Writing literary fiction

Assignment:

Take the same central theme you supported in Response 2 and expressed as a narrative or poem in Response 4, and compose your own work of literary fiction exploring this theme. Unlike Response 4, this work should be fictional (not a true account). You may express this as a short story similar to many of the last writers you have read, or you may write a narrative poem similar to Edgar Allan Poe. What elements of true literature discussed, which were lacking in the persuasive pieces in Responses 2 and 4, can you incorporate in Response 7? While the plot of your story should be your own invention, imitate, to the best of your ability, the style or literary pattern of one of the following authors: Washington Irving, Catherine Sedgwick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, or Louisa May Alcott. What you write need not be an exact replica of the way that author writes. Rather, show evidence of a defining theme or tone that stands out in the original work. For example, you might use exaggeration to create a caricature, as Irving does, or romanticize an intense moral dilemma or tragedy, as Hawthorne does.

Since this is not a creative writing class, I am not necessarily grading these narratives for their own literary merit or value as creative works (but don’t underestimate what you can create; you might surprise yourself!). Rather, I want the narrative or poem to clearly reflect an understanding of one or more distinguishing literary features of a particular work and provide a noticeable attempt at imitating that particular trope in your own work. Often, the best way to truly understand a piece of literature is to imitate it (as you have done to some extent with other responses). Experiencing a similar process of ideation and shaping your own language, plot, and/or characterization to symbolize, exaggerate, romanticize, develop metaphors, or build impending doom or suspense as the original author has done can bring that genre of literature to life in a way that simply reading and discussing it might not.

Upload your response as a Word Document in MLA. In the submission comments, identify which of the above listed authors you are imitating.

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