# The Writer's Circle – Week #12 [Learn to lie]



## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

The Writer's Circle – Week #12 [Learn to lie]

Hello everyone, and welcome to Week #12 of the Writer's Circle! This week we have an article by Mark Winegardner called “Learn to lie, An exercise in concrete detail puts you to work untangling a 'mangled' story opening.” It talks about an authors ability to convince the reader that what is on the page is how things are. How using significant detail can help your readers engage more and participate in the story. Lets get started shall we!



> Learn to lie
> by: Mark Winegardner
> 
> Fiction writers must be, or learn to be, good liars. Specific, definite, concrete details are, as every good liar knows, the stuff of persuasiveness. They are also the lifeblood of fiction: proofs, actually, like those in a geometric theorem. If you write in abstractions or judgments, you are writing an essay. If you let us use our sense and do our own generalizing and interpreting, we will be participants in your story – and then you'll have us.
> ...


*Discussion*

Alright! Now that we have the article text out of the way we can get on to the discussion. I wanted to make this week more of a class than a discussion (even though they can be, and usually are, one in the same). I want you all, who read this week's passage, to actually do the exercise and post it here as a reply. Then we can all (of just myself if no one else wants to) review each others rewrites and give constructive criticism! WooT! Yaya! Good! I'm glad you like the idea! Get started! I'll save mine for last!

Write on,

Commissar Ploss


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## IntereoVivo (Jul 14, 2009)

*I'll give it a shot*

I actually had trouble getting it to 200 words...

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The already small doctors office seems to shrink as Mrs. Stillwell squeezes through the door, Mr. Stillwell slipping in behind her to take her coat. Thrusting her hat upon him as well, Mrs. Stillwell looks around the suddenly too crowded room at the only chair that isn't taken. With a sniff she notes that the only other seat is on a bench, currently occupied by the sprawling body of a young boy, inconsideratly taking up both seats. He is, without a doubt, to poorly brought up to sit up so that another person, particularly one of Arlen's age, can share his seat. It really is a shame that they do not teach young people better manners in modern schools these days. In her day, well, suffice it to say that everyone had behaved better when she and Arlen were young.

Waving a her plump pale hand at her husband Mrs. Stillwell tells him to sit down, too well bred to allow her annoyance at the lack of respect to show on her face. After all, Arlen is the one who needs to see the doctor; Mrs. Stillwell is fine. Smiling around at the room's occupents, Mrs. Stillwell looks down at the middle aged lady she is standing next to and comments on the fittingly rural wallpaper, complete with cows and chickens in what looks like a barn.


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

Great job there Vivo! I'll critique it soon! just got back from a trip and i'm exhausted...*sigh* I did like your use of present tense though, it was unique.

CP


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