Ann Hood - Interview #473 (9/18/17)

Bestselling Author Ann Hood, whose new memoir is Morningstar: Growing Up with Books (W. W. Norton & Company). 

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Ann Hood. It is based on an exercise with which she has had good luck, from the craft book, What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. The exercise is called write a story using a small unit of time. And that’s just what you do. Write a story and ensure that it takes place within the time it takes to bake a cake, or walk to school, or drive to the airport. Contain the story within a specific period of time in order to challenge yourself to fully craft a narrative arc without using years in your characters’ lives to develop that arc: a beginning, a middle, an end. An opportunity for your character to experience some change.

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro