Please be aware that some of our readings are “mature”—meaning, they may have “adult...

Please be aware that some of our readings are “mature”—meaning, they may have “adult content.”

In the case of “Cathedral,” the content includes drugs. However, the use of recreational drugs is not glamorized in the story, and in no way are we advocating their use. If anything, the character who uses the drug is a bit of a dim-bulb!

We are trusting you, as Governor’s School students and therefore “special,” to handle this kind of content in a mature manner.

Ok. Fiction.Let’s talk about fiction.

You’re going to write at least one, good story (or a set of “flash” pieces).

Here’s an exercise which may help give you a jump-start on Fiction Project Option #1.

Go give away a dollar.

Yeah. Really. Go out and give your dollar to someone.

It must be someone you don’t know, and you CANNOT tell them why you are giving it to them. Don’t give any

explanation at all.

Be aware. Engage your senses. Notice EVERYTHING around you. Wake up. Be

in the moment.

What are ya waiting for?

Go!

Welcome Back

• DON’T TALK.

• DON’T ASK ANY QUESTIONS.

• Just sit down and describe the experience. Open up Word and start typing.

• What happened?

• Hey, what?? Look at your writing. I can’t SEE it. There’s no DETAIL!

• What were you doing out there—sleep-walking?

• Describe what happened for real—get some specifics in there!!

• Describe EVERYTHING!

What was the

setting?

What precisely was

done?

What were some of the

points of view?

What was said?

How did the space

around you feel?

EXACTLY what did the person’s face look like?

EXACTLY how did the dollar bill feel in your hand?

What, in fact, was the STORY?

I.e, what was the STORY in what happened?

What makes ANY event a “story”?

What are the elements of a story?

As a writer, how do you find/see/think up stories?

Drawing on what just happened, and in a good paragraph, sketch a story.

Sketch = the outline or summary of a possible story.

Must include:

• Characters (who are they? who are primary? who are secondary?)

• Plot (what happens, in what order, and why?)• Setting (where’s everything happening? What, if any,

is the significance of the setting or of particular details or objects n the setting?)

• Clear point of view (who’s telling the story, and why?)

Let’s Talk about PlotWhere might the story of the dollar bill BEGIN? What are the possibilities?

Where might/should/can it END?

In what order will things happen, and why?

What’s the NARRATIVE QUESTION?

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Begin your plot with…

• You, back in the classroom, AFTER having given the dollar away?

• This morning, when you first woke up?

• The second you were handing over the dollar bill, putting it in the person’s hand?

• Yesterday, when I assigned you to bring a buck to class?

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End your plot with…

• You, back in the classroom, AFTER having given the dollar away?

• You, twelve years from now, working as a check-out person at McDonalds in a scary section of Miami?

• The second you were handing over the dollar bill, putting it in the person’s hand?

• You, falling asleep in bed tonight?

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THE POSSIBILITIES…

are endless.

And a blast.

Plot NOTS1. Trick or twist or clever ending. Cute, yes. Fun, yes. But

gets OLD quick. All other story elements are subordinated to the tricky ending, and those elements wind up with zero development.

2. Related to #1: plot grounded in a clever concept rather than character.

3. Suicide ending. Come on. You’re gonna have to do better than that.

Speaking of character…

Let’s Talk about Character

Are the people in your story

Believable?Complex?Distinctive? How do you

make a good character?

Try STARTING with a character!Develop an interesting person—someone you yourself are CURIOUS ABOUT.

What are that person’s anxieties, hopes, weirdest dreams, favorite color, relationship to parents, worst habit, favorite saying? What situations make her nervous? What do you NOT UNDERSTAND about your character?

Now take that person and put her in an interesting, fraught situation, one that will confuse, enrage, wound, subdue, rattle, or otherwise test her. THINK OF THE NARRATOR IN THE BLIND MAN STORY.

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“Cathedral”

Here’s a guy…what’s he like? Who is he? What’s his thing?

Kind of a dim bulb.Doesn’t have much worldly experience; never left home town.Doesn’t read a whole lot; got as far as ____ in school.Nice person; a bit sarcastic.Xenophobic.Married to a woman who is almost the inverse of the above.

So what situation, what set of circumstances, would put this guy to the test, or tickle his worst qualities, or make him nervous, or force a change, or nudge him toward self-awareness?

For the narrator in “Cathedral,” who/what is the Other? How would you describe his encounter with that Other? What ultimately happens?

Remember what I said about writers and

artists forever wrangling with binaries--

the problem of Self-Other, Subject-Object,

Inside-Outside, Like-Unlike?

Who/what is YOUR Other?

AND

make this person a

SYMPATHETIC character!

Here’s a thought:

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Fiction Project ASSIGNMENTOption 1

Write a story.

Just a good, engaging, character-driven story.

If you want to base it on the dollar bill exercise, you may. But you don’t have to. (Beware, if you use the dollar bill thing, of pat, predictable themes.)

Roughly 6 double-spaced pages.

Post a draft to your blog with the header, SHORT STORY ASSIGNMENT. Category: creative writing. Tag: creative writing.

Draft due: Monday, June 10th.Full assignment:

www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/GS2013/FictionProject1.htm

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“A Good Man is Hard to Find”

We’ll use this story for occasional reference.

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Prose StyleBeginning writers often don’t pay much attention to LANGUAGE and prose style.

As a fiction writer, a big part of what you do is shape, discover, play, and otherwise have a great time with WORDS—their sounds, textures, resonances.

For fabulous examples of style, go here:www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/CreativeWriting/323/Style.docx

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You’ll hear me say this over and over:

literary art starts with play—deep and sometimes even disturbing but pleasurable engagement with language.

Have fun.

Listen to the language.

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literary art starts with PLAY—deep (and sometimes even disturbing) but pleasurable engagement with language.

Have fun.

Listen to the language.

You’ll hear me say this over and over:

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Fiction Project ASSIGNMENTOption #2

Write a story which experiments in some way with plot, character, setting, mode.

Roughly 6 double-spaced pages.

Full assignment:

www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/GS2013/FictionProject2.htm

Tim O’Brien’s,

“How to Tell a True War Story”

What do you make of PLOT in this story?What’s the shape of your own story’s plot?

Scene-setting (exposition)X X

X

X

X

Hook

X

X

X

X

Crisis

ResolutionWhat SPEEDS pace?

What SLOWSPace?

Introduction of minor parallel plot

Hook

Hook

Hook

Flashback

X

X

Partial answer

Hook = “triggering action” or “complicating action” or “narrative question” or “twist.” Different sources will call these by different names.

False clueIncreasing tension

ACTION!ANSWERS!

Dialogue.Internal monologue.Description.

TRADITIONAL

PLOT

STRUCTURE:

standard rising

and falling

action

And did you know: each carries with it its own

ideological assumptions about the nature of time,

desire, purpose, even human existence itself?

Nothing wrong with a traditional plot structure.

Alternate Plot Structures

Framed narrative. (Or this is actually a plot device.) Have you seen Titanic?

Montage or collage. O’Brien story?

Multiple and intersecting plots. Continental Drift.

Chronologically backwards plot. (Yes—backwards. See Lorrie Moore’s “How to Talk to Your Mother.”)

Static plots. (See experimental stories by Robbe Grille.)

All flashbacks, or footnotes, or exposition. Nicholson Baker’s, The Mezzanine.

Different plots can express alternative ways of experiencing TIME and REALITY! See Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

BTW, authors and titles mentioned here are class assignments or material

can easily be found through simple web searches.

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So…• Right now we are reading and thinking about

fiction, and you are trying your hand at fiction. The idea here is to explore, give it a chance, see what it feels like.

• Don’t be afraid to fail. I’d rather see a flop of a story which is nonetheless trying interesting things—than a “polished” or “successful” story which plays everything safe.

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And you might try...

FLASH FICTION!Instead of writing a long, traditional, try a set of flash pieces—say at least 4.

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