Short Story One -- Week One

Well, we've spent six weeks learning what a story needs, how a story is built, and how to find ideas for stories.

Time to put that into practice.

You know those two fairy tale retellings you came up with last week?  Pick one of them and flesh it out into a full story.

This is a two-week project, so your finished first draft is due Friday, February 27.  And then you'll give them to me, and I'll read them and save them for later.  We won't actually work on revising them until mid-March, after a lesson on tips and tricks for revising and polishing your work.  I'll give you feedback on them by March 2 and again after you have revised them.

(Yeah, I changed up our schedule a bit again.)

How long should these short stories be?  How about between 2,000 and 10,000 words?  If they're longer than that, I won't have time to read them and give you feedback.

Since I am asking for a first draft, often called a rough draft, please be aware that these do NOT have to be beautiful.  They need a beginning, a middle, and an end.  They should make basic sense.  Don't worry about how pretty your writing is, or how electrifying your dialog is, or how fascinating your characters are.

My favorite piece of writing advice, of all time, is about first drafts.  Keep this in mind:

(I'm writing a first draft of a novel right now myself, and it's definitely just a box filled with sand so far.)