conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled Ron Carlson Writes a Story about Stephen, King with the genre: Reference, Writing, Research & Publishing Guides.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Do yourself a favor and read the author. Stephen King
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for this book.. Start with the sentence 'Ron Carlson Writes a Story
  The old house demanded attention'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Ron Carlson Writes a Story
  The old house demanded attention. The roof was weak, the windows were ancient, it all needed work. The poignant feature of such projects is that they involved so much money, money I didn't have. The call was to get up and become a general contractor or sit in a drafty, unpainted room and write a story.
  I made plans for the things I could do, scheduling the work for after 4:00 p.m., and I hired a good handyman to commence on the rest. While he and his assistant and another guy, a big guy they'd hired from the day-labor pool at minimum wage, worked on our house, I sat in my little room with my typewriter and I typed. It was during this period that I wrote "The Governor's Ball." I wrote the draft in one day knowing that the big day laborer made more money each time he walked by my window with a plank than I would receive if I finished my story well. But even knowing that the best return might be a letter from some editor, two copies of a journal with the story in it, and a check for $34.50, I kept typing. How'd I do that? I mean these guys were hammering on my house. How'd I stay in there? That's the story I want to tell.
  PEOPLE ASK A WRITER: Where do you get your ideas? The question has several purposes. They're not really asking where so that they could go out there and get a few, because the fact is, everyone I've ever met is already brimming with story ideas, inklings, notions, formulas, etc. They're checking to see if you (the writer) have some wacky quirks, strange interior wiring, or a secret method for locating story ideas. Also, there is often a genuine curiosity about how a writer works (how strange are you?); how did an otherwise ordinary person commence writing a story? They also sometimes want to know about a specific story they've read: Did you drop a mattress from a truck, ever play baseball, see a UFO? People ask if a story is based on your own personal experience. It's a better question than it seems because its aim is to try to determine where "real life" was so that we can measure, consider the distance to fiction. (And then think: Can I do that, cover that ground?)
  But most importantly, when beginning writers ask where ideas come from they really want to know: Are my ideas as good as your ideas? Do they come from anywhere near the same region? Do they have the same intent? Am I even in the ballpark thinking that writing about my aunt who wouldn't get out of the bathtub, or my summer job pouring concrete, or an all-night discussion I had with my husband, or my gambling addiction, or a moment I had on the Grand Tetons when I thought I was going to fall—are any of these legitimate "ideas" that could be approached, treated, and explored in a story?
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: That last sentence creates a door. I'm probably going to get to write a phone call, another little scene. But what will it be, and when, and where will it lead? My responsibility is to follow, not to lead.
  I know Ninth West in Salt Lake City and have had some adventures near there, but I did not go there the day I dropped the mattress. But I can believe that it would be on Ninth West where a person would drop off the expressway and look for a phone. I wrote this before cell phones were ubiquitous—and, when pay phones were a dime! And what we are trying to engender and foster with each sentence is the writer's belief. So now I'm about to make something up, as we say, but it's not much of anything because it is based on experiences that naturally, by association, are suggested by the street, the place I am in the story.
  ONE OF THE LITTLE TRICKS I'll pull in class sometimes is to stop the discussion of the story at hand and say, "Let's imagine there's been some good news; we've been hired to make a film of this story. Someone quickly give me the number of scene setups we'll need." We list them and then determine which seem more significant. The exercise becomes a way of scanning a story for dramatic possibility. Many times it reveals that there are fewer concrete scenes than the story is going to need to have its way. Do we know when and where we are? Is the place established in such a way that we believe it? What is the inventory of the place?
  The lawyer's office, the barn, the new-car showroom, all require concrete imagery to convince us that something can happen. Each has an extensive inventory of sensory detail with which we are all familiar. There is the generic barn, the generic law office, the generic car showroom. There isn't anyplace we haven't already been—even the glowing caverns of Nozzlerack on the lost moon of Zard. We want to create a space, a set that has at least some fresh facet, a single radical element that will anchor the place as being real. This doesn't involve far-out thinking, though we see that from time to time in fiction, but more commonly a simple touch that transcends the generic. We don't need an elaborate hammock in the lawyer's office or twin bowling-pin lamps or an inch-thick Persian rug or a David Hockney watercolor or the bench seat from a Plymouth Fury, but we need something, the faint smell of mildew, a dying Bonsai tree, a walnut table ruined by water rings, a bowl of keys, a framed menu from the Titanic, a bricked-up window, a shirt draped over one of the chairs. Same for the barn. There, of course, we'd have something stored, a boat or a motorcycle, the smell of oil or oats, a row of dusty filing cabinets. In the new-car showroom I'd have a leak in the roof and the business, the bucket and the rags, such a situation would involve.
  How important is place/setting? It is essential. As we know, nothing happens nowhere. The place many times is what will happen. And to a writer—not the reader—place is the fabric and the instrument that are going to help you find out what is going to happen. That is why we take such care to establish place as our characters move into it.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I opened the mini-bottle and took a hot sip of bourbon. The park, like all the rest of the city was three feet in sooty snow, and some funny configurations stood on the stacks of the old locomotive which was set on the corner. The branches of the huge trees were silver in the black sky, iced by the insistent mist. There were no cars at all, and so I sipped the whiskey and drove around the park four times, slowly. It was quarter to ten; Cody would have given my salmon to Dirk by now, saying something like, "He's been killed on an icy overpass, let's eat his fish and then dance."
  I stopped this time opposite the huge locomotive. I stood out beside the bed of the truck. "Is this all right?"
  The man sat up. "Sure, son; this is fine." They hadn't opened their new bottles. Then I saw that the woman was turned on her side. Something was going on.
  They climbed over the tailgate of the truck. The woman said something. The man said to me: "We're all right." He smiled.
  RON CARLSON was born in Utah in 1947; he attended the University of Utah where he received his BA and MA in English. He taught at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut for ten years, spending his summers fishing and backpacking and writing in the West. He moved in 1981 and worked for the arts councils of Idaho, Alaska, and Utah. In 1986, he began his university teaching career at Arizona State University, where eventually he became Regents' Professor and Director of Creative Writing. He now teaches fiction writing at the University of California at Irvine.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He now teaches fiction writing at the University of California at Irvine.. In 1986, he began his university teaching career at Arizona State University, where eventually he became Regents' Professor and Director of Creative Writing. He moved in 1981 and worked for the arts councils of Idaho, Alaska, and Utah. He taught at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut for ten years, spending his summers fishing and backpacking and writing in the West.
  RON CARLSON was born in Utah in 1947; he attended the University of Utah where he received his BA and MA in English." He smiled. The man said to me: "We're all right. The woman said something.
  They climbed over the tailgate of the truck. Something was going on. Then I saw that the woman was turned on her side." They hadn't opened their new bottles. "Sure, son; this is fine. "Is this all right?"
  The man sat up. I stood out beside the bed of the truck."
  I stopped this time opposite the huge locomotive. It was quarter to ten; Cody would have given my salmon to Dirk by now, saying something like, "He's been killed on an icy overpass, let's eat his fish and then dance. There were no cars at all, and so I sipped the whiskey and drove around the park four times, slowly. The branches of the huge trees were silver in the black sky, iced by the insistent mist. The park, like all the rest of the city was three feet in sooty snow, and some funny configurations stood on the stacks of the old locomotive which was set on the corner.I opened the mini-bottle and took a hot sip of bourbon