Xiwai International High School Syllabus of Creative Writing
2014-03-16
Choose one line and start your story!
1. I had never seen the pyramids of Egypt before, but being chased by a man with a gun alongside them wasn’t the best way to take a vacation!
2. The old woman looked out of her window with tears running down her face.
3. No matter how much you fight it, gravity always wins in the end.
4. The monster stood before Alice and held out his massive hairy hand, waiting for her to return to him what she had taken.
5. The soup on the stove was burning, and sent up little puffs of spicy flame as the man rushed to turn off the heat.
Example
Opening Line:
“The rain pounded on the side of Brian’s car, as he stared sadly through the windshield.”
Character:
--This man Brian is 28 years old, tall and thin, with sandy-brown hair, two ear rings in his left ear, large and rough hands, and wears old simple clothes even though his family is wealthy
Rough Outline:
Part One. The story could be about how he was sitting in the car outside his girlfriend’s apartment, with the bad news that his family would never accept her since she was poor. He loves her and they want to be together, so he decides not to tell her. Instead, he uses his family’s money to pay for a wedding ceremony that they don’t know about, and lives with her in secret. This lasts for over a year and the new wife becomes pregnant, and now he has to tell his parents that they will be grandparents!
Part Two. But the girl is really a wonderful person, and has a good job working in a restaurant that the father often goes to. They have become friends and he often listens to her complain about how her husband’s family looks down on her, and he tells her that such people are really the ones who are on a lower level
Part Three. So when they all meet together at a restaurant for the first meeting, the father and secret daughter-in-law recognize each other, and both laugh at the situation. Everything is explained and the group quickly becomes close and loving, and a happy ending occurs
Name ___________
Class ___________ Date ___________
Character Building and Short Story Outline
Opening Line you chose:
_____________________________________________________________
Describe your character:
_____________________________________________________________
Compose the three parts of your outline:
Part One:
_____________________________________________________________
Part Two:
_____________________________________________________________
Part Three:
_____________________________________________________________
Creative Writing, Grade 11
For the 11 Creative Writing class, they need to complete an outline for their group’s graphic novel. This should be a very broad outline of their story, with next week being when the writers must deliver a complete chapter/section to me to review and comment on. They should move their desks into islands of 4/5 to complete the outline.
Tell the group leaders (Elaine and Coco) to assign a person to write out the outline in English, and give them to you at the end of class.
Team One: Elaine, Rachel, Amber, Hannah
Team Two: Zijian, Coco, Eason, July, Jeremy
Example for today’s work, taken from the movie The Matrix:
Summary
Mr. Anderson is a quiet, normal man who works in an office building. But he has a secret life as “Neo,” in which he goes into computers and has adventures. One day he is taken away by special police who put a scary robot bug in his stomach, in order to find the leader of a rebel group who are fighting a war that no one knows about. The rebels take the bug out and then give him a pill that wakes him up, and they show him that he has been asleep and the evil robots were using his body’s energy for food. They teach him how to fight, and he goes back into the computer world to defeat the leader, Mr. Smith. No one has ever beaten him, and when Neo does the robot army realizes that humans are strong and that their side winning the war is no longer certain.
Chapter One
--Anderson is at his desk, and the computer screen shows a quick message for Neo to run
--He doesn’t listen and the secret police chase him through the office and capture him
Chapter Two
--Anderson is in the police station and they show him all the crimes he has done in computers as “Neo,” and say they can make his record clean if he helps them find the rebel leader “Morpheus”
--He says no and they hold him down and put a scary robot bug inside his stomach
The Four Pillars of a Good Story
Like the legs of a table, four makes for the strongest story
1. Character
--The person or animal has to be very clear in the mind of the reader, in their appearance, the way they act, and the way they think
--If you don’t have a clear character, the reader cannot care one way or the other about them (can’t love or hate the character)
2. Conflict
--What the character wants and what is preventing them from achieving it. Examples can be: a man looking for lost treasure, a boy trying to help his father build a car, a woman who saw a crime and wants to tell the police, a girl who finds a magic stone that an evil wizard wants back
--A strong conflict is the key to making a story interesting to read, because it answers the question “Why is this story happening?”
3. Language
--The words the characters speak and think with. Using the right words with the right character is essential to making that person feel clear in the mind of the reader. For example: an 8 year-old child shouldn’t use words like ‘tolerance’ and ‘specific’ unless they are very smart for their age, and a priest shouldn’t talk about sex or use dirty words unless they are supposed to be a bad/evil priest
--You can use very high English or very strange words if you want, but you must make the reader believe there is a good reason for the character to use them
4. Creativity
--An original story is what people want to read. Creativity means a new idea or a new way to look at an old one. If you do it well, people will remember your story for a long time
--The easiest way to be creative is the rule of opposites. Think of something that is strongly one way in most people’s minds, for example a mosquito. No one likes them and most people even hate them. But think of a story where a mosquito is a kind and helpful creature, and maybe even the hero. It would be a new idea, and so be more interesting for people to read
Your Four Pillars
1. Character (what does he/she look like, how do they act, what is their family history, etc.)
_____________________________________________________________________
2. Conflict (What does your character want, and what is stopping them from getting it?)
_____________________________________________________________________
3. Language (How do people talk and think? What kind of words do they use?)
_____________________________________________________________________
4. Creativity (What is new or different about your story?)
List of Sites to Visit and Basic Outline for Whale Rider
Monthly Project
Goal for Project:
Draw/paint a poster of your Wharenui, which is the Maori meeting house for a community. You must use people and events important to your life as the building materials.
Examples Include:
- Important people in your life and past
- Symbols, patterns, and colors that represent China
- Important events in your life
- Your personal or family talents and qualities
The Wharenui should follow the basic design of the traditional Maori design:
- The tekoteko (main spine) of the Wharenui should represent an ancestor or other representative of your family’s past.
- The amo (or pou toko manawa, the main support poles) should represent the major people or events in your life.
- The maihi (the arm-like roof poles) and other pou (carved poles) should represent the qualities/skills/events/friends of your of your family.
Some good sites to start with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marae, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wharenui, http://www.teara.govt.nz/en, http://www.whaleriderthemovie.co.nz/
