ENG 421 Calendar of Readings & Responsibilities*
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8/22 |
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8/24 |
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Week 2
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8/29 |
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8/31 |
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#s 1 & 2 Story Drafts Due in Class: 13 copies |
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9/5 |
The Autobiographical Impulse and the Interesting Mistake “Most young writers have this experience: They create characters who are imaginative projections of themselves, minus the flaws. They put this character into a fictional world, wanting that character to be successful and—to use that word from high school—popular. They don’t want these imaginative projections of themselves to make any mistakes, wittingly or, even better, unwittingly, or to demonstrate what Aristotle thought was the core of stories, flaws of character that produce intelligent misjudgments for which someone must take the responsibility. (Young writers want to write stories which these imaginative projections of themselves are “victims of circumstances,” like the people on Oprah. Other’s are at fault for their problems and they are doing the best they can to overcome these obstacles others are responsible for.) It’s difficult for fictional characters to acknowledge their mistakes, because then they become definitive. They are that person who did that thing. The only people who like to see characters performing such actions are readers. They love to see characters getting into interesting trouble and defining themselves… There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say “Mistakes were made,” you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel. When you say, “I fucked up,” the action retains its meaning, its sordid origin, its obscenity and its poetry. Poetry is quite compatible with obscenity… Sometimes, if we are writers, we have to try and persuade our characters to do what they’ve only imagined doing. We have to nudge but not force them toward situations where they will get into interesting trouble, where they will make interesting mistakes that they may (or may not) take responsibility for. When we allow our characters to make mistakes, we release them from the grip of our own authorial narcissism. That’s wonderful for them, it’s wonderful for us, but it’s best of all for the story.” From Charles Baxter’s BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
Questions for your story revision:
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9/7 |
Note and Warning: The Oates assignment for Thursday is a LOT of work: get started over weekend. |
#s 3 & 4 Story Drafts Due in Class: 13 copies |
Week 4
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9/12 |
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9/14 |
TREADMILL JOURNALS DUE IN CLASS |
#s 5 & 6 Story Drafts Due in Class: 13 copies |
Week 5
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9/19 |
Summaries and Scenarios “No story is really a story until it can be retold. Paraphrase is one of the most potent instruments of understanding. What cannot be paraphrased has probably not been understood at all.” Stephen Koch (1) Summarize your first draft (or wherever your first draft is now) in 350 words or less. (This is about one pretty long paragraph.)
Don’t talk to yourself about the story. Don’t indulge in fancy meditations about theme and do not theorize. In other words, don’t write, “This is a story about a son whose mother leaves a mental hospital to come live with him and his new wife. It investigates the affect of mental illness on a family." Instead, stick to the story. Write: “In the summer of 2005, Greg and Christine drive out to visit Greg’s mother, Dolores, at the asylum. Christine and Dolores have never met before. At the asylum…” Tell your story to yourself in concentrated form. You’re telling the story to yourself, so stick to the essentials. Remember, this is just for you. Your summary should include the basic ground situation, the major moments of rising action, and the turning point. The summary is a clear account of what happens in the draft.
(2) It’s important to understand your first draft, but it’s also important to keep your options open to something very different happening, later, in revision. Write a what if scenario based on some of the possibilities inherent in your draft. Like the summary, this should be 350 words or less. Change the beginning. Change the ending. Shift the time frame—focusing on a much shorter, or longer, period of time. Change the tone. Change the major events. Change the protagonist. What if this was more a daughter—mother story than a bride-to-be—groom-to-be story? This exercise is about testing possibilities. Follow the same rules as above about sticking to major events on the plot line.
If the most typical problems in early drafts are sketchiness, shallow characterization, undepicted action, and vague description—the summary and scenario should orient you to those places in your draft which you need to pay particular attention. Are the moments you’ve described in your summary/scenario the moments you’ve dedicated the most attention to in your draft? A simple summary / scenario is your map for the next draft. |
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9/21 |
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#s 7-10 Story Drafts Due in Class: 13 copies |
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9/26 |
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9/28 |
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#s 11 & 12 Story Drafts Due in Class: 13 copies |
Week 7
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10/3 |
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10/5 |
Tim O'Brien in The Magic Show says that "too often characterization fails precisely because it attempts to characterize. It narrows; it pins down; it explicates; it solves. The nasty miser is actually quite sweet ands generous... A "solved" character ceases to be mysterious... I believe that a successful characterization requires an enhancement of mystery: not shrinkage, but expansion.
Revise your characters to make them more complex, more mysterious. Revise them--in small ways (at the sentence level and description level) and large ways (in the things they say and do--especially in the things they do, their important actions and choices) so that your story leaves the reader wondering.
Or, to say it another way: Richard Ford says, "Our imagination loves to be filled with an object or to grasp at anything that is too large for its capacity."
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Week 8
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10/10 |
Time Management: Analyze the way time works in your story:
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#s 1-4 Story Drafts Due in Class |
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10/12 |
Fall Break |
Week 9
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10/17 |
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10/19 |
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#s 5&6 Story Drafts Due in Class |
Week 10
| 10/24 |
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10/26 |
Mixed Motives & Heightening Inconsistencies: Have you ever been asked: Why did you do that? And you couldn't honestly, or clearly, anyway, answer the question. You just did it. You might be able to come up with several possible explanations, but none of them are clearly more "true" than the other. Give your characters the same freedom, latitude, inexplicability. Burroway says that characters are “consistently inconsistent.” But not all inconsistency is good: your reader needs to understand those possible explanations. Too often, your readers don't understand what those possible explanations are.
Ask yourself the questions:
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#s 7-10 Story Drafts Due in Class |
Week 11
| 10/31 |
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11/2 |
TREADMILL JOURNALS DUE IN CLASS |
#s 11&12 Story Drafts Due in Class |
Week 12
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11/7 |
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11/9 |
Object Lessons: Make a list of important details/objects in the first half of your draft. Which of these details/objects has unexplored potential for the second half of the story? For taking the plot in another direction? Use some aspect of this detail, but in a new and different way, at least twice later in the story. |
#s 1-4 Story Drafts Due in Class |
Week 13
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11/14 |
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11/17 |
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#s 5&6 Story Drafts Due in Class |
Week 14
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11/21 |
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#s7-10 Story Drafts Due in Class |
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11/23 |
Thanksgiving |
Week 15
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11/28 |
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11/30 |
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#s 11&12 Story Drafts Due in Class |
Week 16
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11/5 |
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11/7 |
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Week 17
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11/12 |
Portfolio & Treadmill Journal Due in my office by 5PM |
* Assignments Due on the Date Listed