READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR WEEK OF MARCH 20-26, 2006

Tuesday, March 21, 2006:

Class canceled today; instructor giving out-of-town reading.

Thursday, March 23, 2006:

Please read Chapter 2 (The Tower and the Net: Story Form, Plot, and Structure) in Writing Fiction.

Important! Your first Writerly Immersion Paper will be due in class today! (See guidelines below)..

Looking ahead a bit, here are the guidelines for your next formal assignment, which will be due on Tuesday, April 4, 2006:

The assignment is to write an opening scene (or exposition) for a short story.

Your short story scene should be approximately 3 pages, or 750 words.

The scene should reveal aspects and traits of the characters who are in the scene.

The scene should set up a dramatic situation/narrative tension/central conflict.

Your scene should jump right in and begin in medias res and attempt to engage the attention of your reader right off the bat.

Your scene should attempt to skillfully weave together different elements of fiction writing (action/dialogue, narrative summary, scene setting/description, etc.) in ways that work best for the scene.

And finally, here is this week’s memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box for blog posts due on Sunday, March 26:

Write down a story that you tell people that didn't really happen the way you usually tell it. So many times we have a good story we embellish with exaggerations, switch events for the sake of timing or humor, all kinds of things. Come on, it's fun! But after you write down the story you tell everybody, tell the same story in its bare-bones, no-frills, true version. Think about the reasons why you twisted the facts around.