ENGL 302 Creative Writing Section

Paper Two: Memoir or Fictional Scene


Length : 4-7 pages 


Rough Draft Due in Class: September 29, 2006

Final Draft Due in Class: October 6, 2006

Format : 12 point font, titled, MLA format

For this assignment, you have a choice of developing one ofthe memoir pieces or fictional scenes you drafted for Friday discussions. You can also begin a new memoir or fictional scene based on the same prompts Aimee Phan provided in class. See the instructions below for more specific detail. Please note: Papers that in no way address the prompts Ms. Phan provided will not be accepted.

Memoir

Consider John Trimbur’s description of memoir:

Writing a memoir, as the word itself suggests, involves memory work. Memoirists draw on their pasts, looking back at events, people, and places that are important to them, in order to re-create, in written language, moments or episodes of lived experience. This re-creation of particular experiences distinguishes memoirs form the genre of autobiographies, which seek to encompass an entire life. But memoirists don’t just re-create moments of experience—they seek to imbue them with a significance readers will understand. (Call to Write 145)

As you develop the memoir writing you prepared in class, focus on one particular experience or a series of experiences intimately linked by a specific theme. You might consider using a single snapshot, memento, or object to look to for content. Combine a focused, detailed description of your experience with an appropriately nuanced discussion of the significance of that experience . Make your memoir tangible for readers by: setting your scene clearly; describing the people involved; using dialogue to reveal personalities and relationships; using narrative that makes abstractions more concrete; and balancing the amount of showing and telling you do in your description.

You will be graded on the following elements:

• Identifiable theme and significance of specific experience/series of experiences.
• Identifiable “telling and showing” in terms of events, actions and feelings
• Effective use of dialogue and narrative
• Effective use of structure
• Correct grammar, syntax, format

Fictional Scene

In her book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott provides a suggestion about fiction writing similar to Trimbur’s thoughts on memoir and significance:

Find out what each character cares most about in the world because then you will have discovered what’s at stake. Find a way to express that discovery in action, and then let your people set about finding or holding onto or defending whatever that is. . . . [S]omething must be at stake or you will have no tension and your readers will not turn the pages. Think of a hockey player—there had better be a puck out there on the ice, or he is going to look pretty ridiculous. (55-56)

As you develop the fictional scene you prepared for class, remember that you will need to provide your readers with enough detail for them to see what you are seeing in your head. In most cases, showing will be more effective than telling. Along with the suggestions provided for memoir writing (see above), a good piece of fiction also contains developed characters and an engaging plot (Exposition, Conflict, Climax, Resolution), Finally, as Lamott suggests, there must be something at stake, a puck on the ice.

You will be graded on the following elements:

• Identifiable plot (must include exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution)
• Developed characters with identifiable motives, desires, thoughts, actions, feelings, and voice
• Effective use of structure
• Identifiable “showing” in terms of events, actions and feelings
• Effective use of dialogue and narrative
• Correct grammar, syntax, format

Please bring a draft of your paper to class on Friday, September 29 th for peer review.