Creative Writing

We have spent the last couple of weeks reading stories that are set during the periods before and after the Civil War. American literature was so heavily influenced by the culture and climate of the day.

•Look through your literature book and find a period of American history that interests you, but that you don’t know a lot about. You are going to put your topic on the discussion board.
•Spend 1 day researching this period of time. Become as expert as you can in 1 hour.
•Write a historical fiction piece, in the form of diary entries. Use dates and use more than 1 date.
•Be careful that it is historically accurate, without getting bogged down with historical facts.
•On the discussion board, tell what time frame you are writing about and if you are referring to a specific event in that time period. Write down a list of books or websites you use for your research. You are not required to reply on anyone else’s post.

Guidelines
•Double spaced
•12 font, Times New Roman, Arial or Comic Sans
•1” margins
•3 pages typed

I am including in the next entry in Buzz an article I used when I taught Creative Writing II. It is about writing historical fiction. It is not required reading. It may not help you as we are not doing exactly the same thing as we did for that lesson, but look at it at least and skim over the main points.

This is relaxed and informal. You obviously do not need to use formal writing rules, and you will most likely use 1st person. However, that does not mean you should be casual on your grammar and spelling. At least an hour should be spent proofreading.