Three-Day Workshop: Making and Breaking Status Quo with Anne Elliott

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What makes this day different from all other days? This course will explore that question from several angles. A break in status quo is often the occasion for story—or the vital climax. How and why do we establish the ordinary for our characters, and how can the ordinary be broken open to reveal new depths of personality, relationships, motivations, and worlds? Through concrete and unpacked examples and exercises, we will add a few key tools to the craft toolbox.

Session One: Habit
This session will explore habitual action vs. action in scene. Establishing what normal looks like might be essential, but how can it be done efficiently without sacrificing the details that give fiction its vividness? How much normal is enough? We’ll look at transitions between habitual action (“She used to always…”) and story action (“And then one day…”), paying attention to the balance of scene, summary, and character interiority.

Session Two: Uprisings
Our social training might encourage us not to rock the boat, but we all know that doesn’t quite work in stories. When characters stand up for themselves, it is an opportunity to show new facets of personality or hidden reserves of emotion. A character might have a troubling life where she doesn’t dare speak up; she might also have a boring life where the only danger is lack of change. What stimulus would cause your character to end that silence? We’ll look at examples where characters break long silences and change the world in which they live—or try to—creating story consequences that are electric for the reader.

Session Three: Sanctuary
Our fiction training would have us create danger on the page, in order to pressure characters to make plot-moving decisions. But what if danger is the status quo for a person or her community? For a character who is watchful or guarded, letting down that guard might be an important narrative moment. What if the catalyst for risk, intimacy, creativity, decision-making, etc. is not danger, but sanctuary? This session defines sanctuary on the page, and looks into its power to move narrative forward and transform characters.

Anne Elliott is the author of The Artstars: Stories (Indiana University Press) and The Beginning of the End of the Beginning (Ploughshares Solos). 

Her short fiction can be found in Story, A Public Space, Crab Orchard Review, Witness, Hobart, Bellevue Literary Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, and elsewhere. Elliott is a veteran of the New York spoken word circuit, with stage credits including The Whitney Museum, Lincoln Center, PS122, and Woodstock '94. 

Her fiction has been awarded support from The Story Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, The Normal School, Table 4 Writer's Foundation, and The Bridport Prize. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from Warren Wilson College, and lives in Portland, Maine. Learn more at http://www.anneelliottstories.com.