This is the page for: Creative Writing I, Spring 2011

(Course-related content will appear here in reverse chronological order: the newest things at the top of the page, and older posts toward the bottom.)

Following Today’s Discussion…

Following today’s discussion, I recommended some texts for Sora Moon, which deal with the problem of fate or destiny versus free will, in a way similar to the scientist in her story. A few of them are the following:

I also recommended the British TV series Being Human, and mentioned the fake-documentary film American Zombie, both of interest for those among us who are zombie fans.

Presentation Contest, Final Round

As you know, the Preliminary Round of the Presentation Contest is this week, in four sessions on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon (11/12 May). I have already notified you of your required attendance depending on your class.

However, there is also a Final Round which all students in my class are required to attend. This Final Round is on Monday, 23 May at 6pm in IH267.

Unless you have a serious schedule conflict, you are expected to make allowances for your attendance at this event. You will need to have a very good reason not to attend.

That Geoff Ryman Story

Here’s that copy of Geoff Ryman’s “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter” as promised last week. I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say about it, in contrast to “The Ghost Child” by Minsoo Kang.

Be ready to critique both Sora’s and Myoung Seon’s stories on Wednesday morning. We’ll talk about KAng’s stories a little more — well, you will — and I will discuss some more creative writing techniques I want you to work on, with an exercise or two.

Also, remember that your homework is due on 18 May: you have to do the following:

  1. Create a plot summary, point by point, for Shakespeare’s Othello (one version online is here, or download it for your phone/PC in any format you like, from ePub to PDF, here),
  2. Draw a plot arc for the play, and then write the most major plot points onto it, and
  3. Draw character arcs for three important characters in the story. You can choose from Othello, Desdemona, Iago, Roderigo, Emilia, and Cassio.

Here’s a well-acclaimed modernized version of the play, with Othello and Iago as cops in London, aired on ITV in 2001. (According to Wikipedia, “Scripted by Andrew Davies. Directed by Geoffrey Sax. Starring Eamonn Walker, Christopher Eccleston and Keeley Hawes”):

(The file is (SLOWLY) uploading now, I’ll add a link when I have one to give you.)

Announcement: Presentation Contest Preliminary Round Dates and Times

As I explained at the beginning of semester, one of the few department events that all students taking my courses are expected to attend is the Presentation Contest. this semester, we have launched a new system wherein a preliminary and secondary round will take place. Students in all of my classes (except Public Speaking — they have heavier expectations) are required to attend one (1) of the two-hour preliminary round events. plus the Final Round event.

The final round date has not been announced, but the preliminary rounds will be held between 2pm and 6pm on Wednesday and Thursday May 11th and 12th, as follows:

Session 1:

Wed., May 11: 2:00-4:00pm, N407

Session 2:

Wed., May 11: 4:00-6:00pm, N411

Session 3:

Thurs., May 12: 2:00-4:00pm, G101-2

Session 4:

Thurs., May 12: 4:00-6:00pm, G101-1

If you are unable for some reason to attend, due to class or work conflicts, you MUST email me prior to the event and submit official documentation (such as your class schedule or work schedule) to the Office of the Dept. of English Language & Culture, IH341. However, if one of your class conflicts is related to a course in English Language & Culture, let the professor know and request excusal in order to attend the contest preliminary round.

Homebrew Korea Fundraiser

Hi there,

I mentioned in a couple of classes that my brewing club is holding a fundraiser this weekend, to help the victims of the earthquake/tsunami in Japan last month. If you feel like drinking some of the best (home-brewed) beer in Korea, donated by people like me, and if you would feel good knowing the money is going straight to the Red Cross to help people who really need it, then feel free to stop by our fundraiser Saturday afternoon.

There’s more information here.

Readings and Homework

Folks,

Today, we discussed how the beginnings, middles, and ends of stories are interconnected, and how narrative and character arcs work.

Your homework for 4 May 2011 is the following:

This scene is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, 4 April.

Remember, the midterm draft of your writing project is due on Friday, 29 April. I probably won’t be in my office on Friday afternoon, so please hand in your work at the Department Office (IH341), where I have a mailbox for student homework. DO NOT put it under my door unless you want your work covered in footprints.

See you next week!

Work Coming to the Office (This Afternoon), and Formatting Samples You MUST Review

Folks,

I have gone through a lot of the work you’ve submitted and made both editorial markings in the text, and comments (on most pieces).

The one thing I need to stress to you, above all else, is that while you cannot control your command of English, you certainly can control the formatting. I’m afraid that most of the work submitted to me in this class so far looks nothing like how work should be formatted.

Therefore, though I did provide you with guidelines at the beginning of semester, I’m going to give you some specific examples of manuscript format for the forms you’re working in. (Don’t worry about including your address — your name, student number, and email should suffice.)

Here is a sample for Short Story manuscript format, provided by William Shunn. For those of you writing fiction or creative nonfiction, this is the place to go. Shunn’s guidelines are clearly explained, but even better, the explanation is formatted in exactly the way you need to format your writing. So read it carefully, but also look at it. Your manuscript should look like this too!

Here is a sample of the standard manuscript format for screenplays. You will notice two things:

  1. it looks very different from the format for fiction manuscripts.
  2. it begins in the middle of a long screenplay, unlike the fiction writing sample.

The second problem is solved simply: just see the fiction formatting guide for what to put on the first page. For our class, the format will be the same for both fiction/creative nonfiction and screenplays — all the way down to the title and byline (ie. by Chang Soohee, the line under the title).

You should also read Shunn’s format sample for fiction to see more about things like font size, fonts usable, and so on. The screenwriting format sample doesn’t explain as much as Shunn’s example does for those kinds of things.

As for the first problem — of how to get the formatting right in a screenplay — you have two choices: you can

Some screenwriting software is expensive, of course, but there is a very good, free, and legal alternative, called Celtx. The program allows you to make a list of characters, include pictures of actors you’d like to cast, and all kinds of other information that can help you organize a bigger screenplay. It might take a little while to learn to use it, but if you are trying to get a screenplay written in the right format, it does a lot of the work for you, once you know what you’re doing.

You can get Celtx from the Celtx website.

One more thing, everyone. If you are using the Hangeul Word Processor (HWP) you unfortuately will have more trouble formatting your work correctly. The Haansoft company doesn’t seem to have a good understanding of what “double space” means for English-language text, and “double space” in HWP comes out looking like 1.5 space. Also, the way HWP formats some punctuation makes it look bad when printed with English fonts, and there’s the additional problem that when using HWP, you might forget to choose an English-appropriate font. (Latin-alphabet text, like English, when printed in Korean fonts looks awful, so please don’t use it.)

If you don’t have a copy of MS Word, I can recommend you a free Open-source word processor called OpenOffice that will do basically everything you need. (It even has English spellcheck and so on.) You can get a copy of OpenOffice here.

I expect that your midterm submissions will follow the sample formats exactly, especially since, as I am warning you now, appropriately following the format will be part of what I consider when formulating your grade on the submission.

I also expect that all of your written work will follow the appropriate format, or work will be returned immediately (and resubmitted late) or will lose marks.

Plans for Next Week

Hi everyone,

Just a reminder. There is no homework for our class on 20 April, except preparing for the two critiques we will be doing that day.

However, I’ve handed out a couple of stories from Minsoo Kang’s Of Tales and Enigmas. I expect that you will have read them, paying attention to the question of how he constructs his “narrative arc” in each — the relationship between beginning, middle, and end, and how the characters and story develop along the way — for our following class, on 27 April (ie. right after exams). Therefore I suggest you spend a little time reading ahead before exams begin!

Please also remember that the deadline for your midterm story or script is 29 April 2010. I am now grading your work, and will have it at the office by April 14th, after lunch.

Homework for the Week

Hi folks.

Following our discussion of David Sedaris, and the critiques we gave to I-Hsuan and Jakyung, I gave you some suggestions along with some homework. I’ll list it all here:

EXERCISES (HOMEWORK)

1. Write two one-paragraph descriptions of the same place, one from a very happy point of view, and one from a very sad point of view. The two descriptions should be of the same place, at the same time–for example, a classroom, a bathroom, your bedroom, a cafe, or whatever. (My example was: imagine you’ve just fallen in love, and are hopeful, excited, and happy. Which details would you pick out and notice to describe the room? Then… imagine the person you just fell in love with was run over by a bus and killed this morning. Now describe the same place, except picking and including the details that would be apparent to you from a very gloomy, heartbroken, hopeless mood.)

2. Review your notes on the question of how David Sedaris manages to make his essays so funny. (The sarcasm, the “neurotic” confessions he makes, the discussion of things that one isn’t supposed to talk about (like “Stadium Pal”), his exaggerations, and the distance between David Sedaris-as-character and David Sedaris-as-narrator, as in the beginning of “The Understudy”.) Write a scene of approximately 500 words which is funny using one or more of these tricks; aim to make the reader smile or laugh aloud at least three times when reading your ~500 words.

RECOMMENDED WORK:

1. I also recommended that you head to the library and grab a novel so that you can check out how dialog looks and works in a real piece of fiction. My main advice was that we settle on a North American format, meaning, you should choose something published in the US or Canada. (Sometimes the formatting of quotation marks is different in British fiction,and I want to avoid confusion. If you really want to use a British system, that’s fine, but be consistent.)

If you need recommendations, post a question to our mailing list and I’ll see if I can recommend a story or book of short stories to you, or even provide a link to something appropriate.

For those submitting stories, remember our next critique submission deadline is 6pm on Friday, 8 April. 6pm is a strict deadline!

Finally, I forgot to ask for the homework assignments I gave you last week (in which a rounded character and a flat character interact). You can drop them off with me if I’m in my office; if not, please put the assignments in my mail box (in IH341, which is the School of English office) by Thursday afternoon, so I can pick them up and grade them for next week (I hope!). I expect your “funny” scenes and your description exercises by next Wednesday, however–it’s best to hand them in at the beginning of class so we don’t forget.

Presentation Contest Deadline Changed

For those who are preparing proposals for the orientation contest, the deadline has been changed to this Monday, 4 April. Please be sure to submit your proposals to the Department office (IH341) by Monday afternoon.

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