this module search and research.
Don't be lazy with details of setting or cultural practice.
outdated books you read as a child.
Those things are in your subconscience.
So be aware of them.
Are you ready for your next assignment?
2.) a foreign country, 3.) a blackout.
Write at the beginning of a story, the first one to two pages is fine.
Remember how I said that a setting is also a situation?
That character has to interact, live or die in that place.
For this assignment, I picked three settings that have dramatic possibility.
A blackout is not a place per se but it's a situation with physical parameters.
I can't wait to see what you do with this.
you may write from the point of view of a tourist or a visitor.
Anyone going to a foreign location steps immediately into a dramatic situation.
Use functional and imaginative research to create your setting.
a photograph, or finding basic facts.
not just one corner of your setting but the larger bird's-eye view.
We all realize that the traveller can't know a land like a native.
However, avoid out and out erroneous information.
As well as cliches and assumptions about people and culture.
Don't right about a place in the way you've heard someone else write about it.
by using the name of the Stewart's convenience store?
thoughtfully researched details will persuade us.