Week 8: PLOT POTENTIAL IN WEEK 8
No annotation this week: a great time to focus on your creative work.
Responses to creative work in the “animal” groups are due by Wed, May 25.
Deadline for submitting creative work is next Tuesday, May 31.
Reading from What If: Read part Seven (Elements of Style) and part Eight (a writer’s
toolbox): p. 133-168. In particular, take note of the list of “elements of style” on p. 133;
we’ll work with them in more detail next week.
Creative Writing: Review the “plot potential” exercise on p. 127-128, and Follow the
“plot potential” exercise and write five mini-stories, of 100 - 200 words each, to account
for a single event or set of circumstances. Stretch yourself by making these stories really
different from one another. These are like the small sketches that artists make before
undertaking a painting –aim to point to elements of plot and character and setting swiftly,
without getting bogged down in details. Remember to make something happen in each
story.
If you’re working on a novel, you may keep all of these mini-stories within the
framework of your novel, as a way of exploring possible permutations of the world you
are creating – while making the stories really different. Find out what these characters are
capable of
Submit by Tuesday, May 31.
Share: Share two or more of your mini stories that you are most taken with. You’ll have
an opportunity, for next week, to develop this story in more detail, or to work with
someone else’s mini story as a starting point. Post to your group by Tuesday, May 31.