WRITING ASSIGNMENT 7 - Short Story In First Person

           

            Write a first-person short story based loosely on an experience you or someone you know actually had. I say "based on" -- this means you should feel free to add or subtract characters, change the time or place, alter the dialogue, etc. In other words, tell a true story but feel free to lie about (embellish or alter) any details to make it both more meaningful and more believable and more dramatic.

            The experience you write about should be one which made THE NARRATOR significantly different or changed THE NARRATOR'S perception about HIM OR HERSELF, friends, family, or the world. Some important changes you might consider, though this is not an exhaustive or even comprehensive list. A moment when:

            -- a stereotype was shattered

            -- the narrator lost or found a friend

            -- the narrator knew he or she'd never be the same again

            -- the narrator made the right or wrong decision

            -- the narrator was "initiated" into a new experience: love, death, sex, etc.

            -- the narrator realized something important about him or herself

            -- the narrator was left permanently less trusting, less innocent, less confident

            -- the narrator's picture of the way the world worked was changed

            -- the narrator realized he or she was more foolish or wise, more brave or cowardly, than thought

            -- the narrator won or lost faith in others or him or herself

 

            This assignment requires creating a character (“yourself,” a first-person narrator) who undergoes an experience that leaves the character changed. Thus the action described is "moving" action, not "fixed" action. It is action that does not repeat itself, such as as the events in a "typical" day might be repeated, but is, rather, action that leads toward change, the action of an out-of-the-ordinary day.

            You're also adding another important new element -- writing about an event, a series of events, in time. You're adding theme (the significance of the action) and plot (the action).

            The object of this story is to convey in a dramatic way the emotional impact of an event on a character or narrator (the "you" of the story, called "I" in the narration), not to merely make the point or to show there was a lesson to be learned. The challenge is to get the reader to relive the experience with the narrator, not merely understand what happened. Keep in mind the conventions of fiction -- suspense, conflict and climax, description and pacing.

            Use the structure: ABDCE, where A is Action, B is Background, D is development, C is Climax and E is Ending. Begin near the end of the chronology of the event, in other words, and flash back to fill in exposition necessary to understand the conflict and the characters.