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The Short Story
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The
Short Story Written Workshop Sheet
Work:
By now you should be writing fiction at an intermediate level. This
evidence of your skills will count as your 9-week assessment. It is due as a final draft,
in your Creative Writing folder, in Word format, saved as
Short Story, by 4:15 p.m., Thursday, 1/12.
This short piece of fiction will demonstrate all the skills learned in the
previous assignments. In the past you've been given direction and structure for
each assignment. Now it's your turn to be a true author in every sense of the
word (no pun intended). Here are the expectations:
- 2000 words minimum (use Word count - look in lower left-hand corner of MS
Word window for the running tally).
- This will undoubtedly be better written if you outline it first in some
manner (up to you - I don't need to see this work - just the final draft)
and then begin plugging in and developing the components. Some of you might
be able to start with a blank page, but I advise that you do NOT attempt to
write from the beginning, cold, lest you immediately run into a writer's
block, one from which you might have great difficulty escaping.
- We've spent one semester building creative writing from the ground up. Now
is your turn to show evidence of your skills.
- Show development of the following (click
here to review the Elements document):
- Structure
- exposition
- rising action
- climax
- falling action
- conclusion
- Major elements
- setting
- characterization
- major characters need to be round, multi-faceted, changing over time
- minor characters can be flat
- protagonist (you do not need one for the assignment, but a foil
would work well here)
- antagonist (what or whom, depending on conflicts)
- conflicts
- develop your protagonist so there are two types of conflict
- using Cast Away as an example, he at first seemed to be
trapped in a conflict of man vs. nature but as time passed, it was
clear his conflict was truly inner, man vs. self
- theme (you must speak to your reader between your words - it
can be a moral or something else, but it must be evident)
- Minor elements
- foreshadowing
- irony
- symbolism (even an allusion, or referencing something
indirectly, is as effective as metaphor)
- POV (use 1st, 3rd, or WOW me by using 2nd)
- The preceding is your rubric. If you do not incorporate all
elements and make them blend well, resulting in an interesting story that
FLOWS to the reader, your grade will reflect that.
- This work is to be completely fictional and the genre as well as
subject will be of your choosing.
My final advice is to develop before writing. As we've done previously, begin
with an idea for a character's conflict and build the story around that. I look
forward to your work.
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