Process-Writing Prompts for “Burn With Me”

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Bryan

Trouble spots

Note any spots in the text that are giving you some kind of trouble, any spots where you feel like you don’t quite get it.  Wrestle with it on your own in 750words.com for a while.  At the least, you’ll be able to articulate your trouble; at best, you may write your way toward insight.  We’ll start class in small groups talking about—and helping each other through—our trouble spots.

Eyes

The story has a real focus on eyes.  There are twelve explicit mentions of eyes or eyelids or eyebrows.  Most sensory detail is visual.  The story includes eye-imagery, like “the darkened windows stared at us.”  And I can’t even begin to count the number of “visual verbs” like “look” or “watch” or “see.”

Why the focus on eyes?  How does it connect with the meaning of this story?

Stories within Stories

The story also has a real focus on stories.  There are the stories that his father tells, and the story that Stu told, for example.

Why include all these stories?  Does this connect with the meaning of the story?  Memory, family, home, stories—do these all intersect in some way?

Key Lines

These couple of sentences feel like they might be keys to the story:

“I didn’t know how to even begin to understand what was in his mind, what we were supposed to be talking about.”

“There was a version of me that he held in his mind, one that I didn’t quite recognize.”

If you think that these lines might be keys to a meaning of this story, riff on them for a while.

Setting

Place is important to this story.  Between the ghost towns and suicide points, the settings are also pretty unusual.  Pick one scene and think about its setting.  What’s the relationship between the setting and what the scene means?  How does the setting contribute to making that meaning?

Finish the Sentence

Use these sentence-starters as springboards for ideas about the story.  You don’t have to stop when you reach the end of the sentence.  Flesh out your thoughts with examples from the story, associations, and other thoughts.  In other words, develop your ideas.

This is a story of/This is a story about . . .

I was reminded of . . .

I think . . .

I’m surprised that . . .

I’d like to know . . .

I realized . . .

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68 Responses to Process-Writing Prompts for “Burn With Me”

  16. Katie says:
    January 26, 2011 at 9:16 am

    http://750words.com/entries/share/523098

    seriously how many times am I gonna do this wrong?

    Reply
  18. Conor J. Owens says:
    January 26, 2011 at 2:53 am

    http://750words.com/entries/share/522407

    Definitely didn’t fall asleep in the middle of writing this. That would be completely ridiculous. Absurd. Where would you get that preposterous idea?

    Reply
  29. Jeff Gunter says:
    January 25, 2011 at 11:32 pm

    Each one of my 750’s so far has been labeled “affectionate” and “negative” by 750words… I feel like it thinks im some kind of stalker…

    http://750words.com/entries/share/522284

    Reply
    • Bryan Furuness says:
      January 27, 2011 at 9:07 am

      A: You should have written your “Diary of a Stalker” in your Hello Kitty notebook, where it belongs. Even now, 750words.com is relaying your information to BUPD.

      B: Reconfigure your sharing preferences to show the wpm graph, please.

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