Please complete and turn in your Stephen King project today by the end of class. Please make sure you have the following work completed--this is a major project and will affect your grade for this marking period!
1. Please turn in your 5 premises.
2. Please turn in your 5 drafts based on or inspired by the stories you read from Nightmares & Dreamscapes.
3. Please complete and post your review/analysis of Stephen King's book on your blog.
When you complete all these tasks, please work on completing a 2nd draft (please label it a second draft) of your Stephen King Exercise draft. See my comments and correct your mistakes, make your work stronger, better written, more creative, or, in general, revise and edit your 1st draft. If you turned in an incomplete draft to begin with, please include the final completed draft. No incomplete work will be accepted for this revision assignment.
Revision is part of the writing process (along with editing). As writers, we must train ourselves to see our work with fresh eyes. The best way to do this is to allow time to pass and look back at our writing a few days, a few weeks or months, perhaps years between writing the first draft and the 2nd. Since we don't have eternal time in programs such as ours, we must push this part of the writing process to the forefront sometimes.
After completing your drafts, please see my comments on your original Stephen King writing exercise story. Use my comments and editing marks to revise your draft. Call this draft two.
To help you with this process, you will need to examine your grammar/mechanics and correct mistakes, but more than that, you will need to remove the backstory from the action of the story. Backstory is not necessary to move a story along--it is only helpful in developing character. To this end, does your story need to develop your character over telling the story? Consider what to keep and what to edit or remove.
Also, to help you, use the basic tools handout. KEEP THIS HANDOUT--we will be referencing this in the next part of our classes (a review of grammar/mechanics).
When we edit/revise:
Revisions are due by Thursday, April 14 along with your journals and blogs.
HOMEWORK: Revision. Complete the reading of the short story handout, "He Swung & He Missed" by Nelson Algren. Please bring this draft to class on Friday as we will begin discussing adventure stories/fiction.
1. Please turn in your 5 premises.
2. Please turn in your 5 drafts based on or inspired by the stories you read from Nightmares & Dreamscapes.
3. Please complete and post your review/analysis of Stephen King's book on your blog.
When you complete all these tasks, please work on completing a 2nd draft (please label it a second draft) of your Stephen King Exercise draft. See my comments and correct your mistakes, make your work stronger, better written, more creative, or, in general, revise and edit your 1st draft. If you turned in an incomplete draft to begin with, please include the final completed draft. No incomplete work will be accepted for this revision assignment.
Revision is part of the writing process (along with editing). As writers, we must train ourselves to see our work with fresh eyes. The best way to do this is to allow time to pass and look back at our writing a few days, a few weeks or months, perhaps years between writing the first draft and the 2nd. Since we don't have eternal time in programs such as ours, we must push this part of the writing process to the forefront sometimes.
After completing your drafts, please see my comments on your original Stephen King writing exercise story. Use my comments and editing marks to revise your draft. Call this draft two.
To help you with this process, you will need to examine your grammar/mechanics and correct mistakes, but more than that, you will need to remove the backstory from the action of the story. Backstory is not necessary to move a story along--it is only helpful in developing character. To this end, does your story need to develop your character over telling the story? Consider what to keep and what to edit or remove.
Also, to help you, use the basic tools handout. KEEP THIS HANDOUT--we will be referencing this in the next part of our classes (a review of grammar/mechanics).
When we edit/revise:
- Check spelling, punctuation, comma usage, hyphens, em-dashes, capitals, numbers, names, dates, facts, font, title, heading, spacing, etc.
- Identify problems of organization? Where are weaknesses in the plot or story? What can be cut or removed?
- Underline long sentences--ask: is there a way to write this more concisely? Is the long sentence communicating what you want it to communicate?
- Underline awkward phrases or sentences. Edit, reconstruct.
- Check that all introductory clauses (those beginning with -ing words) relate to the phrase/clause after the introductory clause--check to make sure you are not falling into a pattern. (Many writers have a tendency to use the same clauses, phrases, or sentence construction--vary your sentence structure).
- Pairs, series, and compound subjects and predicates should be arranged from short to long, from simple to compound. Use the rule of three: 3 items in a series--no more.
- Cut what is not necessary. Remove repetition or redundant phrases, words, or clauses.
- Read your work OUT LOUD to catch difficult or weakly phrased sentences.
- Remove adverbs (-ly words)--strengthen verbs.
- Remove adjectives where possible--strengthen nouns.
- Check your pronouns--do you include a clear antecedent?
- Cut all fat from your writing. (See handout for ideas about what to cut!)
- Rearrange scenes so that you build to a climax. Put similar scenes together or combine them. Cut scenes that are boring.
- Check dialogue and make sure you are punctuating dialogue correctly.
Revisions are due by Thursday, April 14 along with your journals and blogs.
HOMEWORK: Revision. Complete the reading of the short story handout, "He Swung & He Missed" by Nelson Algren. Please bring this draft to class on Friday as we will begin discussing adventure stories/fiction.
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