This is the page for: Creative Writing
(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.)
Pick Your Assignment!
Folks:I mixed up which assignment I’d given the class for the last assignment, and now there are two versions of the assignment floating around:
- Choose an interesting, dramatic scene from a film, and write the dialog exactly as it appears in the film. (You can use subtitles, but remember, subtitles usually simplify the dialog, so you need to check it against the spoken dialog.) Then, decide which actions to add to the text surrounding the reported speech — the words inside the quotation marks. You cannot write all of the actions, facial expressions, and sounds, so choose the important ones that should got into the scene.
- Take the dialog that you wrote for me earlier, and add actions, facial expressions, and attributions (he said, she shouted, they whispered) other supporting details to enrich the conversation.
If you have already done or started assignment #2, that’s fine, just finish it and hand it in, and you won’t need to do #1.But if you haven’t started either one, I prefer you do assignment #1. Remember, Youtube is a useful source and there are lots of short clips from films. You should choose a single scene, or part of a scene, for this exercise.ALSO: I forgot the other “assignment” I gave you last time — about flashbacks. That is, to look at a flashback in a short story or a book you liked, and try to explain how it works, what it is doing, and what it contributes to the story. Since one student did it, I was reminded of that assignment. So don’t forget to do this one as well! That’s enough assignments for the semester!
Critiques
Folks,Sorry to say this, but I’m still working my way through your stories. Reading fiction is a lot slower and more consuming than reading essays! I am hoping to have my feedback ready for you by the beginning of next week!Which reminds me: we will be having classes Monday and Wednesday next week. I don’t think anyone has volunteered for a critique on Monday, so I’ll give you a talk, but on Wednesday, we’ll need two people who want their work critiqued. If you want to volunteer, please email me before uploading a story!
Dialog Exercise
Hi folks. I gave you an assignment regarding dialog, and suggested Terry Bisson’s story “They’re Made Out Of Meat.”The story has also been made into a pretty decent little film, which you can see below:
(There are other video versions online as well — search the title on Youtube and you can see a few. I like this one too. But make sure you read the story, too. It’s short and worth a look.)
Your homework is to write a 500 word dialog between two characters, and to write it the way Bisson writes his — without any action, or “he said”/”she said.”
Later, we’ll go back and fill out the scene with other stuff, like action, setting, and so on. But for now, focus on writing dialog that sounds and feels believable and interesting.
Researching For Your Fiction
I promised a post by today, so here goes…
This week’s homework assignment is concerning research. You need to research for your fiction, of course — all of you realize this, whether you want to do it or not. You’ve almost certainly run into points in writing your stories where you weren’t sure whether what you were writing was plausible or realistic.You probably just made up an answer and continued on writing. This is natural and normal, but when it’s time to edit your work, you need to try to better than that.
Of course, certain things, you can make up on your own.. for example, what do unicorns eat? You don’t really need to research that! You can:
- try to research it directly, even though it’s imaginary. Probably you can figure out what other fantasy writers have decided unicorns eat by reading famous books about unicorns, or looking at paintings of unicorns, or whatever.
- make up an answer that seems natural, like, “Unicorns eat whatever wild horses eat” and then research that.
- make up an answer that seems unnatural or surprising, like, “Unicorns eat young maidens who try to walk around in the forest picking flowers.” This sounds crazy, but it’s probably the most interesting solution since, after all, this puts in a world where unicorns are nothing like what we usually imagine.
- This probably means more research, of course. In a world where unicorns eat young women, what kind of a society would we have? How many unicorns are there? How do people protect themselves from unicorn attacks? Is there a big organization of people devoted to killing the violent, scary unicorns? And are there people who oppose this, and fight to protect unicorns from these killers? Do unicorns speak? Can a unicorn go to unicorn jail? When a unicorn eats a young woman, does it swallow her whole, or only eat certain parts of her?
- This, of course. is impossible to research directly, because girl-eating-unicorns are imaginary. But we can research indirectly. For example, in a society living in an area where large, dangerous wild animals that could eat humans (like, say, tigers, or lions, or bears — bears don’t eat people, but they can kill them easily!) how do people handle the threat of those animals?You can use that example to make up something plausible for your story.
Of course, most of you are writing stories that are basically in our world. But you can still use research to make your imagination work harder, and come up with more interesting things. Sometimes, a secondary storyline can make a story more interesting, or make a character feel more human and believable. It doesn’t need to be related to the main storyline, either.
For example, a young woman who is struggling to deal with her new job is a great character for a story. Just because, say, she starts seeing ghosts, or is deciding to break up with her boyfriend, or whatever — that is, just because the main plotline happens — doesn’t mean the struggle with her job goes away suddenly. In fact, the struggle with her job can make her more interesting and believable, and add some variety to the story. Let’s say, her boss is sexually harassing her. What are the most common forms of sexual harassment in the country where your story is set? What are the laws about sexual harassment, and how do women usually handle it in the society in which your character lives? This is all something you can research, so that you can write well about the minor subplot of her problems at work — even if they’re not the main point of the story.
One author I know sometimes just jams together two seemingly-unrelated themes to thicken stories. For example, an old man who is dealing with his terminal cancer; he is also a butterfly collector, and has a huge collection of rare butterflies he wants to give to his son, except his son doesn’t like butterflies at all. What do butterflies have to do with cancer? Well — we probably can find a symbol there, but really, nothing… just like who you’re dating these days has nothing to do with that professor you’re having problems with these days. Life is full of supposedly unconnected things. Making stories where things are (or seem) somewhat unconnecte, at least at first, makes it feel a little more like life.
(Though, of course, at the same time, sometimes the deep connection really is there, and you can feel it though it’s not totally clear to you. The cancer/butterfly-collecting idea probably would work that way, for example.)
Another example is the details of your world. For example, a few students in our class have been writing stories set after some kind of war or disaster in Korea. If you’re going to write about disasters, you need to research how disasters work. Of course, a nuclear bomb has never exploded in (South) Korea before. But there were two atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Lots of people have done research and calculations to figure out how most major cities would be affected by such an explosion, or the explosion of a stronger nuclear weapon. There’s lots of detail, too: the way an electromagnetic pulse would destroy most circuity in electronic devices — no more iPods and cell phones! — and the effects of the radiation of people at certain distances from the blast. But you can also research stuff like where people would get their food. What happens to canned food after a nuclear blast 50 miles away? How does botulism grow in (some) dented cans? How long would it take before all the canned food in your character’s city disappeared and people had to find another food source? Where could they find it?
Your homework for next week is to choose two books (in Korean, if you prefer!) on two different topics.
- One book should be related to the main plot of your story. You will skim the book, looking for useful or interesting information to fit into your story, but also so you understand your character, his or her religion, life, culture, or job better, and so on.
- One book should be unrelated to the main plot of your story. I don’t care if it’s related to a minor plot, or totally unrelated to your story. It could be a book on baseball, or on knitting. It could be a book about the history of the popcorn business, or a book about making beer. It could be a book like What To Expect When You’re Expecting (about pregnancy) or it could be a book about how to tie different kinds of knots. You will read up on some subject you know nothing about, and find a way — however small — to introduce it into your story. It could even be a fiction writer you’ve never read, but whom you think your character might be a fan of (or hate, or whatever), or a book in a similar style to what you’re writing (such as, for someone writing a story after nuclear war, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker).
I don’t expect you to read both of those books for next week. However, I want you to have both books on hand — bring them to class — and submit for me a report including the following for each book (which you can call your MAIN BOOK and your SECONDARY BOOK):
TITLE: (in Korean and English, if it’s a Korean book)
AUTHOR:
PUBLICATION DATE:
PUBLISHER:
WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK:
SECTIONS MOST RELEVANT TO MY RESEARCH: (which chapters, pages, etc. seem most relevant for your interests)
This report is due for next Wednesday (ie. May 12th).
Finally, we’ll be doing critiques all next week. All the stories to be critiqued should be online this weekend if possible!
Have a great weekend!
Stuff to Read for Next Monday, May 3rd
Hi folks,Well, midterms are over, so it’s back to work for us! Since only one of the stories for critique is online, we’re going to discuss this week’s topic, the Telling Detail, today. For this topic and next, I’d like you to read two stories — one a little shorter, and one a little longer — from Maureen McHugh’s short story collection Mothers & Other Monsters. The book is available as a Creative Commons download from Small Beer Press, so go to this page and choose whichever format you prefer. The stories to read are: “Ancestor Money” and “Laika Comes Home Safe.”
By the way, your writing exercise for next week — due Wednesday next week, though if I were you I’d try get it done for Monday — is titled The Telling Detail, and your job is to describe three places you know, using just a few specific details, so that the reader feels vividly what that place is like, or has a clear, vivid mental “picture” of the place. (But remember, “pictures” aren’t just visual. Other senses are great for building up the sense of a place. How does it smell? What sounds can be heard? How does the air feel?) The trick is: describe each place vividly in only 150 words per place.
This is a tight limit, so choose your details carefully. You can have a character in the place, doing something, or you can describe the place without a character in the scene. (I think having a character is easier, so feel free to work with the characters in your major project, writing about places he or she goes, or also feel free to create a new character if you want to explore other places.)
For Monday
Hi folks,
Sorry, I had a problem getting this file uploaded, but it shouldn’t be too hard to complete the homework anyway…
This is a link for an approximately 20-minute-long episode comedy show called “Better Off Ted.” It is Episode 12. We’ll discuss “shoveling the grief onto your characters” next class, so make sure you have a look. This episode is a great example.
Remember, if you haven’t handed it in yet, your plot outline (for the movie you chose) should be handed in as soon as possible.
The Homework I Forgot to Mention
We got rushed at the end of class, so I forgot to mention your weekly exercise homework: for next Wednesday, write a scene that includes both the flat character you sketched in last week’s homework (which you just handed in today), and another, new character. The second character is a more “rounded” character. The interaction between this rounded character and your flat character should be told from the 1st person point of view, from the perspective of your rounded character.
Next time, we will talk a little more about rounded characters, as well as critiquing the three fiction excepts posted earlier.
Note: normally your weekly writing assignment is due on Monday. While I am giving you an extension, be aware you will also have to prepare critiques for Wednesday next week; it’s probably a good idea to finish this assignment sooner anyway.
The title for this assignment is: When Flat Meets Rounded. Please include that assignment title somewhere at the top of the first page of this assignment when you hand it in, to help me keep track of your work. Thanks!
Stories to Look at for Our Next Critique Session
Folks!
Here are the stories for this Wednesday:
Remember, you will talk about:
- What effect you think the author wants to have in the writing, and what it’s “about” (themes, ideas, etc.)
- What you think is effective in the writing
- What you think is not so effective, or could be improved
- One single suggestion for the author to focus on, to get a general and wide-range improvement in the story
Please type up your notes formally, so you can pass them to each author. This will help you express your ideas more clearly in the short time you have for offering criticism. Bring two copies, as one copy is for my files. (You will get credit for the total number and quality of pieces of written feedback you provide, in addition to the verbal feedback you give.)
Remember, we will critique these three stories in class on Wednesday, March 24th.
Also remember, for Monday you are supposed to:
- Hand in a character sketch for a flat character
- Read the story “Flowers for Algernon” which I have given you to read.
We will be talking about “rounded” characters on Monday, and a similar homework assignment will follow.
Student Information Sheet
Here’s a copy of the Student Information Sheet, in case you need a copy:
Welcome to Creative Writing
Welcome to the new Creative Writing course for the Spring 2010 semester.
There is a syllabus for the course available here (PDF). Here is the Revised Syllabus (PDF) with the new assessment system included:
The week-too-week course plan is subject to revision, but in general principles it will remain as it is.
I assigned some homework for our next class, as follows:
- Think about what you want to write — what form you’re currently interested in exploring, whether poetry or fiction or creative nonfiction.
- Think about what you want to write about — as in, what sort of a story or character or emotion or whatever that you think you’d like to explore. Political or social issues, too, fit into this question.
- Be ready to talk next time about one writer that has “spoken” to you in his or her written work, and why you think this was the case. (Remember my various examples and their explanations?)
- Write a short piece of creative writing (ie. one page, single-spaced) of any style you like, dealing with any subject you like. This is for me to get a sense of what level you’re at, and to track your progress.
- Since you should know something about me as a writer, since I’m teaching you this course, please check out my latest story at Clarkesworld.com.I’ll be asking you for your feedback on the story in class next week. (It’s only fair, since I’ll be critiquing your work all semester too!)
I also mentioned to students a subpage on this website, dealing with formatting of written work. That page can be viewed here. It’s a good idea to check it out and familiarize yourself with my formatting guidelines.
I look forward to spending the semester with you studying Creative Writing!