Prominent Symbol

Creative Essay: Write a Scene from a Story/Fiction Piece
Creative Assignment: This assignment asks you to write an original creative work to get a better idea of the types of creative & stylistic decisions that go into creating a piece of fiction. You will be graded on your effort, your introductory paragraph, and your attention to detail.

Write a story making use of a prominent symbol. In J.M. Coetzee’s short story “The Dog,” a woman is frightened by a watchdog and confronts the owners about her discomfort. Coetzee’s descriptions of the dog are vivid. He also inserts many clues as to how we should interpret the dog, its actions and the woman’s responses. Notice how Coetzee uses the woman’s thoughts about the dog to direct our interpretation of the story. Remember that a symbol signifies or has a range of references beyond itself. Think carefully about the symbol(s) you choose and how you communicate meaning to the reader.

Please include:
A ONE-page introductory paragraph explaining the plot and devices to highlight major themes.
This paragraph is not part of your scene or dialogue. First, mention as briefly as you can who your characters are and what is going on between them. (You do not need to explain anything that your own work makes clear.) Also, identify major themes and/or motifs in the work. How are these themes explored in the piece? How are they significant to the lives of the characters? How are these themes explored with respect to other elements in the story: setting, tone, plot, point of view, conflict, language, etc. How do literary devices function to highlight these themes?
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ANSWER ALL OF THE ABOVE QUESTIONS.
Figurative Language
Use our “Figurative Language” handout to come up with ideas regarding how to use literary devices in inventive and meaningful ways. The more literary devices you use, the stronger your scene will be.
Realistic dialogue
Make your characters speak naturally, the way people you know really talk. For example, real people do not always speak standard grammatical English, and they sometimes use incomplete sentences and clichés. Follow your instincts.
Make sure that it is clear which character is saying which lines. Begin a new paragraph (with indentation) each time you change from one speaker to another. If you use paraphrasing to make clear who is speaking, then you need not repeat the characters’ names each time they speak (“John said,” “Jane said”).
Hint: Often it is good to avoid telling the reader how a line of dialogue is spoken (“Who was on the phone?” Jane said nervously). Instead, try to write the dialogue so that the reader will know how it is said without being told. Or use an action or gesture to show how the line was spoken (“Who was on the phone?” Jane asked, her eyes shifting between John and the floor.)

Length: 3 pages long. Roughly two typed pages (of the story) and one page for the analysis, double-spaced.

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