Creative Writing                                                   
Winter Assignment: Second Semester 2009

Dr. Kathleen Burke                                               
kgburke@rdhs.org

 

Items for Study                                                       Local daily or weekly newspapers

 

Many writers discover story ideas in the headlines, stories and pictures in newspapers.  Recently, Joyce Carol Oates loosely based “Landfill” on an incident that occurred on a college campus.  Many years ago, she found another rich topic in the pages of Life Magazine.

Robert Olen Butler based Tabloid Dreams, an entire collection of short stories, on headlines from the Star!  His vintage postcard collection inspired Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards.

 In The Observation Deck: A Tool Kit for Writers, Naomi Epel cites a number of sources to suggest that writers seek inspiration in the newspaper. 

During the past year, Creative Writing students at Regina have followed this practice, crafting tales about such real situations as

·         a cougar discovered in a barn in Wisconsin

·         a police state in which consumption of unhealthy food is outlawed

·         an elderly married couple who died on the same day

 

Assignment

Every few days, scan the newspaper for story ideas. You can look at the Chicago Tribune, the Sun-Times, or your local neighborhood paper.  If you’re at a summer home, the little town paper may offer interesting items as well.

Find a headline, a story, a picture that captures your imagination.  Then write your own version of the story. You are not summarizing the story. Your are writing your own extended version that goes beyond the original. 

 

To get started, ask yourself such questions as:

·         What is this story about?

·         Who is the story about?

·         What if……?

·         Extend the story by populating it with characters from your imagination

·         Listen to these characters

·         Tell their story

 

The full story, minimum of three pages, typed and double-spaced, is due Monday, August 25.