Plotting the Plot
Instructor: Stacia Ann (Stacia Ann)Includes a free two month upgraded membership! Details
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Duration: Four Weeks
Class Size: 7 Students
Seats Left: 3
Read and discuss short story 1
Topics: the main elements of plot, critiquing fiction, getting ideas for writing
Writing Assignment 1
Your story idea. Recommended to submit your writing to both the instructor and your classmates in order to get feedback from everyone.
Week 2
Topics: Character, problem, and goal
Read and discuss story 2
Writing Assignment 2 Your story opening
Week 3
Topics: Complications within a setting
Read discuss story 3
Writing Assignment 3 Your story complications
Week 4
Topics: Great endings and theme
If time: nonlinear stories and Story 4
Finish and post draft of story
respond to one peer's story
Week 1: How to Begin
How to tell the story. Choosing a protagonist and viewpoint and setting. Where to begin?
The inciting event: What sets it all off.
Story problem and antagonist.
Story as "movement" not "structure"
Reading: sample story, focusing on beginning
Writing: Beginning page(s) of your story that introduces your protagonist and the story problem.
Week 2: Moving into the Middle. Fixing the problem, making it worse. The complications. Working in flashbacks, backstory.
Reading: sample story, focusing on middle
Writing: next pages of your story. Include at least one complication, hint at backstory and/or short flashback.
Week 3: Bringing Things to a Boiling Point. The complications intensify.
How to weave all of the plot threads together into one and pull tight.
Reading: sample story, focusing on climax
Writing: write your story, the events leading to and just after the climax
Week 4: Resolution: What to untie and what to leave knotted: what to resolve and leave unresolved. Nonlinear plots.
Reading: sample story, focusing on the resolution.
Writing: your resolution, the events after the climax and to the end of the story.
Instructor: Stacia Ann
About The Instructor:
Stacia Ann is an Linguistics Lecturer and Writing Instructor at the University of California. She has a doctorate of Education, Master's of Art in English/TESOL. This instructor has taught writing classes for over ten years. She also teaches academic writing and English as a Second Language at the University of the Pacific. A published author including works of short fiction and academic nonfiction including contest winning stories.