Peter D. Pettorini

Eng 409.05

03/24/07

Title: Character Creation and Short Story Writing

Rationale: Many, if not all, of the authors we’ve read have touched on writing for a specific rhetorical situation. This method gets students into a new comfort zone, one of personal interest and applicability to their lives. The tried and true methods of writing for the teacher are trite, overused, and ineffective; research shows that unique, situation specific writing assignments, engage students and further their writing more than previous methods.

Modern rhetoric focuses on the student, their experiences, interests, opinions, and the like. It’s imperative that we provide writing opportunities that are interesting, applicable, and effective for them to work. The juniors I am working with have been inundated throughout their education with little more than book summaries, formulaic essays, and stale writing assignments. Consequently, their interest in writing and expressing themselves has been stifled. Writing is something they’re required to do and they do it poorly.

Providing students with an avenue to write about what they are interested in, what is representative of them, and for creation, is an appropriate solution to their issues. Giving them a specific rhetorical situation to write about, allows them to stretch their thinking, take chances in their writing, and develop their creativity. It is a way to connect with their feelings and opinions and lead them to expressing them on the page.

Context: This is designed as a pre-writing/developmental activity for short story writing. The rhetorical context is the fictional short story. Students are asked to be creative, and to focus this creativity on two ends: first, creating their own character, and second, creating a short story for their character to experience. My goal is to illustrate how interesting, creative, and personal short story writing can be. Through this exercise, they will also develop their own voice in their writing, through their own creations, their characters and stories.

State Learning Goals:

  • 3.A.5 Produce grammatically correct documents using standard manuscript specifications for a variety of purposes and audiences.
  • 3.B.4a Produce documents that exhibit a range of writing techniques appropriate to purpose and audience, with clarity of focus, logic of organization, appropriate elaboration and support and overall coherence.
  • 3.C.5a Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness in a variety of written forms using appropriate traditional and/or electronic formats; adapt content, vocabulary, voice and tone to the audience, purpose and situation.

Required Materials:

Student Handouts – Attached

Lesson Format:

  • Brief “Mad Scientist” discussion
  • Discuss purpose of this type of writing
  • Introduce character creation concept and worksheet
  • Use class time to complete brainstorming and brief writing exercises
  • Introduce short story plot line worksheet
  • Use class time to complete brainstorming and brief writing exercises

Homework:

To flesh out and further develop their in class writing; produce a rough rough draft.

Assessment:

During their writing exercises I’ll circulate throughout the room to check their progress and provide assistance where needed. We’ll also have whole class discussion and I’ll monitor who is on track and who isn’t.

Character Creation

Character development:

We are creating characters to use in your short stories. You will create your characters first, and then the short story. This method will give you time to know your character well before introducing them to the situation you’ve created. I want you to be as creative as possible here; you are in complete control. I’ve provided a few guiding questions if you’re feeling stumped. Spend roughly five (5) minutes per section answering the questions.

Physical Characteristics:

  1. Is your character human, animal, or alien?
  2. Are they male, female, or androgynous?
  3. What is their height, weight, eye color, skin color, and hair color?
  4. Are they underweight, average weight, or overweight?
  5. What type of build do they have; athletic or non-athletic?

Beliefs:

  1. Do they have a religion, and if so, then what is it?
  2. Are they passive or aggressive?
  3. Do they lead or follow?
  4. What is their overall attitude or personality, optimistic or pessimistic?
  5. Are they misanthropic or philanthropic?
  6. What are their specific opinions?

Lifestyle:

  1. Where do they live, country city, or suburban? (Or other planet, underground, on a spaceship)
  2. What type of occupation do they have?
  3. Are they wealthy, moderate income, or low income?
  4. Do they have a vehicle, if so, what type?

Idiosyncrasies:

  1. What about your character makes them unique?
  2. Do they have any quirks or fears?
  3. What are their dominant traits?
  4. Do they have any addictions?
  5. What makes them special?

Name:

  1. What is their name?
  2. Are they only known by their first or last name?
  3. Do they go by a nickname?

Short Story Creation

Every story follows the same basic pattern; this pattern is the plot line. The plot line has the same elements even though it may be presented out of order, ala Tarantino.

Plot Line:

  • Introduction – Background information about your character, the setting, time period et cetera.
  • Rising Action – These are the events that take place, or lead up to the climax or main problem.
  • Climax/Conflict – The main issue of the plot and how the main character, protagonist, deals with it.
  • Falling action – The events that come after the climax and lead the character to the final point of the plot, the resolution.
  • Resolution – How all the preceding events have come together, if they have worked out or not, and what the final outcome was.

So here is how it falls out – Introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Let’s jump right to the heart of the issue and figure out a conflict to put your character through.

Think about conflicts or problems you’ve had in the past:

Was it a personal problem?

Was it related to a family member or friend?

Did it have to do with a member of the opposite sex?

Was it work or school related?

Are these the conflicts typical of the kind your character would encounter? If not, then think of some crazy situation that they might have to endure. Spend a few minutes writing about the conflict.

Next we’ll jump to the end of your story without thinking of how he/she got there. How do you want this all to end for your protagonist? Will it end well or will it unravel and lead to their destruction? Do they have what it takes to overcome this issue, or are they incapable of handling it? Write for a few more minutes on how your story will end.

Okay, we have the introduction, from the work we did on your character; we have the middle/climax/conflict, and we have the resolution. Now we just need to fill in the rising and falling action. Take a few moments to think and write about how your character goes from existing without any conflict in their life to being immersed in it. Were they in an accident, did something happen to a family member, we’re they drawn into this issue by another person? Once you have some ideas down move to the falling action and think in the same way. How did they get from the climax to the resolution? Were they helped by a family member? Did someone come to their aid? Were they let abandoned and to deal with this on their own?

Congratulations! You’re on your way to a solid fiction short story that is totally your own. Take tonight to develop these parts of you story and link them together. Tomorrow we’ll have a peer response workshop for additional constructive criticism.