Week 5: Creative Writing
After reading What If 31-72, do the following creative writing exercises.
1. Invent 5- 10 characters. Describe each one in a short paragraph. Finish each paragraph by completing the sentence “She (or He) is the sort of person who….” from Exercise 10.
2. Choose one character from your list and do the “Props” exercise on p. 40-41, listing the items in his/her clothes closet, medicine cabinet, or refrigerator/freezer. Do the bedroom too.
3. Choose one of your characters – someone who is clearly different from you in important ways -- and do the following “Juggling” exercise from Jerome Stern’s Making
Shapely Fiction.
Write a story in which your main character is doing one thing while thinking about something else. The activity that he or she is doing should be active, challenging, and engaging – perhaps ice-skating, washing windows on a ladder, welding, or making six different kinds of fruit pie. Don’t choose a passive activity like sunbathing. The
“something else” that character is thinking about can cover many years, or be about what happened the previous day. Play with shifting focus from the immediate task, with ample concrete detail, to the other things on the character’s mind. Make it at least 1,000 words long. You can use first person or third.
Hand in by Monday, May 9.
Also submit your “Juggling” story to your writing group by Monday, May 9.