Literature in English

Dear Workshop participants - this is our fifth exercise, related to the topics we have discussed in the sixth meeting. Good luck!

 I wrote this little short story in the DRAMATIC MODE:

“Mom, I have something to tell you…”
“Not now, I am making a cake.”
“But, Mom!… It’s important!”
“More important than your birthday cake? We have fifty guests tonight!”
“It is the most important thing in my life, Mom…”
“I know, your birthday, that’s why I’m in a hurry! Your father’s boss, Colonel McGregor, will be here in a couple of hours, and all our friends from the club, and…”
“I’m not talking about the party, Mom… It’s about this thing I have to tell you. I need to know your opinion.”
“Oh, you’re eighteen now, my little baby… you can manage your own problems, can’t you?”
“Mom, but I…”
“Can’t we talk about it later, after the party? I still have a hundred cucumber sandwiches to prepare… Want some?”
“MOM!”
“All right, tell me at once! You’re making me nervous!”
“I have a boyfriend, Mom… and I invited him to the party tonight.”
“Oh, such a fuss!… What is the problem?  You can invite anyone you want, it is your party, my little baby… Wait a minute… Did you say…’boyfriend’, Michael?!?!?”

Your task is to write new versions of the story using these types of narrator:

First version: Neutral Omniscience

Second version: ‘I’ as witness

Third version: ‘I’ as protagonist 

Send me by e-mail: frizero@yahoo.com

Dear Workshop participants - this is our fourth exercise, related to the topics we have discussed in the fifth meeting. Good luck!

Take this event:

 a man enters a restaurant to tell his wife he is in love with her sister and wants the divorce.

Write several versions of a brief story – one to three paragraphs – using this event:

First version: the man’s point-of-view

Second version: the woman’s point-of-view

Third version: the point-of-view of another customer sitting on a table besides the couple’s table.

Send me by e-mail: frizero@yahoo.com

Dear Workshop participants - this is our third exercise, related to the topics we have discussed in the second meeting. Good luck!

Build a plot in the following way:

Take this event: a young woman is hidden in the crowded living room of a mansion; it is the funeral of an important man; her dress is dirty and she is trying not to be discovered by the others.

List the following characteristics of the young woman: age; physical appearance; origin; social status;

Why is she there? Why is her dress dirty? Why is she hiding? What may happen if they find her? Write a brief paragraph (or two) introducing the character. You may use elements of the given event to do so.

Send me by e-mail: frizero@yahoo.com

Dear Workshop participants - this is our second exercise, related to the topics we have discussed in the second meeting. Good luck!

Build a plot in the following way:

1. Take this event: two people are parting at a bus station; one of them waves good-bye, and the other takes out a gun.

2. Create a series of conflicts that might have brought them there. Decide on a precipitating event and outline the story from beginning to end.

3.Write a version of this story, starting with the bus station event and telling the story in flashback.

Send me by e-mail: frizero@yahoo.com

Dear Workshop participants - this is our first exercise, related to the topics we have discussed in the first meeting.  Good luck!

Write a small fictional text following these steps:

Purpose: A young man tries to convince his dying aunt to include his name in her will;

Form: a letter;

Appropriateness: his aunt is a very formal person, a wealthy aristocrat, not very close to the young man.

Send it to me by e-mail: frizero@yahoo.com