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47 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is speculative fiction?
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Speculative fiction is a broad literacy genre encompassing any fiction with supernatural, fantastical, or futuristic elements.
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Monomyth the Hero’s Journey
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EverydayCall to adventureDiscover new worldA taskConflictstask completed return home
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**QUIZ QUESTION*** Distances by Sherman AlexieWhat type of narrative is this?
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A post-apocalyptic, post-colonial reality of earth: “Since most of the white men have died and most of the Indians lived, I decided only Custer could have done something that backward.”
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Great narrative stands on three legs:
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character, drama/action, and scene. Character is the most important because story is character.
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** Quiz Question** Desire + Obstacles
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Drama |
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Emotional Realism (Questions for the reader)
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Emotional Realism (Questions for the reader0What internal antagonism is your character battling in their life?What belief system change is your character going through?Why does your character want what they want in the story? (two characters can want the same thing for entry different reasons- what’s your characters specific emotional reason)How do your character’s action and behaviours reveal who they are?What kind of person would your character say they were? In what ways are they lying to themselves?What are 3 good things and 3 bad things your character gas done in their life.
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A Good scene will…
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cause a subsequent sceneBe driven by the protagonist wantsExplore various ploys by the character to get their own way.Include action that changes a character’s position, relative to the end of the story.
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Scene should have 3 beats or parts: beginning, middle, and end
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1.) Beginning= who needs something right now? Why are we here right now?2.) Middle= they struggle with a new challenge; a reversal or setback occurs3.) End= protagonist thwarted or spin in new direction
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Father picks up son at Train station to go to Cabin: What do the characters want? Do they get what they want? Conflict? |
Son wants to be dry and comfortable.
Father Wants to know what son’s mother is thinking of him? They don't get what they want. Conflict: Father questions son about mother. Son is squinting into the rain, can’t even look up and lies to his father. |
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HT AVOID A LETHARGIC MIDDLE
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Analyze the stakesStrengthen bond of the protagonist with antagonistAdd complicationAdd another characterAdd another subplotPush on.
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HT TRIM FLABBY MIDDLE:
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Combine or cut charactersAbsorb a subplotCut out the dullness.
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Some Guidance on TRICK ENDINGS:
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Don’t turn your story into a trick you play on the readerany revealed information must make the story more meaningfulinstead of a trick or surprise, try to find the TRUTH of the storyconsider the EMOTIONAL JOURNEY of your story, what is the endpoint of that journey?What is your story ABOUT? What’s your last word on the subject?Consider using TURNING POINTS throughout your story, rather than a huge twist at the end
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Final Choice-> protagonist sacrifices their goal - > moral courage.
Now relate to physical change: |
Final Battle - > Pro sacrifices their safety - > physical change.
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Why Stories Fail by Ben Nyberg Notes:
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Adds pre story to beginning (exposition), middle (complications), resolution (resolution/denouement). Gives Twenty categories with setting, plot, character, theme.
Know what you read. Make it humanly. Know your setting, bring the reader there, and make sure there’s a reason it’s there. Care and respect your characters. A deceiving character but still have honesty.Character must lead plot. Don’t judge your characters. The plot must actually be doable by the characterFocus on why everything that happens in a scene leads up to the others. Theme dominant: Allegory- stretching a metaphor throughout an entire narrativeThe shouldn’t come across as a debate. |
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Novice Bitch
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Dog is named wafflesBad mother, great dog trainer
Narrator went to catholic school Lexington avenue filled with alcoholics she smoked a cigarette and threw it al up. Mother teacher her how to throw up Philip the wall street guy gets her pregnant- he's into bondage. Gets letter from dad about the weather. He never calls or anything. She meets a cute guy maybe with herpes in the clinicFirst time Doctor Andrews asked if she needed someone to hold her hand etc for the abortion, second time just made jokes. Michael is waiting outside for her. Second time she was knocked up was by Rocco the Italian waiterEnds up havin an abortion 3 times in 2 years. She's not happy after the third and decided to go to Madison garden for her mothers dog show. Mr.jeffrey the dog has a jockey shorts up his ass that she must pull out.Last line in the washroom the mother says: I'm here Novice bitch told in first person. |
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Author from Antigua West Indies
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Repetition: don't dress like a slut you are so bent on becomingThis is how you do a bunch of stuff regarding being a woman.Last line: you mean to say after all that you are really going to be the type of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?
Girl story before told in second person: you |
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Indian education by Sherman Alexie
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First person
First grade: got picked on, thrown in snow by other Indian boys and then beats up frenchy and chants it's a good day to die. Second grade: missionary teacher makes her eat junior high spelling test and calls her Indian Indian. Third grade: paining 'stick Indian taking a piss in my backyard' Fourth grade: teacher tells her to be a doctor.Fifth grade: plays basketball, misses net, cousin sniffs rubber cement. Sixth grade:randy teacher to always throw the first punch Seventh grade: white girl kisses him Eighth grade: white girls bulimic while he ate canned beef. Ninth grade: discovers diabetes Tenth grade: a person kills himself. Everything looks like a noose if you stare at I long enough.Eleventh grade: plays for Indians on high school team. Headline reads: Indians lose again.Twelfth grade: received awards scholarships. Most students look forward to the parties. The bright students (last line)Reunion: graduating class has a meeting every week at the powwow tavern. |
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Rooms stand for?
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lives |
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Object hold? |
History |
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Objects are expression of? |
Self |
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What is Setting? |
1.) Projection of character2.) Antagonism (Ex. going back to Hawaii to pick up Son’s dead body. Breeze and heat wont feel the same as it did)3.) Place4.) Time5.) Cultural Environment6.) Geography 7.) Weather
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Questions to help clarify your setting as a force of antagonism
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What is the protag’s status in the setting?
How would the portage like to see their status change? In what way is the portage at odds with the social beliefs of their setting? Who are the other characters in the setting and how do they view/respond to the portag? What political or hierarchical system is at works in the setting? What aspects of the setting might create conflict between characters? |
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What elements make up a person’s environment?
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location, age, career time, everything!!
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Importance of Setting
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It’s where and when a story takes placeIt;’s a backdrop for the actionIt’s essential to mood, atmosphere, and emotional impact.It creates meaning through interaction with pro and characterit impact POVit should perform more than one function
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How to create setting
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Descriptive languageSpecific sensory detailsClues to the time and placeWeave the details into action
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How to make your setting work
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1.) Setting can relate to the thematics of the story2.) Setting can help reveal character emotion. 3.) Setting includes the morals and rules of the world.4.) Setting can help create tension by operating in contrast 5.) Setting can force your characters to act*** 6.) Setting is the best evoked in well=chosen concrete sensory detail
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Xmas Jamaica Plain
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First person.
Starts off saying she is your worst fear in many ways. Person name Emile wants to be emilieIt's a letter to someone. Emile and her are druggies.Eat ice cream on their empty draggy stomachs Emile wears the red dressLetter to mother? Emile dies and then story ends with line: she told me I could ditch the baby down the road- but I didn't. Emile and her break into someone's house. It's told in a fractured narrative. Emile commits suicide Jamaica Plain, a place where it doesn’t matter if you’re white or black, it’s probably a mixed neighborhood. |
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Don’t write you know by: Bret Anthony Johnson
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From standard notes like don't use an alarm clock to start, suicide note, or flashy language, the last one is: don't write what you know.
Write to discover not to explainExperience should liberate your imagination not restrict it.Stories aren't about things, stories are thingsStories aren't about actions. So tired are, unto themselves, actions.maybe we're afraid that if we write something we don't know we'll decipher something truer than anything our real lives will ever yield. |
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First sentences:
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Raises questions, Create tension, establishes narrative voice, hints at type of story that will follow.
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The OPENING is:
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a carefully camouflaged set of instructions that tell the reader HOW the story should be read.
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The opening establishes:
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Place - Where does the story take place?Time - When it takes place?Relationships - Who is telling the story? Who is the story about?Purpose - Why is the story being told?Genre - What kind of story is this? What are the rules?Action - What are the characters DOING?
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Present Tense |
Looks back to the past |
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Past Tense |
Looks back to the modified past tense |
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Question to Ask of your draft:
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1.) Wh is the protagonist of the story?2.) What does the protagonist yearn for?3.) What fores of antagonism does the pro face, internal, internal, societal?4.) What do these forces of antagonism year for?5.) What is the inciting incident?6.) What are the aspects of rising action7.) What os the crises?8.) What choice/decision/ realization does the protagonist come to9.) What meaning does this choice convey10.) Has the belief system changed?
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Do nots of research
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Don’t let the truth get the way of a good story, but stick to facts as much as you can.Don’t overwriteDon’t get bogged down by back-story.Don’t get lazy- pay attention to detail.Don’t be afraid to ask!
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Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison (beginning of book excerpt)
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Starts with baby faith sucking her nippleShe lives in a cold place where the sun never comes. Not many people everyone knows everyoneRetarded baby single momLots of mention about nanucks goes through seasons Near Yellowknife
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Reading: From Pedal by Chelsea Rooney
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Narrator 'Julia' takes care of cousin Susan's daughter Lila.Up in Fort Nelson the bush.Own a gas station.Lila throws herself in sh** like its leavesNarrator grew up with a pervert abusive father Starts at lake with smiles Julia and Janice and Suzy. Then goes into notes mentioned above and then back to lake
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Iceberg #1: the three stages of rewriting
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1.) mapping your rewrite2.) writing your new story3.) Line edits.
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Mapping you rewrite
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1.) Read the whole thing.2.) Make simple clear, high-level notes on what isn’t working.3.) summarize your story briefly. 4.) Push against you story. Challenge it.
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Rob’s golden rule for workshopping
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If someone tells your something is wrong, they’re almost always right.
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*** QUIZ QUESTIONHOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR MANUSCRIPT IS PUBLISHABLE?
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You can rely on unsolicited opinions of:writing teacher who know your workfellow writers who have discerning taste and knowledge of you genreeditors of literary journals or connect judgesindustry professionals
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Approaching the Rewrite Reading:
Most Common Story Weaknesses? |
-pov is problematic
-relies on narrative summary rather than concrete scenes - exclamation under 100,000 prose - never use suddenly |
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Bullet in the brain:
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- Anders, the grouchy book critic, in line to the bank.- agitated with banker but when women points it out acts sarcastic as though no big deal.- Anderz can't help but laugh and get shot in the head by the robber. He laughs at capiche.-lists things he can't rememberHe did not remember when everything began to remind him of something elseend with thinking about baseball and his cousin and phrase they is.
- First person but dead |
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Casino:
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On beach, big dance floor, balcony.Always same band.
Duncan is second lead singer on band.Wants nothing to do with sis. Saves last dance for lead singers wife. Duncan will be a lawyer and not marry Donna. He said will have a pale wife. Jack will have trouble in university and be a manager of an arena. Grady is oldie with religious wife and tries to work whenever he can. Jack told Donna the joke who told Duncan who was disgusted.WHAT IS THE JOKEGrady will outlive his wife. Norm has a wife who lives to dance.The casino burns down and they all make it.Jack and Duncan make fire on beachEnds with norm and his wife. He says it's the balcony that let in the air to fire and his feet are hot. |
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The Girl in The Flammable Shirt
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The backpack is that the girl has to carry the burdens of her father.Ray and dog scene resembles how unnatural that is.
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Blue Bearded Lover:
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Blue bearded man lives in giant house and gives key to the the lover for the forbidden door that his lover may not enter.
Small key tainted with blood.She doesn’t use the key and the bearded man claims he loves her beyond all women. Ends with her dreams that the bearded man can detect and that she bears children. Then there is an exert with the narrator telling us it’s a cautionary tale and this lady manipulates blu beard by obeying him and sex. - aBehind door is corpses of old brides. |
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Concerning the body guard
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Bunch of questions and then questions about a group of body guards sitting at a table in a restaurant.Has turtle soupEnds with who's fault is it if the whole country is overflowing with champagne bottlesThe bodyguard protects some political figureAbout celebrating the assignation of the bodyguards principles
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