Honors English 4 and AP English 3 (AP English Language and Composition)

Dr. Humble 2018-2019

Writing the Short Story or Memoir

In this assignment, you will write a creative writing. A short story will be a work of fiction; a
memoir will be a work of autobiography (nonfiction). There would be no way for me to know
which is which. This assignment allows you the choice to make up a story or to reflect on an
experience that has happened to you. You will not be forced to create a work of art (short story).

Length​. Your work’s length is almost entirely up to you. The impact of the story or memoir
depends on your imagination. That said, I shan’t be accepting the two-sentence story or memoir.
(There may be contests for the shortest short story; you are welcome to search for these.) A
minimum would be … 300 words (or 266). The maximum? That is for you to decide. Try to keep
it under 5000 words. Please. The RFAS Contest limit is 5000 words.

Timeline​: This assignment is due on January 22 (hard copy and Turnitin.com). If you wish my
feedback for RFAS, your target date is January 17. Along the way there will be checkpoints:
● topic selection (this can be altered along the way, but announce, in writing, a title plus
one sentence of your plan of a story or memoir by December 7)
● graphic drawing of your idea (optional)
● Writing Lab workshops (January 10, 16, 17)
● peer-review draft workshop (January 18, Room 238, our classroom)
○ story groups
○ memoir groups
● Winter Break: Optional. I’ll read any ​short stories​ (or starts of stories) that I have by
December 13 in hard copy. Please submit your hard copy to me. I’ll return these as soon
as I can. Otherwise, I cannot give you feedback prior to January 10.
● Final Draft is due January 22 (hard copy with drafts and Turnitin.com).
● Optional sharing of stories will be scheduled.

Raleigh Fine Arts Society​ holds an annual short-story contest, and if you write a short story,
you may wish to enter that contest. You will receive information about that contest and its rules
and targets. Please let me know if you plan to enter this contest. Target dates would depend on
how many writers (how many of my students) wish to enter this contest.

Separate Notice
All ​student submissions​ to the ​Raleigh Fine Arts Society​ are online and must be received ​on
or before Tuesday, January 22, 2019, at 11:59 pm​. Follow the directions (closely) on the
RFAS brochure that I have given to you. RFAS will not accept entries after this time.
Guide to Creative Writing Dr. Humble

Creating a story means making something up from whole cloth (an analogy), doing something
new, thinking outside outside the box, creating art. What is art? Ah, how much time do we have?
Creating art requires a consciousness that you are making something new (or reconceiving an
artist who sometime in the past was making something new). With a consciousness that you are
making, use your imagination to create. And your creation may (or may not) suggest beauty,
stability, originality. I think that there is a boundary to a creation: You say, my work of art
begins and ends here (on canvas, a floor, a guard rail, paper, and many, many other media).
Search “What is art?”

Artists consciously try to make objects of beauty (again, we need some more definitions here).
Artists set aside their art for their audience: “Here look at this, and tell me what you think or
feel.”

As you think about composing your short story, be conscious that you are making something
new. You have new ideas (themes and thematic topics, for instance), a new plot, a new character,
a new setting, a new point of view. (Here I am merely listing the five conventional elements of a
short story and qualifying each with “new.”) Make. It. New.

If you have experience in other arts--visual, dramatic, musical, athletic, engineering--think about
the content and form and conventions of your other art.
● Visual arts. Composition, perspective, color, shading, foregrounding and backgrounding,
layering
● Dramatic arts. Blocking, pacing, voicing, emotional investment, costuming, make-up, set
construction, layering
● Musical arts. Crescendo, decrescendo, overture, deceptive cadence, fugue, counterpoint,
conclusion, layering

A word for perfectionists. Forget Perfectionism! If you are going to be hung up on perfectionism,
then come to me, and I’ll design for you an after-school assignment (It is not a detention;
perfectionism is not a misbehavior … Wait a minute…. Perhaps….) where you will laboriously
and boringly address your perfectionist tendencies and how these tendencies are just your
immature, childish, egocentric defense mechanism for avoiding real work. Art. Is. Work. Work.

Finally, there is an old saw (a defense mechanism, really) that is often trotted out when adults
chat with each other about art: “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” Stop it!
Learn more about art, and then talk about what you like. My take on that old saw: “I know a lot
about art, but I don’t know what I like.” Have fun with your writing.