Character Wants
As you start to develop your narratives, constantly keep in mind, what do my characters want. What are they trying to achieve, gain, learn, buy, give away, etc? From this question, we can learn a lot about who the character is and we can learn our conflict because there has to be something that's keeping them from getting what they want. In "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris, the narrator, David wants to learn French and must overcome the obstacles of an insane teacher and his own insecurities about returning to school. In "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara, the narrator Sylvia wants to remain in her comfort zone while Miss Moore wants to take her out of it. Through the explorations of these conflicts we learn a lot about the people we're looking at and it here where our dramatic tension lies.
Show Don't Tell
It's one of the most elementary rules of narrative writing, show don't tell. There is power in specificity. It allows you to paint more vivid pictures and helps the reader to fully realize the characters you are describing. We looked at Girl by Jamaica Kincaid (in Readings For Writers) and The Day Lady Died by Frank O'Hara (see Class Documents). In these poems, the writers are able to create strong interesting characters with fascinating stories through telling. Kincaid could have just said my mother was an old-fashioned woman who wanted her to be a lady or at least appear like one to the outside world, but instead she shows us this information by presenting us with the advice her mother gave her. The Day Lady Died could be summed up as a wealthy (or formerly wealthy) man is going about his daily routine when he hears about the death of Billie Holiday. Instead the author details that daily routine for us and through that we learn a lot of things from the narrator and his life. Some stories are often stories where a person's daily routine was interrupted.
"I usually do things this way but today something changed."
Freewriting
I am going to strongly encourage you throughout the semester to incorporate freewriting as a part of your writing process. There are 3 different major aspects of writing: content, style, organization. As writers, we often find ourselves trying to pay attention to all three aspects at the same time, which leads us to doing things like writing a few sentences, immediately declaring them bad in some way, and starting over. This can be very time consuming and most importantly very discouraging. What freewriting does is it allows you focus solely on the content. What do I have to say about this topic? What do I know? Once you've determined this you can then organize those thoughts and express them in a way appropriate for the given assignment. Correcting yourself as you write can hinder creativity and it can make you feel like you don't have anything to say since you haven't really allowed yourself to explore this information. You will have a few freewriting assignments that will be formally assigned and we will do freewriting in class, but I really encourage you to do this for every writing assignment, even when it's not assigned.
Why Blog?
- Because I want to know who you are. Where you're coming from? How you feel about the class and the work you're doing?
- Practice makes perfect. The more you write, the better you'll become at it. I only get to have you for a semester and I want to make you write as much as possible.
- Teaches you employable skills. Being able to say you maintained a blog for semester can help build your resume. It shows you have knowledge of an Internet medium and can be counted on to regularly produce content.
- It's the one assignment where the majority of the writing and work is completely yours. You pick the topic. You decide how you want it to look and sound. It's something that I hope you'll be proud to take ownership of.
- Get used to public writing and writing for a public audience. Again employable skills.
*Please see Blog Assignment Sheet for more details about your blog.
Homework
- Due Monday: Freewrite for your one page paper on a person (or event) who has been influential in your life. This is not a formal paper. It is a brainstorming exercise for you to practice the process of freewriting and get as many thoughts as you possibly can about your subject out of your head and on to the page. Send it in via Google docs.
- Due Monday: Your second blog post of the semester. See Blog Assignment Sheet underneath Class Documents
- Due Friday: Read Face by Alice Munro. Consider the following questions as you read (you do not have to turn these questions in but we will be discussing them as a class) Please give yourself time to complete this story and read carefully.
- What do you know about the town where the story is set? What type of people live in this town? In what ways does this information inform some of the choices of the characters?
- What is the difference between the main house where the narrator grew up and Bell's Cottage?
- Compare the narrator's mother to Sharon Suttles. Be prepared to discuss specific passages that illustrate your assumptions.
- Why does the narrator make the choice he makes in the end?
- Due Friday: Read Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. For each line of dialogue take note of what it is we learn about the story, the characters, the setting, etc.
- Due Friday: Read The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me by Sherman Alexie. As you read the piece, ask yourself what do each of these events have in common with one another. What is the common thread?
- Due Friday: One Page Double-Spaced Description of a Person or Event that was influential to your life. This is a formal document and it will be shared with me and members of the class.
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