The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Things YOU Carry – a creative writing assignment
Background: Tim O’Brien claims that part of his motivation for storytelling is that, “I want you to feel
what I felt. I want you to know why story truth is truer sometimes than happening –truth
… What stories can do, I guess, is make things present” (203-204). In doing so, “you
(the writer / storyteller) objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself.
You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start with an incident that truly
happened … and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but
that nonetheless help to clarify and explain” (179-180).
Task:
Write a ‘true war story’ by incorporating elements of O’Brien’s writing style, figurative
language, sensory details, imagery, and strong word choice. Explore the “story truth”
through exaggeration, omission, and the structure of the story.
Rough Draft Due:
Final Draft Due:
Tuesday, May 23
Wednesday, May 31
Part 1: your ‘true war’ story (75 points)
Part 2: ‘Notes’ in which you write a meta-analysis of your story (25 points)
Part 1: Your ‘true war’ story
Take inspiration from the book and select an event from your life, an experience that you have had, a
memory that you possess, or an emotion that you carry and tell the story.
Think about how you want to convey the story so that it creates the MAXIMUM effect for the reader
and “makes the stomach believe.”
You may consider the following questions as you plan your story, but do not feel compelled
to incorporate each of them.
What emotional impact do you want to create?
What parts are unnecessary and can be cut?
What aspects need exaggeration, repetition, or changes to make them more powerful and
real?
What point of view would be most effective in conveying your story?
How do you want to use time? Do you want to flashback in time or jump around from
the past to the present?
Do you want to use a series of little vignettes?
How are going to use strong language choices to effective convey your emotions and
story? Think about imagery, details, sensory images, and figurative language.
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Part Two: ‘Notes’ or Analysis of your story
Reread “Notes” in The Things They Carried and consider how O’Brien reflected upon his own
writing – the struggles he encountered in achieving his goal and the CHOICES that he finally
made. He chose certain words, images, symbols FOR A SPECIFIC REASON!
Thinking about your own writing process and reflecting on your story should actually help you
understand it even more. This is not the blow-off part of the project, rather one that requires
thoughtfulness and honesty.
In writing your ‘Notes,’ you should address the following questions:
Why did you choose to write about this particular story?
What significant elements did you choose to include?
What details did you exaggerate, repeat, eliminate, or add? Why?
What was your goal in writing this story? How did you go about creating this effect for
the reader?
How has your memory changed over time? How has time affected the memory?
How is your story a ‘true war story’ that explores the ‘story truth’ not just the
‘happening truth’?
What SPECIFIC elements of O’Brien’s style did you try to incorporate?
What did you change to your rough draft after our mini-lessons on figurative language
and sensory details?
Think of this as an opportunity to do a very different type of writing from what we have done during
this year.  Have fun and be creative!
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The Things YOU Carry – a creative writing assignment
Criteria for How to Tell a True War Story
Refer to your brainstormed list as this is not a comprehensive list.
A true war story is never moral.
You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity
and evil.
You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you.
It is difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen.
In other cases you can’t even tell a true war story.
You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end.
In a true war story, if there’s a moral at all, it’s like the thread that makes the cloth. You
can’t tease it out.
True war stories do not generalize.
A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe.
A true war story will tell the truth, though the truth is ugly.
Often in a true war story there is not even a point.
You can tell a true war story by the questions that you ask.
Because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth.
You can tell a true war story if you just keep on telling it.
A true war story is never about war.
In war you love your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself; therefore it’s
safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true.
Elements of Tim O’Brien’s Writing Style
* Please refer to the brainstormed list and examples that we compiled in class.
Elements of Post-Modernism
The truth is more in the story-truth than in the happening-truth; you can play around with
the ‘truth’ in order to make the story more powerful.
The story does NOT follow a linear chronology – instead, the story occurs in short
vignettes that jump around in time.
Each different vignette puts a new ‘spin’ on the same topic: the same event can be looked
at from many different angles and perspectives.
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