FICTION WORKSHOP 4

FICTION WORKSHOP 4

Reviewer:_____________________ Reviewed:_____________________

1) For the first step of today's workshop, exchange hard-copies of your rough draft with someone in your assigned workshop group and read their story from beginning to end.

2) Once you read your partner's entire story, write one paragraph wherein you a) diagnose what type of opening your peer employs for their short story and b) assess its overall use, implementation, and effectiveness. Make sure you offer critical suggestions for how the opening functions, or could function better.

3) Write a new opening for your peer's story that is at least one paragraph in length. The new opening should be of a different type. For example, if the story you read begins with an "Into the Pot" style opening, try your hand at "Calm Before the Story" or "Statement to the Jury" style opening.

4) Write one paragraph wherein you a) diagnose what type of ending your peer employs for their short story (i.e. understands or fails to understand), b) address whether or not they make use of a symbolic gesture or object, and c) assess its overall use, implementation, and effectiveness. Again, as with the openings, make sure you offer critical suggestions for how the opening functions, or could function better.

5) Write a new closing for your peer's story that is at least one paragraph in length. The new closing should conclude the story differently and should focus on the crisis point (decision the central character makes), falling action, and resolution (if the ending is not ambiguous).

NOTE: When writing your responses to your peer's short stories, make sure you incorporate specific concepts and terminology from Kercheval's Building Fiction. Likewise, when offering revisions to your partner's conflict and scenes, refer to particular examples from the selections we've read in Best American Short Storiesduring this genre cycle as models of justification for why you've made certain suggestions