Dr. Sidney Please Help

Your Fiction Project assignment for Week 03 is to map out a plot based on an entry you made last week in your journal – and then add a one-sentence theme.

Step 1. Read the material on plot in your textbook before you tackle this assignment.

Step 2. Return to Week 02 and find the journal entry where you described an experience of conflict with a friend. The assignment looked like this:

Describe a conflict you experienced sometime in your life between you and a friend or family member. It could be at work or at home - or when you were a child. (Before you write this, check out the examples of conflict between friends in your assigned reading for today.) Hint: Spend a little extra time on this conflict experience. You will refer to it again in your Fiction Project.

Step 2. Take your journal seeds and map out a plot for your short story. Remember, just because the plot comes from your own experience, that doesn't mean you have to stick to your experience. As you develop your plot, you can begin to invent actions and characters, even the source of conflict or how things are resolved. You can also place the story in a different setting. Instead of Minnesota , it could be in Paris or Nevada . Of course, you might want to stick to what you know!

In outlining your plot, remember that it is an outline! Stick to the plot details - don't try to write the whole story! Most plots have an opening incident that gets the conflict going. Then the conflict builds to a climax. The climax is the high point of the story. The part of the story after the climax is relatively short. It is called the "denouement" or ending, and brings out what the character learns or how he or she changes.

At the end of your plot outline, write a one-sentence theme of the story. It should capture what you think the story is saying about how people live. A theme might be: "True friends are loyal."

What to turn in this week: Submit the plot summary and theme for your short story.