Story Compression: Class & Instructor Recommendations
Last year I took two classes to address the length and breadth of my novel-in-progress, The Butcher’s Apprentice. Both were based on the craft concept of compression, and presented through my local writing center, Hugo House.
The Elegance of Compression was taught by Seattle-area author, Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum. This one day class was brilliantly packed into three hours, the curriculum itself a wonder of efficiency. It included writing exercises and close-readings of stories by Alice Munro, Ted Chiang, and others. We considered character perception vs. reality, and the elements of story that convey wholeness and shifts in character arcs. Sundberg Lunstrum’s class demonstrated the sparsity with which stories can be told, and the power of events that occur off-page. Post-class, I took the counterintuitive risk of delving deeper into my characters’ pasts and more fully constructing their personal histories. In doing so, I actually reduced the number of words spent on backstory and character exposition.
The second class, Cutting Out the Fat with Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, was taught by master-of-close-reading, Michael Shilling. This was my second class with Shilling, who leads highly interactive discussions and analysis, and creates upbeat group dynamics. Over the course of five sessions, we took a granular look at Flynn’s excised prose and brutally flayed characters. This class dared me to cut words related to plot and the passage of time.
Paired together, these two classes have yielded visible weight-loss results for my manuscript. After applying the techniques I learned from Sundberg Lunstrum and Shilling, my novel-in-progress is moving at a faster pace, unburdened of thousands of words, thanks to compression.
Novel-related good news: I was recently featured in Lit Lounge, The Writing Salon’s newsletter. I invite you to read the interview, where I discuss how my rural hometown and family farm experience inspired The Butcher’s Apprentice. Also, earlier this year, The Butcher’s Apprentice was longlisted for the 2021 Grindstone International Novel Prize.
I’ve finally finished my website and social media re-branding. Thank you for bearing with the changes. Please follow along on Facebook and Twitter at Wendy A. Warren and @WritesWendyA. My website URL is now WendyAWarren.com.
Read what I’m up to each month on my WriteGuide Calendar. In May, I’m taking this class at Grub Street. I hope to see you in a class soon!
Kristin Sundberg Lunstrum is teaching at Hugo House this summer. Her next class, Writing Characters of Depth (When Change Is Not An Option), starts June 14, 2022.
