Sudden Fiction Workshop


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Housekeeping:

 

Agenda:


 

 

Sudden Fiction Project

 

Write a work of sudden fiction that relates to your own ethnic/regional/marginalized identity. 

 

Directions:

 

  Excellent  Satisfactory  Developing 
CONTENT: 
  • Narrative is concentrated around a single event or idea. 
  • Narrative includes powerful symbols or metaphors related to point about ethnic/regional/marginalized identity.
  • Narrative has broader implications. 
  • Narrative has some sort of focus.
  • Narrative talks about identity without any clear symbols or metaphors.

 

  • Narrative lacks focus.
  • Narrative does not address ethnic or regional identity. 
STYLE: 
  • Narrative is compact. Each word is carefully chosen. 
  •  Narrative has a clear focus or message but remains open-ended.
  • Narrative is highly readable and engaging. 
  • Narrative creates a sense of a moment or idea rather than a traditional plot. 
  • Narrative is short without being compact. Words have some thought.
  • Narrative makes some point. 
  • Narrative is interesting.  
  • Narrative is not written in Sudden Fiction style. 
IDENTITY 
  • Narrative relates to ethnic/regional/marginalized identity of the author.
  • Narrative celebrates that identity and demonstrates something distinctive about identity.
  • Narrative  
  • Narrative addresses identity through characters, situation, or setting. 
  • No clear relationship to ethnic/regional/marginalized identity. 

 

 

Defining Sudden Fiction

 

Distinguishing between "Flash" and "Sudden" Fiction

"Flash" Fiction:

Thomas, James, and Robert Shapard, eds. Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very Short Stories. New York: Norton, 2006.

"Sudden" Fiction:

Shapard, Robert, and James Thomas, eds. New Sudden Fiction: Short-Short Stories from America and Beyond. New York: Norton, 2007.

 

Updated: 24 July 2007

Retrieved from http://www.ar.cc.mn.us/stankey/Literat/Fiction/FlashSud.htm 2-13-19 

 


Ethnic/Regional/Marginalized Identities

 

Your stories should all reflect something about your cultural IDENTITY. 

 

Group Work:

Break into groups and identify three ways that regional/ethnic/marginalized identity was implicit or explicit in the sudden fiction we read in class? Did you sense it in the setting? The characters? Language? 

 

ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS ON YOUR ROSTER PAGE AFTER YOU TALK ABOUT THEM WITH YOUR GROUP:

Now find THREE ways to make regional/ethnic/marginalized identity implicit or explicit in YOUR story. What is distinctive about the language? The setting? The characters? How could a reader sense your specific context from this story? How is it also universal in its specificity?