The short story that I wrote for the first assessment was called Summer. When writing this story there were several things I took from what we have looked at in class to form the idea and the structure of the final product. The way I formed my idea was largely based around the activity we did in class with the cards and then also aspects of the Manovich reading. I laid out some ideas and then moved them around to see how they could work together to form an interesting story.
Once I had characters, locations and actions it was then time to think about how to write it so it had the fantasy that was suggested by Brander Matthews. In fact having the aspects of short story that Matthews talks about in the back of my head whilst writing it really allowed me to cull the things that were not important and have a story that resolved it self by the end of it. Also, i wanted to be clear on the entire story so the audience feels as if the story I was telling at the start was the same one I was telling at the end.
I am quite happy with my story. Although it is not extremely complicated, I believe it includes all the elements that make up a good short-story.
Summer draws from the Matthews and McKee readings as it is an ‘exact and precise’ short story with a ‘wilful protagonist,’ Nick, who has a ‘conscious desire,’ Rose. The plot is clearly outlined with effective dialogue moving it forward. There is room to deepen the characters (hard to do in 800 words!!) I would like to know more about them – is Nick just a nerdy boy who no one looks at and is Rose just a mean popular girl?
It is a strong and complete narrative that has a beginning, middle and end. There’s scope for playing with chronology (perhaps opening with the skinny dipping scene?) and scope for subverting the tropes (I read the sign-off ‘R’ to possibly be Roger too!!) All round it is an engaging story with tonnes of potential!!