Wilderness Tips Writing Exercise

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Period 1:

Please read the rest of the article "How to Look At Women" starting with the end of the first section.

Afterward, please read "Hairball" together in your Wilderness Tips collection.

Atwood's style generally takes a character's past issues (used often through flashback sequences), problems, situations and details them. This is then juxtaposed with the present. Present scenes are written in present tense. Try this style in your own story.

1. Choose a protagonist. Get to know your protagonist by taking this quiz. Write your answers in your notes/journal. Use the details here in places in your story to allow your reader time to get to know the character better.
2. Use at least two flashbacks to examine backstory and character development. Each time you flashback, we should go further in-depth about what we find out about that character. Often this can be a secret or some deeply hidden desire, dream, or wish. Each flashback should complicate and surprise the reader by presenting new angles to a character's actions in the present part of the story.
3. Use present tense in the present tense part of the story.
4. Write using 3rd person POV (either objective, limited, or omniscient).

Further Suggestions:

  • Start the story in a man-made or "civilized" place. Then choose a wild or natural setting (a place that is not man-made) to juxtapose this setting with the internal state or problem of the protagonist.
  • Present your reader with a protagonist that surprises or breaks the traditional cliches of that character. Allow your character to do and say and act in ways that a reader would least expect. 
  • Create at least one secondary character that is in some ways the opposite of your protagonist. This character may be a source of conflict for your protagonist, but should also surprise us by helping the protagonist overcome his/her hangups or problems.
  • Create an ending that surprises the reader (and possibly the protagonist). Do not write melodrama or sentimentalism. Aim for truly unique "human" characters--not cliches!
Write a draft of your story for your portfolio. I will expect to see this draft in your portfolio for this marking period. 

HOMEWORK: Continue to read the next two stories in the collection: "Death by Landscape" and "Uncles" for next class. Bring your books back with you to class. There may be a quiz on the stories we have read so far in the collection.

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