Write a creative essay of about 1000 words (the equivalent of 4 manuscript pages).

Choosing a Topic

The term "creative essay" is, deliberately broad.  This leaves you plenty of lattitude, and I hope to encourage you to attempt a variety of forms, even experimental forms.  We'll work on topics in class.

In the meantime, if you're looking for topics, you might try starting with a narrative.  A narrative is a story--an account of an event or sequence of events.  What follows is a list of narrative topic ideas adapted from an old first-year college writing textbook (The St. Martin's Guide to Writing 2nd ed., 1988).  This list might seem to invite stale topics, but in fact it's a good list for generating ideas.  We'll work with it in class.

• Any incident charged with strong emotions such as love, fear, anger, delight, jealousy, embarrassment, guilt, frustration, hurt, pride, happiness, joy.
• Any turning point in your life which challenged or changed the way you feel, think, or act.
• Any "first" such as when you first realized you had a special skill, ambition, or problem; when you first felt rejected or needed; when you first became aware of injustice.
• Any critical moment when you were forced to examine your basic values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions.
• Any occasion when things did not turn out the way you expected they would: when you expected to be praised and were criticized, when you were convinced you would fail but succeeded.
• Any memorably difficult situation: when you had to play an unfamiliar or uncomfortable role, when someone you admired let you down (or you let someone else down), when you had to make a tough choice.
• Any event that shaped you in a particular way, making you independent, proud, insecure, fearful, courages, ambitious.

Consider:  Who will be reading your essay?  What would you feel comfortable disclosing to this audience?  Which of your experiences will be interesting to people who do not otherwise know you?

Other Considerations

• Who is the narrator of your story?  Of course, you are, in a sense.  But what do readers learn about the narrator, when they read your essay?  What should they know?  In effect, you're constructing a persona.  What is that persona like?
• What is the point of your narrative?  What is the significance of the experience?  Is there a central impression (sometimes, but not necessarily, even a "lesson" or a "moral") that readers of the story will take with them?
• Attend to specific details and  information:  invoke the 5 senses, where appropriate; describe the events in terms of specific people, places, things.
• You are welcome to change names, for purposes of discretion; but, if you do so, please indicate clearly that names have been changed.