Writing Fiction

I thought the short stories we read in class were pretty interesting. I had never read any of them so everything was new to me. In order to write about fiction, I had to take a close look at the text and find a theme. I decided to write my essay on “Nurse Cora.” This short story has a lot of information about the characters through symbolism and shifts in points of view. I had to first figure out why there were shifting views and what this added to the story. I also had to take a close look at all the events and symbols to bring out meaning. The hardest thing about writing about fiction is finding the theme of the story, since it isn’t explicitly stated within the text. I had to research the author to find the cultural context of the work and find a deeper understanding of the material. I can say that it wasn’t easy to gather all the information together and make meaning out of it. It took time and research to find and gain deeper understanding.

Writing my own fiction was easier to do after writing about it. I knew that I had to use imagery and develop a character in order to give the reader a visual of the story. The more description in the story, the more the reader is immersed in it. I tried to provide as much description in my short story. I decided to use “In what circumstance would you..” I thought this was fun because the person who reads was reading the story without knowing what to expect in the end. The situations and the events being described only lead the reader to believe one thing and they might be surprised with the real outcome of the story. It was easier to write fiction rather than writing about it. I didn’t have to worry about looking for a theme, breaking down the story to find meaning through symbols and point of view.

I think the format of the fiction assignment was good. I liked the fact that first we really had to analyze it in order to write about fiction and then we can have fun by writing our own. I would definitely do this in my classroom. I think the students would appreciate each other’s creative minds when reading their short stories.