Short+Story

SHORT STORY ASSIGNMENT You will be writing a 3-5 page creative short story. Although this is fiction and ultimately a creation of your imagination, write about what you know. The use of real elements, emotions and situations encourage your readers to connect to your story.

There are five essential elements to every short story:


 * 1) **Setting**—Describe in vivid detail where your story takes place. Appeal to all of the senses: touch, taste, see, hear, smell
 * 2) **Plot**—The action. Most short stories cover a very short timespan, possibly one pivotal event in a character’s life. Try hooking your reader by beginning yourstory with action.
 * 3) **Character**—Focus your story around onemain character. Reveal your characterthrough description, dialogue and action. Consider your character’s motivations, what does he or she want?
 * 4) **Conflict**—Theconflict in a story is the struggle between the opposing forces on which theaction in a short story depends. Yourstory needs a central conflict. Thereare three basic varieties: man vs. man,man vs. self, and man vs. nature.
 * 5) **Theme**—The theme is an underlying ideaabout life or human nature, the big idea in your work. The theme is never stated outright but thereader extracts it in the process of making meaning of what they haveread.

DueDate: Thursday, August 4, 2011

See Rubric for Grading