Tonight in Creative Nonfiction

Please remember to bring copies of your first essay to class to share for workshop. Have your copies ready to distribute at the beginning of class. (No printing and stapling during class, o.k.?)

Before we begin workshop, we'll discuss the week's readings and I'll give a short lecture ("The Building Blocks of Creative Nonfiction"). We'll do one in-class writing exercise, too. Please remember to put any in-class exercises into your Prompts binder for credit.

We should be able to workshop a few pieces tonight. Workshop comments should be designed to help the writer revise his/her work. You'll each have a chance to revise your piece before you submit it to me for a letter grade.

You may choose to focus your comments by discussing some of the concepts we've covered in class so far. These include (but aren't limited to):

*  Voice -- Does the author sound like him/herself? Why or why not?

*  Interest -- Does the author demand the readers' attention right from the first sentence? How interesting is the piece to you? What makes it interesting or what interferes with your interest?

*   Focus -- Is the piece tightly focused on one or two moments? If not, how might the writer sharpen his/her focus here?

*  Character Development -- How well are the characters in the piece developed? How well do you feel you know them? What do the characters (including the writer) want? Consider character development through scene, action and dialogue. How are these techniques working here? Which character do you feel most connected to and why?

*  Scene -- Locate and highlight or underline the scenes in the piece. Are they active and vivid? Why or why not?

*  Dialogue -- How effectively does the writer use dialogue to tell his/her story?

*  Luminous Details -- Locate the nouns/details in the piece. How vivid are they? Do they propel the story forward and add layers of meaning to the narrative? Why or why not?

*  The So-What -- Is the So-What/Artifact of the story clear? If so, locate a moment on the page that reveals this.

*  Self-Discovery -- Locate a moment where the writer seems to have a moment of discovery.

*  Overall Technique -- Is the piece well-written? Does the writer show technical expertise? Are there any basic grammar problems you can point out to help make the piece better?


Assignments for next week:

Please read through and comment on all the other pieces we didn't get to tonight in workshop. That way we can move quickly next week.

Please also read ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AN ORDINARY LIFE. 

Tonight in Creative Nonfiction: Tuesday, Jan. 22

We'll have a brief quiz on the readings from TRUTH OF THE MATTER and last week's memoir lecture.

After the quiz, I'll give a lecture reviewing the concepts from Chapters 1-3/TRUTH OF THE MATTER.

Then we'll spend time reviewing your responses to the prompts (#1 on p. 17; #1 & #2 on p. 28). We'll go around the room and you can choose which prompt to share with the class.

Assignments for next class:

Prompt #1, p. 40 -- recreating scene
Prompt #2, p. 40 -- recreating dialogue
Please put copies of these brief prompts in your prompts binder.

Read Chapter 5/TRUTH OF THE MATTER. Read Philip Gerard's essay "What They Don't Tell You About Hurricanes," p. 151 in TRUTH OF THE MATTER.

ESSAY #1:   Prompt #1 on p. 52 asks you to draft a short essay centered on the theme "What They Don't Tell You About _________________."  Write an essay, 800 words or less, and make copies to share with the class in workshop. (20 copies should do it.) Use Gerard's essay as a model.

Tonight in Creative Nonfiction

Many of you have e-mailed me to say you have not yet gotten our textbook, TRUTH OF THE MATTER. Please be sure to get the book right away and complete the readings and prompts. We'll push the prompt deadline to next week, but only this once. The book is available in our bookstore, on Amazon and elsewhere.

Tonight, in place of our prompts-discussion, I'll give a lecture against navel gazing, one of the common complaints about contemporary nonfiction/memoir.

The lecture includes a discussion of fake memoirs, as well as an introduction to Amy Krouse Rosenthal, whose book, AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AN ORDINARY LIFE, we'll be reading soon.

There will be a short quiz on the lecture next week, so please be present in class tonight and take notes.

Assignment #1

For Tuesday, Jan. 15:

Read Chapters 1-4 in Truth of the Matter

Complete Prompt #1, p. 17 and Prompts #1-2 on p. 28

Type prompts and place in a binder. Please remember to bring your prompts/binder to class for discussion on Tuesday.