English 222

Introduction to Creative Writing— 3 s.h.

A University Studies Arts & Science Core / Fine and Performing Arts Course

Proposal and Rationale

1. Introduction to Fiction Writing (Weeks 1-4)
1. Dynamics of short fiction and novel (a)
2. Realism in prose (a)
1. Techniques: setting, dialog, characterization, plot (a)
2. Exercises due each class period (a)
3. Peer-review of stories in small groups or on-line (a, c, d)
4. Workshop/Reading (a, c, d)
2. Introduction to Poetry Writing (Weeks 5-9)
1. Formal poetry (a)
2. Free verse (a)
3. Form and content (a)
4. Techniques: imagery, lining, titles/endings, symbolism (a, b)
1. Exercises due each class period (a)
2. Peer-review of poems in small groups or on-line (a, c, d)
3. Workshop/Reading (a, c, d)
3. Introduction to Creative Prose (non-fiction) (Weeks 10-14)
1. Fiction, Non-fiction, and The Essay (a)
2. Personal and Universal (a)
1. Techniques (a)
2. Exercises (a)
3. Peer-review of stories (a, c, d)
4. Workshop (a, c, d)

Week 15: Presentation of portfolios, public (or semi-public) performance. (Goals a, b, c, d)

Note: In addition to the above genres, individual instructors may choose to include the following genres in supplement to or in place of the three listed above:

4. Introduction to Screenplay/Teleplay Writing
1. Cinematic Strategies
2. Dialog and Image
1. Techniques
2. Exercises
3. Peer-review of screenplays/teleplays
4. Workshop
5. Introduction to Writing Drama
1. Plotting and Dialog
2. Spectacle
1. Techniques
2. Exercises
3. Peer-review of screenplays/teleplays
4. Workshop

Attendance: Two unexcused absences=loss of one letter grade. Much of the value of having a class in poetry writing is the workshop/group work that occurs during every meeting. An excellent writer who doesn’t share her insights with others is only doing average work. Besides, there is no map for good creative writing, you need to listen to others.

Late assignments: "But the muse doesn’t always arrive on schedule." But the writer works hard and continually and always has work when it’s due. Grade penalties: one letter per class period. I also do not devote much time to commenting on late work.

Reading Assignments and Presentations: We have excellent texts. Not reading them and considering the wisdom they offer is the best way to handicap your success as a writer. Much of class time is devoted to the texts, so, to be prepared, read them. You will also give 2 presentations (1)on poems or stories you have found in the text that are not otherwise covered in class and (2) on a contemporary American writer. You may give 1 on-line. (a, d)

Drafts: One to three due weekly. These are rough, sometimes fragmentary, versions of what may (will?) become poems, stories, or plays. They may come from exercises, but they are at least greatly revised versions of exercises (in other words they can’t count twice. and I will comment on them based on their promise and on the amount and quality of work they reflect. No napkins, matchbooks, etc. Drafts, too, will be typed. As a general rule, I will simply record the number. (b)

Exercises: There is one due for each class. See attached sheet.

Poems, Stories, Scenes: These will be submitted to the class for small group discussion, on-line workshop or in-class workshop. We will discuss submission schedule in class. Expect one per week. (b)

Journals: Keep a reading/writing journal. A good journal will improve your writing and offer you an opportunity to explore your work and the work of others in greater depth. Show me your journal at the conferences. ***Keep everything. I will collect a portfolio of your work at the end of the last class. (a, b, c, d)

The Final Grade:

Journal (incl. exercises) 40%

Portfolio: 50%

Presentations/Workshop: 10%

Attendance 10% (above all, either way)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Half-hour Exercise. To be completed each week and recorded in your journal:

Once a week, spend at least one half-hour absolutely alone and in silence. Find a pleasant comfortable place, sit down, and shut up. Or go for a walk somewhere where you are unlikely to be disturbed or meet friends. No music, no pets, no tv, no books, no pencil, no paper. Alone.

A half-hour of silence is not easy for most of us, but it is essential to opening ourselves to surroundings, to new thoughts, to imagination. Try not to plan this as time to think about the latest poem (or, worse yet, to plan essays for other courses--ugh). Observe your surroundings, be they your bedroom or a coffeeshop or a park, and let one thought lead to the next.

At the end of the time, set down in your journal those lines, sense impressions, ideas, thoughts, images, etc. that stick with you. That is all.

1. Write a poem-like thing that includes EACH of the following: a mammal, an unusual place, a form of water, weather, an ancestor, a body part, a plant, and one thing you never question as true.
2. Choose ONE of the following lines to start a poem. Write as fast and wildly as you can:

--She is the laundress of fish

--When I will no longer be worth the rain to hang me

--I was the white waterfall

--I was tan when I met Solange

When you’re done cut the line and see what you can do with what’s left.

3. Dreamwriting: As soon as you wake up, write for ten minutes faster than you can. Make mistakes, do not edit or rethink, just write. Select the best lines or the things that surprised you and put them together however you choose.
4. Write down your earliest childhood memory. A story is good, but a sensory impression is enough. Include as much detail as you can remember (or guess at or make up). Use it to end a poem that takes place BEFORE the memory.
5. Go to an unfamiliar place and write down at least 6 sense impressions or objects that catch your attention. Then use all of them in a simple sequence of events (e.g., a man gets off a bus with a sack of groceries, stumbles, bag breaks).
6. Look in the texts (or in the library) for a poet whose word choice is completely different from yours. List 20 words you would never use in a poem. Then write a poem at least 10 lines long that uses at least one per line.
7. Choose one of the following as the start of a line. Repeat 20 times. Each line starts the same but ends differently.

--Because --That was the year

--I used to believe --I can still remember

--If only --I want

8. Write a word-count poem (or rewrite one of your old ones): the same number of words per line.
9. Take a poem you’ve written recently and rewrite it in iambic pentameter, then in another meter (see the Adams book, esp. the chapter "Beyond Iambic Pentameter").
10. A craft exercise: Copy-change. Copy a poem by hand. Change one key event or detail from the beginning and write a poem that uses the same formal features, sentence patterns, and key structure words ("After," "which," "when," "the," etc.). If you like the result, you’ll need to credit the author.
11. Write a poem about movement (running, falling, climbing, dancing, etc.) and try to simulate the rhythm of the action using both word choice and line length (and rhyme if necessary).
12. Write your autumn poem. No other rules apply.
13. Think back on the most lowdown thing you’ve ever done or that was ever done to you (this way nobody else will know which). Change what you must to protect the innocent (or the guilty, if you feel you must). Write a first-person defense for doing such a despicable thing. The result may be moving or funny.
14. Put lots of paper in front of you, set an alarm for 10 minutes. blindfold yourself, then write non-stop everything that comes into you head. If you feel stumped, write "next" until you come up with something new. Turn the results into a poem. Don’t worry about making much sense.
15. What are the most beautiful or musical words you know? Indulge yourself. Write a poem using at least 10 of them (be sure to underline them for me).
16. Take some experience or moment you enjoyed in the past 24 hours. Write it out as a clear prose narrative. Then dive into the sense images and rewrite it as a dream. You may wish to change the order of events. OR write a vivid dream as a perfectly normal and calm series of events.
17. Invent a character: age, gender, race, religion, occupation, region, marital status, best and worst moments in their lives, etc. The speak in that person’s voice about the one event in life that made him or her turn out this way.
18. Repeat the one exercise you liked best.

Fiction Exercises

In addition to the exercises in Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, here are some others to use as warm-ups for stories you’ve planned or as a way to keep your hands (and head) busy while you’re waiting for the light bulb to go on.

1. Each of two characters has half of something that is no good without the other half. Neither wants to give up his or her half. Write a scene or a story.

1. Write a short story that is a short story--conflict, crisis, resolution--in exactly one hundred words.
2. Place a character in conflict with a natural force, anything from a mosquito to a hurricane. It need not be a fight for survival.
3. Identify the kernel of a short story in any one of the following: first memory a dream yesterday your parents loss unfounded fear your body Write a paragraph of outline and start on a scene.
4. Paint a self-portrait in words. prop a mirror in front of yourself and use the most focused visual details you can. Then distance yourself from that sketch and concentrate on the impression you want to leave with a reader. Add other senses to the description to convey that image.
5. Write about a boring situation. Convince a reader that the situation is boring, or the characters, or both. Be fascinating or funny. Use no generalizations or judgments.
6. Write about a character who starts at a standstill, works up to great speed, then comes to a halt. Let the rhythm of the prose reflect the changes.
7. Write a short sketch of one of the following "types" making the character individual through detail. Make a reader sympathize or identify with him or her. Absent-minded professor, lazy laborer, rock band groupie, aging film star, domineering wife, hen-pecked husband, tyrannical boss, staggering drunk.
8. Garbology: present a character or sequence of events by describing the contents of a garbage can or waste basket.
9. Briefly describe a character who is as unlike you as is possible. Get inside his/her head: give a character a mental habit, desire, fear, love that you have. Make the character "good."
10. Pick two contradictory qualities of your own personality. Make them into key features of two characters in a conflict. Make the characters radically different from yourself in age, race, gender, etc.
11. Write a character sketch employing the four methods of character presentation: appearance, action, speech, thought. Use no authorial interpretation. Put one characteristic in conflict with other three.
12. Write a scene in which a man questions a woman about her mother. Characterize all three. Turn it around: woman questions man on father.
13. Write a scene set in the strangest place you’ve ever spent the night.
14. Write a scene set in a familiar setting to you. Write it from the point of view of someone for whom it would be completely bizarre. Or a bizarre setting from the p.o.v. of someone who is comfortable there.
15. Write a love scene, serious or comic, in limited omniscient p.o.v. using one of the lovers as central character. Make this character believe the other is in love with him/her but, through presenting action, demonstrate is not the case.

Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction.