Maxing Out Our Middles with James Baldwin
Story Club Lesson 7 | Week 1
Welcome back to Stop Writing Alone's Story Club! (Story Club writign exercises and Live Zoom calls are features for paid subscribers, but I figured I’d give the whole community a taste of what we’ll be learning his month!)
This month we are back to hitting the books in Story Club. After five months of diving into screen stories from The Night Of, South Park, Pulp Fiction, and Breaking Bad, I am more than ready to get my read back on this month with a reading from James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk.
“Master Story” of the Month If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
In the beginng of our Story Club study through Daniel Joshua Rubin’s book 27 Essential Principles of Story, we got some really great tips and, I dare say a structure, to help us construct powerful beginnings and endings to answer them. This month’s lesson looks like we are finally going to return to that discussion with a look at the messy middles of our story.
If Beale Street Could Talk is a love story between a young Black woman and her imprisoned lover. Here is a description from Bookshop.org:
Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions--affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.
I have just started the book, but I am thinking, based on what I’ve started so far, the Central Dramatic Quesstion might be: Will Fonny’s name be cleared? or Will Tish and Fonny get married? The ending of this book will give us either a YES or a NO answer to those questions, but this month we will discuss everything in between. Our master storyteller of the month, James Baldwin, one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, will teach us how to max out the middle of our stories.
Ready to read along with me to find out how?
To Read
Buy the Book: from bookshop.org
To Listen
through your library using OverDrive
buy on libro.fm
To Watch If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
on Netflix
on Apple TV
on Prime Video
If you have any other ways to watch, listen or read the story to share with the community, please let us know in the comments.
What’s Your Lesson 7 Plan?
So what’s your plan for learning about how to max out your middle? The lesson 7 writing exercise will be on it’s way to paid subscriber inboxes next week and our chat surrounding all we have learned will be the week after that. Will you be reading If Beale Street Could Talk, watching the movie, or just checking out the summary Rubin provides in his book? Have you already read or seen this story? Are you ready to engage in another writing exercise to see how this lesson can be put into action? Let us know in the comments below!
Finally, before I sign off for this week’s post, thank you so much for signing up and joining me on this journey! Below you will find a Story Club recap for anyone new to this! If you want to gain access to all parts of Story Club this month and beyond, upgrade to a paid subscription today for $5/month or $50/year using this button below:
If you are brand new here…
In case this is your first month with the Stop Writing Alone community, or if you missed out on the What is Story Club? post, here is a brief synopsis of what’s going down here on a weekly basis exclusively for the VIPs (very invested paid subscribers) in the Stop Writing Alone Substack community.
Story Club is like a book club+, it is an examination of story for storytellers
Each month Story Club will be reading one chapter of the book 27 Essential Principles of Story by Daniel Joshua Rubin, and consuming the “master story” mentioned in that chapter (some months will require reading a book, story or play, some months will require watching a movie or a tv show)
week 1 of the month I will share a post about the master story of the month and where you can find it
week 2 of the month I will share a writing exercise or prompt that complements the lesson of the month
week 3 of the month all VIPs are invited to a live Zoom call chat about the lesson and story of the month
week 4 I will share our big takeaways and personal reflections about the lesson and the story of the month (Maybe I’ll even share results from the writing exercises, if the group feels that is worthwhile!)
The “Textbook”
If you don’t already have a copy of the 27 Essential Principles of Story by Daniel Joshua Rubin you can use the link to purchase it from bookshop.org. Using this affiliate link will benefit the Stop Writing Alone community and a local bookstore near you.
About the Book
(Description from bookshop.org):
A master class of 27 lessons, drawn from 27 diverse narratives, for novelists, storytellers, filmmakers, graphic designers, and more. Author Daniel Joshua Rubin unlocks the secrets of what makes a story work, and then shows how to understand and use these principles in your own writing. The result is "an invaluable resource" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), offering priceless advice like escalate risk, with an example from Pulp Fiction. Write characters to the top of their intelligence, from the Eminem song "Stan." Earn transformations, from Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. Attack your theme, from The Brothers Karamazov. Insightful, encouraging, filled with attitude, and, as Booklist puts it, "perfect for any writer looking to ensure their stories operate and resonate at the top of their potential," this book gives contemporary storytellers of all kinds a lifeline of inspiration and relatable instruction.