Deadlines And So On

• By mrgord
• Posted in Creative Writing 2, Fall 2010
• On October 19, 2010
• Comments Off on Deadlines And So On

Today we had some deadline changes, so here they are:

1. The deadline for written critiques of Seungchul’s and Minkyung’s stories is now 6pm on 27 October 2010. You will upload the critiques to the correct folders here so that Minkyung and Seungchul can read them prior to class on 28 October.
2. We will have “critical discussions” (not exactly critiques) of the two stories in class on 28 October.
3. The deadline for submitting your midterm writing submission to me is 12pm (noon) on 1 November 2010.
4. You have a writing exercise due on 4 November, to be handed in during class. (See below.)

Exercise: Show Me The Tension!

For 4 November, your writing assignment is to take a scene involving at least two people interacting, and write it up. The scene you write should be based on a real interaction you have witnessed in the past week or two. It may involve you or people you know, but could instead involve strangers. (This is completely up to you, but if it involves people you know, please change the names.) Your job is to take a very innocuous scene —  a scene that doesn’t have any necessarily overt tension or problem — and plant the seeds of a possible or forthcoming problem or tension in the scene. For example, imagine the first scene in Frances’ story, except with a specific tension. (For example, imagine that Drei has just found out her ex-boyfriend is dating her old best friend; or imagine that Drei’s mother has just found out that Drei’s father, her ex-husband, is remarrying a young woman next weekend.) You should not directly mention the problem or tension, but it may be possible for the reader to guess, however vaguely, either that something is wrong, or even what might be wrong. (The reader needn’t be able to guess correctly: it’s more important that they sense that something is wrong, than for them to sense what exactly is wrong.)

This should be a single scene involving dialog, description, and perhaps direct narration or commentary by the character (if written from the first-person point of view). It should be approximately 500 words long, and is due at the beginning of class on 4 November.