Creative Writing : Four Genres in Brief

by Starkey, David

• ISBN13: 9780312468668
• ISBN10: 0312468660
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-17
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

How can students with widely varied levels of literary experience learn to write poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama over the course of only one semester? InCreative Writing: Four Genres in Brief, David Starkey offers some solutions to the challenges of teaching the introductory creative writing course: (1) concise, accessible instruction in literary basics; (2)shortmodels of literature to analyze, admire and emulate; (3) inventive and imaginative assignments that inspire and motivate.

Author Biography

David Starkey is Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Santa Barbara City College.  He is the editor of two collections of creative writing pedagogy, Teaching Writing Creatively (1998) and Genre by Example: Writing What We Teach (2001), and he has been active in all four genres.  His poetry collections include Adventures of the Minor Poet (2007), Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems (2006), and Fear of Everything (2000).  His fiction has appeared in American Literary Review, Rio Grande Review, Sou’wester and in the anthology Blue Cathedral: Contemporary Fiction for the New Millennium.  His creative nonfiction has been published in Cimarron Review, Gulf Stream Magazine, Tampa Review, and in the book Living Blue in the Red States (2007), which he edited.  His plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Toronto, and elsewhere.

Table of Contents

Preface: A few words to instructors	p. vii
A few things you should know about creative writing	p. 1
Writing Poetry	p. 9
A few things you should know about poetry	p. 9
The elements of poetry	p. 15
The short poem: three models	p. 16
My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom	p. 17
Winter	p. 18
9/11	p. 19
Lines and stanzas	p. 20
Meter and rhythm	p. 27
The music of poetry	p. 34
Images, symbols, and figurative language	p. 38
Diction, syntax, and the language of poetry	p. 46
Poetic forms	p. 50
Sonnet	p. 50
Villanelle	p. 51
Rondeau	p. 54
Sestina	p. 55
Cinquain	p. 58
Pantoum	p. 59
Ghazal	p. 60
Prose poem	p. 61
Getting started writing poetry	p. 63
Kick-Starts: Beginning your poems	p. 64
An Anthology of Short Poems	p. 67
Postcards to Columbus	p. 67
Zen Americana	p. 68
Bells	p. 68
Frequently Unasked Questions	p. 69
The Ballad of Rudolph Reed	p. 70
Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races	p. 72
Brute Strength	p. 74
Nostalgia	p. 74
A Quiet Poem	p. 76
Praise the Tortilla, Praise the Menudo, Praise the Chorizo	p. 77
Noisetone	p. 78
Santa Fe	p. 78
On Being Told I Don't Speak like a Black Person	p. 79
That Silent Evening	p. 81
Boy Sleeping	p. 82
Lunch in Nablus City Park	p. 83
I Went into the Maverick Bar	p. 85
What Is Your Major?	p. 86
The English Canon	p. 87
The Ways of Guilt	p. 87
Teaching the Ape to Write Poems	p. 89
My Mother Dreams Another Country	p. 89
The Assassination of John Lennon as Depicted by the Madame Tussaud Wax Museum, Niagara Falls, Ontario, 1987	p. 90
Writing the Short-Short Story	p. 92
A few things you should know about the short-short story	p. 92
The elements of fiction	p. 94
The short-short story: three models	p. 95
Crossing the River Zbrucz	p. 97
The Baby	p. 99
Marzipan	p. 101
Structure and design	p. 102
Creating characters	p. 110
Writing dialogue	p. 118
Setting the scene	p. 123
Deciding on point of view, developing tone and style	p. 127
First-person point of view	p. 128
Second-person point of view	p. 129
Third-person limited point of view	p. 130
Third-person omniscient point of view	p. 131
Tense	p. 132
Tone and style	p. 132
Getting started writing the short-short story	p. 135
Kick-Starts: Beginning your story	p. 136
An Anthology of Short-Short Stories	p. 139
The Hit Man	p. 139
A Kind of Flying	p. 142
Popular Mechanics	p. 145
Reunion	p. 146
Bottle Caps	p. 148
Near Michaelmas	p. 149
Church Cancels Cow	p. 151
Girl	p. 152
Wolf's Head Lake	p. 153
The Old Badger Game	p. 155
Dominate and Recessid Jeans	p. 157
Writing Short Creative Nonfiction	p. 160
A few things you should know about short creative nonfiction	p. 160
The elements of creative nonfiction	p. 164
Short creative nonfiction: three models	p. 165
News of the Wild	p. 166
Joyas Voladoras	p. 169
Liferower	p. 172
Organizing creative nonfiction	p. 175
Telling the truth	p. 180
Creative nonfiction as narrative	p. 185
Character	p. 185
Dialogue	p. 187
Scene-setting	p. 187
The poetry of creative nonfiction	p. 190
Imagery and figurative language	p. 190
Diction	p. 191
Sound and rhythm	p. 192
Writing yourself into creative nonfiction	p. 194
Ethics and edicts	p. 197
Getting started writing short creative nonfiction	p. 201
Kick-Starts: Beginning your creative nonfiction	p. 202
An Anthology of Short Creative Nonfiction	p. 206
The Mute Sense	p. 206
Walkaways	p. 207
Westbury Court	p. 209
How to Tell One Bird from the Next	p. 212
El Toro Rojo	p. 214
Two Ways to Belong in America	p. 215
The Witching Hour	p. 218
Late July, 4:40 a.m.	p. 220
Elegy for an Optimist	p. 222
Morning Glory Harley	p. 224
Writing the Ten-Minute Play	p. 228
A few things you should know about the ten-minute play	p. 228
The elements of playwriting	p. 233
The ten-minute play: three models	p. 234
Sure Thing	p. 235
Trying to Find Chinatown	p. 243
The Divine Fallacy	p. 250
Structuring the ten-minute play	p. 256
Creating believable characters	p. 261
Writing convincing dialogue	p. 266
Crafting a theme	p. 274
Onstage: The elements of production	p. 279
Stage	p. 279
Sets	p. 281
Props, constumes, and effects	p. 282
Lights	p. 284
Sounds	p. 285
Actors	p. 285
Directors	p. 287
Producers	p. 288
Audience	p. 289
Getting started writing the ten-minute play	p. 291
Kick-Starts: Beginning your play	p. 291
Playscript Format: A Model	p. 293
An Anthology of Ten-Minute Plays	p. 300
Trash Anthem	p. 300
Now We're Really Getting Somewhere	p. 305
Tango Delta	p. 311
If Susan Smith Could Talk	p. 318
A few words of farewell	p. 325
Glossary	p. 327
Index	p. 337
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