Week Three: Plot

Note: Ongoing assignment: Be thinking about/generating ideas for your first story, which is due Monday 2/25.

    • One possible way to start: think of two interesting characters (maybe based on people you know) who have conflicting desires.

    • Another possible way to start: peruse the newspaper or web for strange stories. Use one as the basis for your own story.

Mon 2/11--Journal Entry #1: 700 words minimum. For your journal, you can write anything you want. I will give suggestions based on what we've been studying, but these are strictly optional.

    • Optional topic: Pretend you are blind and describe your room or house without sight, using the four other senses.

Tues 2/12--Read Writing Fiction, "Tower and the Net: Story Form, Plot, and Structure," pp. 247-265. Note: this is CHAPTER 7 so we are not going chronologically through the book.

Thur 2/14--Short story reading: "One of These Days" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (157-159). Also,

    • Short story exercise: Write a short story in 100 words. Notice that if you're going to manage a conflict, crisis, and resolution in this small space, you'll have to introduce the conflict immediately.

      • Make sure to include the words "Valentine's Day" in your story!

      • Bring the story to class; I'll ask you post in on the website later.

Fri 2/15--Writing workshop day. For tonight, do a freewrite on your story idea. Please post a 500 word freewrite in your journal.

Also, please post your 100 word story on the class website!

*** For those who are still not sure what they want to write on:

One suggestion for a story idea (from Writing Fiction): "Re-read your freewrites and journal entries and pick a passage that seems to suggest a simple story. Muse on the idea, find its shape, and then fill that shape with people, settings, details from your own experience, observation, and imagination. Turn the story over in your mind. Sleep on it--more than once. Then write that story as rapidly as possible."

*** More suggestions:

    • Look at Writing Fiction p. 19, exercise #2 to help you find the "kernel" of an idea.

    • Or... Writing Fiction, p. 298-299. See if one of these exercises inspires a story.

    • Finally, check out pages 11-12 of Writing Fiction for more inspiration/ideas.