Three weeks have passed and we have come to the end of my first short online course in creative writing. It was a pleasure and honour to support 4 willing participants shake off their inhibitions, adopt a positive mindset and get down to some serious writing! About the Course The fundamentals of the course were…
Web 2.0 Creative Writing Tools and This week I began to think about what online tools would be suitable for enhancing reading and writing skills. With sooo many to choose from, I reviewed a list given by my tutor and selected two candidates: Curriculet and Little Bird’s Tales. Curriculet is a digital reading platform which…
This week I am thinking about different strategies to help me edit my short story: Provocations of Light, currently written as Part 1 and Part 2. As per the picture above, there are many stock activities we can employ to proofread our work. However, being on a Creative Writing course, I wanted to try something…
Chekhov’s 12 Subversive Endings Looking for direction in terms of writing good ending to my short story, Provocations of Light – part 1 and part 2 – my tutor encouraged us to check out some of Chekhov’s Subversive Endings: 1. Anti-epilogue If an epilogue is a short statement about what happens to the characters after…
Write to the End Every story needs a good ending. And no more is that true than for the short story I have been working on this semester. Following techniques suggested by my tutor, I have developed a very organic work, the first draft not really having a clear direction, but just being whatever came…
Provocations of Light – Second Draft by Karina Thorne Part 2 Lights on. Like a patient coming out of hypnotherapy, she awakens with a sudden jolt. Having risen from her stool, Williams assumes a battle-ready position. Her silhouette is that of a sumo wrestler, slightly squatting, hands and arms clenched by her sides. From afar,…
Provocations of Light – Second Draft by Karina Thorne Part 1 A hum of machines labouring under constant use, fills the airy void. Fridge-like vibrations, stop and start somewhere between walls of twisted aluminium sheets, light-weight and durable, and red lasers, stationed like cannons around the entire circumference. Supported by polished titanium columns, the low…
Initial Thoughts on PoV Before reading the Jauss (2000) article, in my mind I had defined “…point of view in terms of ‘person’, focusing on the angle of perception -who tells the story- instead of the various degrees of depth available within that angle.” For the first draft of my short story, I had used…
Re-Writing the Plot After reading Friedman’s plot categorisation last week, I’m still unsure which type of plot my short story would fall under. But here are three possibilities: – 1.1 The action plot, developing around a problem and its resolution – 2.1 The maturing plot, in which an attractive, naive protagonist achieves maturity – 2.2…
Based on what I’ve learnt about beginnings, plot and character this week, here I lay out a simple lesson plan introducing the power of short story beginnings into the foreign language classroom: Materials A large copy of the text above with words missing, as mentioned in the Warmer below (for example, in ppt form). A…