Dear AP Lit. students and fellow autodidacts:
By now you are either delightedly writing a short story or are casting imprecatory language at your teacher for the assignment (A third possibility: you haven't started yet).
Here are some helps if you're having trouble:
1) Create a situation of conflict. A student sees another student cheating on the AP Lit. exam. What does she do? A man falls asleep at the wheel of his car, goes off an embankment, and is trapped. How does he escape? Newspaper headlines can spark your imagination as well.
2) Keep it simple. You only have 750 words, so you can't write War and Peace.
3) Read an author you admire. Look at the style. Copy that style if necessary. Copying that way is a good method of eventually finding your own style.
4) Once you start, write first and edit later.
5) If you can't get an idea, just come up with a sentence: "Since July Sarah had saved nearly all of her babysitting money for a car." What happens next? "Stewart watched Number 12 warming up for the game, driving layups to the basket. 'That's your man, bubba,' Coach said. 'You can't keep up with him, we don't win the game.'" Does Stewart guard his man or does the team lose the game?
6) If you still can't come up with a storyline, pick a writer you like, copy the opening line to a story, and then create your own story from that (note somewhere on your paper that you've done this).
7) Still stuck? Forget the story and write instead a synopsis of three characters who might appear in the story. Tell us everything you can about them.
Keep in mind the reasons for this assignment. We've written essays about stories, but it's another thing to write a good, or even adequate, story. Pay close attention to diction. Choose the right word. In fiction the "devil is in the details," as the old saying goes. If you're writing a story about a schoolteacher named Miss Grundy who wears her hair in a tight bun, who sits straight as a soldier, and who never smiles, not even after Christmas, then it is unlikely that she will eat hot dogs for lunch or drive a red Mustang. Give her some tomato soup and a sensible car, and she will be a happy woman (well, not happy, but contented).
Work hard, hard, hard on writing.
Mr. Minick
By now you are either delightedly writing a short story or are casting imprecatory language at your teacher for the assignment (A third possibility: you haven't started yet).
Here are some helps if you're having trouble:
1) Create a situation of conflict. A student sees another student cheating on the AP Lit. exam. What does she do? A man falls asleep at the wheel of his car, goes off an embankment, and is trapped. How does he escape? Newspaper headlines can spark your imagination as well.
2) Keep it simple. You only have 750 words, so you can't write War and Peace.
3) Read an author you admire. Look at the style. Copy that style if necessary. Copying that way is a good method of eventually finding your own style.
4) Once you start, write first and edit later.
5) If you can't get an idea, just come up with a sentence: "Since July Sarah had saved nearly all of her babysitting money for a car." What happens next? "Stewart watched Number 12 warming up for the game, driving layups to the basket. 'That's your man, bubba,' Coach said. 'You can't keep up with him, we don't win the game.'" Does Stewart guard his man or does the team lose the game?
6) If you still can't come up with a storyline, pick a writer you like, copy the opening line to a story, and then create your own story from that (note somewhere on your paper that you've done this).
7) Still stuck? Forget the story and write instead a synopsis of three characters who might appear in the story. Tell us everything you can about them.
Keep in mind the reasons for this assignment. We've written essays about stories, but it's another thing to write a good, or even adequate, story. Pay close attention to diction. Choose the right word. In fiction the "devil is in the details," as the old saying goes. If you're writing a story about a schoolteacher named Miss Grundy who wears her hair in a tight bun, who sits straight as a soldier, and who never smiles, not even after Christmas, then it is unlikely that she will eat hot dogs for lunch or drive a red Mustang. Give her some tomato soup and a sensible car, and she will be a happy woman (well, not happy, but contented).
Work hard, hard, hard on writing.
Mr. Minick
posted by Mr. Minick at
4:42 AM
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