Creative Assignments

  • All creative assignments require a cover letter explaining the significance of your creative choices.
  • Style and staying true to characters and themes are important in all creative assignments.
  • The simplest formula for a story is INTRODUCE CONFLICT, COMPLICATION of CONFLICT, FURTHER COMPLICATION, FURTHER COMPLICATION, CLIMAX, (maybe denouement).

As I Lay Dying: The Movie. Consider how the themes, character, and plot of this stream of consciousness novel would be translated to a visual medium whose main storytelling element (besides visual imagery) is dialogue. You would need to alter elements of the story but stay as true to the novel as possible.

  1. Choose a chapter or scene with a beginning, middle, and end.
  2. Use a modified screenplay format (below).
  3. Describe setting, actions, camera shots and transitions, and sounds (including music).

DARL

(EXTREME CLOSE UP: DARL’s eye fills the screen and the reflected light becomes clear revealing the image of DEWEY DELL and LAFE in a cotton field.

DISSOLVE TO: Sunset, a cotton field, camera CRANES in to LAFE and DEWEY DELL)

DEWEY DELL

(Grinning nervously holding back a giggle)

I reckon if my bag is full at the end of this row, it won’t be me that decides

LAFE

(Reaching for a handful of cotton)

I guess not.

(He places the handful of cotton in her bag. Fiddle music begins.)

Sling Blade: the short story. Turn the film into a short story. Consider key plot points and trim the rest out. You may also do this as a prequel or sequel.

  1. In addition, write the story in stream of consciousness from multiple perspectives. Be like Faulkner, become the character and react to situations in your head.
  2. Include thoughts that stay true to character concerns, motivation, and voice.
  3. Decide what can be cut (or added for prequel/sequel) without altering the intent of the original.
  4. Include images, symbolism, and/or dialogue from the original source.

Fiction—Suburban Gothic—define it (as you invent it) and its link to specific aspects of Southern Gothic in your cover letter.

  • Parallel the elements and have the same goals as Southern Gothic—you are critiquing your social norms, and values. Show hypocrisies without being preachy.
  • Include the grotesque (but do not be a copycat) and have it serve the purpose of shedding light on the flaws of suburban society.
  • Include local color—behavior and character interaction should be used here although the narrator may clarify some things (as in “A Rose For Emily”)
  • Incorporate dialect and a significant use of imagery.

Fiction—The Christ Figure of Suburbia

  • Parallel the elements and have the same goalsYou will write about the institution you know—school.
  • Include the Christ Figure (but do not be a copycat) and have his/ her values clash with those of the school (and not necessarily be Christian)
  • Include a character in power who represents and enforces the rules and values of the school.
  • Incorporate dialect and a significant use of imagery (again, not necessarily religious).

WRITE: PART ONE:

A summary of the story that includes:

  • Introduction of the institution in its “normal” days
  • Introduction of the Christ Figure
  • Conflict
  • Complication of conflict
  • Complication of conflict
  • Climactic scene (resolution of the conflict)
  • Follow up to the climax

PART TWO

  1. Flesh out one significant chapter. This means writing with detail, dialogue, and images.
  2. The chapter should have the same structure as the summary in terms of having its own Conflict, complication, and climax
  3. Style and staying true to characters and themes are important in all creative assignments.

ANALYITICAL PAPER

Thesis can be framed in at least one way;

“Despite apparent differences, both Sling Blade and AILD are examples of the Southern Gothic genre and each explores* ____(Broad Theme**)__through the use of a ( topic from grid),__( i.e. damsel in distress),__ and (abusive father).

* “explores” may be “critiques” or something more specific.

** “Broad theme” is something like “Masculine hegemony of the South”, or “religious hypocrisy in the South” etc.

Choose the topics from your grid based on the broad theme you are exploring.

For instance, “masculine hegemony” is the idea that the ideal man is certain things (strong, stoic, aggressive, unsympathetic to others, the bread-winner, into sports, heterosexual, etc.) and not certain things (in touch with his feelings, poetic, sensitive, able to cry, a ballerina, etc.).

Topics from the grid that relate to this have to do with gender and social roles like: damsel in distress, abusive father, abandoned child, etc.