Month: September 2015

9/28-10/2 – Workshop Week

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In class

As expected, we’ll workshop your fiction this week. 🙂 Ms. Bjelland will lead the workshop and I’ll participate.

Homework

For this week, you should be working to find some examples of creative non-fiction (lyric essays, vignettes, and memoirs) for your mentor texts.

Find three different pieces that you like from the journals. Choose the beginning paragraph of one, the ending paragraph of another, and a middle paragraph from the third.

Paste each paragraph that you selected into your writer’s notebooks (so you’ll have three paragraphs total). Annotate those paragraphs, as we’ve discussed. Figure out what makes those paragraphs work–what are the “rules” the writer seems to be following or what “tricks” does the writer use to make the writing shimmer? What lines stand out to you as particularly well done? What’s the voice, tone, or style like for the paragraphs you selected?

I’m going to recommend some specific samples in case you feel stuck–you do not HAVE to use these, but I am providing them pre-labled with the KIND of creative non-fiction it is so you can use them if they’re helpful.

  1. Sample Memoir 1
  2. Sample Memoir 2
  3. Sample Vignettes 1
  4. Sample Vignettes 2
  5. Lyric Essay Sample 1

9/25 – Last day Fiction Writing

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Today we talked about common mistakes in dialogue using this fabulous article from The Creative Penn. Then we wrote and conferenced for the remainder of the period.

Fiction DUE today! I will print it at the beginning of fourth period. If you think your work is not complete, that’s fine–you’re welcome to put a note at the top of your page identifying the main thing you’re concerned about or thinking about so that you can get feedback on it in workshop, for example:

  • I was in line to conference with Mrs. B about the dialogue in the middle section, which I think is a bit weak, but I didn’t get signed up in time. Any feedback on that is much appreciated!
  • I wrote an awesome beginning as well as the ending, but I totally left out the middle. I’m not sure what needs to happen to get from the start to the finish. I’d love to get feedback on that in workshop.

9/23 – Fiction Writing Unit Day 3

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Today I’ll do a short mini lesson on two terms we hear a lot in fiction writing:

  • Interiority
  • Character soup

Interiority – has to do with how you SHOW (rather than tell) what’s going on inside a character. This is something you want MORE of.

Character soup – happens when you introduce too many characters who may be perfectly distinct to you, but blur together into a big bowl of character soup for your reader. You don’t need to get everyone in your story on stage in the first five pages. 🙂 This is something you want NONE of.