Your Name

Creative Nonficton

Van Noy

Date

Paper #1: Personal Narrative/Memoir/Essay

Use your powers of narration and description to recall a significant event (or several) and to make us see your subject and ultimately your point. (Even descriptive papers have one, like an argument for your own perceptions. It may be stated outright or implied as in a dominant impression or mood.)

An essay about a remembered event should tell an interesting story (narration), it should give a vivid presentation of the scenes and people (description), and it should also give an indication of the event's significance. Careful though, skillful writers don't just append the "moral" artificially at the end, like a tailgate, but integrate it into the "tale.”

Remember some of the basic features of personal narratives/memoirs. These essays describe the writer’s own experiences, but readers can relate to them because they are really concerned with human experience in general.

You could expand on your map story, or pull something from your idea notebook or timeline. Use your “On . . . “ or write a confession, as Ephron does. Examine the subject carefully for a long period of time. Study it at close range and with focused awareness. Since you’re recollecting or recreating you subject, details may be sketchy. Talk to friends about the event, share your story, and have them ask questions of you. If you can, talk to someone else who was there.

What was a big transformation or change for you? What would you change if you good? What’s the source of your power or strength? What were some magic moments? What do you keep thinking about?

Here are some things to help you:

· Description: Create a vivid and specific presentation of your scene or people. Move in close and choose specific details. Use figurative language if you can.)

· Deeds: Narratives rely on the actions of characters to tell (or show) their story, or to create suspense.

· Dialogue: Use dialogue if you can, especially if you're writing about another person. Dialogue lets us infer what people are like from what they say.

· Denouement: Personal narratives admit to a range of things: jealousy, pride, embarrassment, joy, panic, failure, success. We all know these feelings, and readers will want to see how you develop them. But in addition to disclosing remembered feelings, good writers can convey the event’s significance and bring the essay to a satisfactory close (denouement=outcome; Old French for "untying"). Personal victories (say, from sporting events) don’t always work well. Defeat is a better teacher.

For the visiting writer sessions to work for you (and all of us), try to make your draft as complete and clean as it would be if you were to hand it in for a grade.

Length: 4–6 pages. Please double space and left justify.

As long as we're alliterating, here are some things that might hinder you:

Broadness: The event is too broad ("my childhood," "the championship season").

Beaches: The paper overstates a minor event, such as beach week, or can't find the significance in it. (This topic might work better if it was handled humorously, looking back at how important it seemed then but now?)

Brevity: Can be a good thing, but not in the key scene or anecdotes.

Boring: If the event isn't important to the writer, will it be to the reader? How will the essay have some bang for its buck.

Blameless: The writer comes off as either too much the hero or too much the blameless victim.

Boom: The essay lowered it when it tried to convey the significance; it's too heavy-handed. Can it be more subtle or integrated?

Banana Peels: When somebody slips on them, they can be dangerous, but also funny. Can you add humor, without being or cruel (or doing someone injury)?