Readings: Burroway, ; Girl ; and What We Talk About

Transcription

1 Topics: Week 6 - Significant Detail Characterization Readings: Burroway, ; Girl ; and What We Talk About Due tonight: Fiction Assignment 1: the short, short, story; response to What Happened Next? Journals from groups 1&3

2 Warm-Up Exercise Brief class discussion about the structure of Girl Now, write an in-class journal entry where one character scolds another with a list of specific complaints. Time: 15 minutes

3 In groups: Read your new ending to The Wind From the Sun to the class; take a few minutes to discuss your choices. All group members should participate. Turn in your individual responses. (time: 15 minutes) Then, Read your short, short story aloud to the group. When everyone has read, choose one to share with the class. (time 25 minutes)

4 Significant Detail and Character The great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert your eyes. And that s the hardest thing, because we want to flinch. The artist must go into the white hot center of himself, and our impulse when we get there is to look away and avert our eyes. -Robert Olen Butler

5 CONCRETE, SIGNIFICANT DETAIL: CONCRETE: an image, something sensed through one of our senses; DETAIL: focused and specific SIGNIFICANT: the specific image also suggests an abstraction, generalization or judgment -must ALSO have meaning, carry weight.

6 Metaphor and Simile A metaphor goes out and comes back; it is a fetching motion of the imagination. -Tony Hoagland Writers use metaphor to encompass the abstract world with language

7 Character Characters drive stories When you read fiction, non-fiction, even poetry, you are, first and foremost, meeting people. They are at the core of writing and interact with every element of writing. They drive the story; they make the reader care enough to keep reading, or not.

8 Character They need to be: substantial, authentic, dimensional. Good characters cast shadows

9 Character DESIRE: a driving force in human nature in stories, it creates a steam of momentum to carry the story forward.

10 Character and Desire Desire can be huge, intoxicating: Gatsby wants Daisy, he wants the dream Ahab wants the whale

11 Character and Desire Desire can be smaller, more intimate: In Katherine Anne Porter s story, Theft, the main character simply wants her stolen purse back. This desire is rendered important to her and, therefore, it is important to the reader; In Chekhov s story, The Lady with the Pet Dog, the narrator simply wants another flirtation, another minor affair.

12 Character and Desire: Part One (Assignment 6) What does Merton want? What does Anders want? What does Girl want? What does Mel want? Write down what each character desires or wants as a warm-up; bring to class.

13 Characterization: Part Two Complete the characterization exercise: Choose a character that you have thought and written about; fill out the following sentence: (Name) is a (adj.) X-year-old (noun) who wants Next, jot down what makes your character giggle, wince, shout, gag, go silent? Write a brief dialogue between this character and another where your character demonstrates all 5 emotions from the list above. (Typed, 25 points, 500 words maximum)

14 Homework due Wed. Oct 1 Fiction Assignment #2: Desire and Motivation (See slides 12-13) Read Burroway, Chapter 4, ; Tandolfo the Great 118+; The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, 280+; Big Foot Stole My Wife, 290+ Journal Assignments: Write down one technique or device that each writer (see above)uses in his/her story to convey plot or character that inspires you; what is the device or technique? Cite an example from the story. What about it do you admire? Practice the technique on a scene or character from something that you have already written. Repeat this for all three stories (see above). Journals due: groups 2, 4 and 5