Assignments and Updates

For March 10-12 Read Gladman's Event Factory. Read all and mark 3-4 passages to share and discuss in class Monday-Wednesday.

3/17: On Narrative, further reading from Biting the Error: Davis (35), Shurin (38), Gladman (46),
Halpern (55), Markotic (119), Harryman (132)

Keep Blogging, see syllabus for additional assignment info and due dates. Watch EMU Online for Creative Project 3 Assignment Sheet coming soon.

Narrative Assignment

Description

The Assignment:

1.      Write a description of a place, thing, or emotion, aiming to provide unique detail, without giving away the name of what it is that you are describing:

Place, Thing, or Emotion

Describe a place, but without naming the place. E.g., a place you know very well in Ypsilanti or in your home town.

Describe an emotion, but without naming the emotion.

Describe a thing, without naming the thing.

The aim in all three cases is to avoid abstraction and cliché and to pay attention to vocabulary.

Note #1: Try to avoid writing a riddle or making a puzzle where the reader is put in the position of guessing at what the identity is of the described place, thing or emotion.

Note #2: Do not describe a person or character.

2.      Put a character into that place or emotion (emotional state) to whom, or in which place, something happens.

Narrative Writing Exercises: Choose prompt one from below, freewrite everything you can in response to the prompt, then rewrite/revise to include character(s), situation (plot, what happens), setting/sense of space or place.

* Write about a boring situation. Convince your reader that the situation is boring and that your characters are bored or boring or both, however, you must fascinate the reader with your description of this boring situation: use concrete and sensory details to make the description come alive; use humor or other strategies. Do not use generalizations or judgments. Be specific and concrete.

*Use a page from the dictionary, pull out a few words, use these to begin writing a story.

*Write a 200-word description of a place. You can use any and all sensory descriptions but sight: you can describe what it feels like, sounds like, smells like and even tastes like. Try to write the description in such a way that people will not miss the visual details. Put a character in that place and have her/him do something.