Two Lies and a Truth: Prep for Fiction

TWO LIES, ONE TRUTH

Write down three strange and unusual facts about yourself. Two must be lies. One must be true.

“I once fell down a waterfall.”

“I sat on Kurt Cobain’s lap.”

“I’ve seen Kevin Costner in person without his shirt.”

Read your three strange facts aloud then answer questions as the others try to figure out which is true.

How to lie: Don’t make everything up. Pull some details from real life.

Later, turn one of your statements into a short, short piece of fiction.

REVISION, REVISION, REVISION

REVISION

1.       What is the power of revision?

a.       How does revision help at the sentence level?

b.      How does revision help at the larger, macro level? Describe this kind of revision.

2.       Take a piece of your own writing and make a plan for micro and macro revision.

3.       Start revising some sentences, some words, and some structure. (You are not obligated to keep these changes, as this is an exercise.)

4.       Share your revisions with another member of the community.

·         1^st draft, wear the WRITER’S glasses.

·         Take a cooling off period.

·         2^nd draft, wear the READER’S glasses.

o   Read your sentences aloud to feel them in your mouth and hear them in your ears.

o   Pay attention to inexact words, clunky phrases, even structure.

o   Consider information the reader needs, where the reader is confused, ideas you know, but haven’t communicated to the reader.

·         What else can you think of to revise?

·         Revising Prose:

o   Make lines more poetic

o   Eliminate s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d rhymes that don’t quite fit.

o   Craft sentences that are fun to read

·         Revising Poetry:

o   Eliminate s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d rhymes that don’t quite fit.

o   Eliminate l-o-n-g lines that don’t seem to fit the rhythm of the poem.

o   Change a few words to see if the new word makes a difference to the beauty of the poem, the sounds, or the meaning.

o   Find words that have the denotation and connotation that doubles their power and impact.

·         How is the revision changing the piece?

Pick a piece of writing, polished or rough and make a plan to revise it. (at the word, sentence, and even structural level.)

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Begin revising your piece. Then share what you've done.

A Good Line

1.       Find a good sentence or line of poetry.

2.       Copy it into your notebook.

3.       Explain what you like about it.

4.       Imitate it (but with a different subject)

5.       How might you incorporate such writing into your own work?

6.       Share it with someone.

CREATIVE WRITING after Outdoor Ed

Mon 9/24  Daily Writing Workshop

·         In writing, explore one event (really one frozen moment) from outdoor ed in nonfiction, fiction, or poetry. Use sensory details that include sights, sounds, smells, and touch. Paint a picture of the setting. Plotting: What happened next?

·         Explain why we revise: make a plan for revising your last piece of writing

·         Keeping verb tenses consistent.

·         Together figure out where we are going next

·         Daily read: find a good line or sentence, write about it, share it.

·         HW for Tue: work on writings for next Monday

Tue 9/25 Daily Writing Workshop

·         Write in class

·         Daily read: copy and share a good line

·         Spoken Word on YouTube

·         No HW

Wed 9/26 NO SCHOOL

Thu 9/27 Daily Writing Workshop

·         Write in class

·         Daily read: copy and share a good line

·         HW for Fri: study for a short writing quiz

Fri 9/28 Daily Writing Workshop

·         Short quiz

·         Write in class

·         Daily read: copy and share a good line

·         HW due Mon: another short piece of writing is due: short nonfiction, poem, or fiction

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Mon 10/1 Daily Writing Workshop

·         Short Writing DUE MON in class

·         Write in class

·         Daily read: copy and share a good line

·         HW due Mon: another short piece of writing is due: short nonfiction, poem, or fiction

How to Write Poetry

How to make poetry

Old strict conventions vs. new, freer poetry

What are the advantages of the older forms, with stricter conventions  vs. the new forms of poetry with no rules, no rhyme, different line lengths, unspecified number of lines, and complete freedom?

Half of us have written in the old forms, and half have written in free verse.

MB says that forcing oneself to figure out how to say what you want in a strict form can help you say it better. MOB asks why give up what you really want to say just to fit into the strict form? This semester, rather than merely looking to make a body of products, we will explore the process of writing in both forms to discover which suits us best. This ‘debate’ will be continued! We also need to READ many poems of both types and discuss them.

What should be included in poems?

Images and Imagery (means all the senses) so that it’s sensory, immediate, not abstract

Rhyme?

Meter: every poem has some kind of meter, though not always strict

Free verse is a form of poetry that does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.^[1] Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free verse displays some elements of form. Most free verse, for example, self-evidently continues to observe a convention of the poetic line in some sense, at least in written representations, though retaining a potential degree of linkage, however nebulous, with more traditional forms

Imitating Eleven and Imagist Poetry

Tuesday: Imitate Eleven by Sandra Cisneros, the style, the language, but explore your own subject. (click on the tab labeled Professional Samples to see the sample.

Wednesday: Imitate poetry with lots of images. It doesn't have to make perfect sense or be a polished piece. It is an exercise.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough. (Ezra Pound, A Station in the Metro)

The squirming figures pushing and shoving;
Salmon struggling against a pulsing current. (student A)

The glow of the red lights in a staggered row;
Ants marching, what they feel is fast but for us slow. (student M)

Thursday: another exercise tbd, but mostly working on your deadline for Friday, 1-3 pages due.

First Writing Assignment due Fri Sept. 17

Creative Writing Assignment (20 points)

Due date: Friday Sept. 14 7:50 a.m. (late work is penalized)

Due in class: typed paper copy, 1 to 3 pages

     (also, submit an electronic copy via email to jforman@buckley.org or to dropbox)

First piece of creative writing

Choose any one of the following:

A.    1 longer or 2-3 shorter poems (revised, carefully crafted)

B.     Fictional Short Story  (revised, crafted, beginning/middle/end, characters)

C.     Creative Nonfiction Narrative (revised, crafted, 1-3 pages, concise nonfiction memoir or true story with beginning/middle/end, characters)

Whichever form or genre you choose, make sure it represents a significant effort, including several drafts with revision, about two to three hours of your time (at least) both in an out of class.
M: letter and memoir
Pb: short story, internship
T: long poem
A: 2-3 poems
G: creative memoir on 'war'
Pv: long poem
Jg: poems
M: poems  

Welcome to Creative Writing!

Welcome to Creative Writing, Parismadialimichaeltylerpaulina! I'm Dr Forman and I'm very much looking forward to helping you be creative and write this year.

(after our first class)

Thank you for a good first class today. I’m looking forward even more to teaching you. Your first writings seem promising to me. Remember to read the syllabus carefully for tomorrow and annotate some of the genres listed there. Tomorrow in class you’ll write about two or three genres you’d like to work on this first semester.