What Olive Kitteridge taught me about overhearing

Hello and happy almost Friday.

It’s time for your weekly gift of free writing portals — aka prompts — that we’ve been exploring in our writing group.

Gathering a list of scenes

Last week I introduced the “scene jar” to our writing group. It works like this.

Write out a list of scenes for your writing project. Give them shorthand titles. For instance, some of my scenes are: “smoking in the stock room,” “the first time I rode in his pick-up truck,” “drinking a 7 and 7 at Eddie’s with Blue Velvet playing on the jukebox.”

Then cut each scene into a strip of paper, crumple each strip and drop it into a jar, and pull one out whenever you need some inspiration. A grab bag of creative gems.

You can always add more scenes to the jar as they occur to you. A book can be written scene by scene, and it’s okay if scenes aren’t written in the order they appear in a book. In fact, it may help you stay fresher and more engaged to embrace the surprise.

Frances McDormand as Olive Kitteridge in the HBO series.

Overhearing

One of the most compelling ways we learn about Olive Kitteridge in Elizabeth Strout’s novel of the same name is that she accidentally overhears someone talking about her. At the wedding reception, Olive overhears her daughter-in-law mocking the dress Olive proudly made and wore to her son’s wedding. The daughter-in-law also speaks about how difficult and unlikable Olive is.

As a device, it shows the reader how a character (or you as the narrator) is perceived by others. But it also shows us how someone responds to this information.

Include a scene of overhearing something, and let us experience the person’s response.

Come write with us

For those of you who need support in getting your writing done, consider joining us for our twice-weekly gatherings. You can come and write for an hour — no pressure to talk or even keep your video on, though of course you’re welcome to. Our structure is the same:

• 15 minutes — hello and a suggested writing prompt (optional — this time is for whatever you choose to create)

• 1 hour — writing and creating together, with your video on or off

• 15 minutes — come back together and discuss how it all went

We meet Tuesdays 4:00-5:30 pm PT and Thursdays 10:00-11:30 am PT. Access to all groups is given to paid subscribers. You can upgrade your subscription here.

Have a good weekend everyone, and I’ll be sending more writing portals next week.

With love, Gail