Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Character Sketching and Internal Monologues

1. Make a list of character names (both funny, serious, and other)
2. Circle three of these names
3. Chose one of these three names and conduct an "interview" with the character. Write this out as a journalism article that might appear in a magazine or newspaper.

This is part of your brainstorming process. We will use much of this later in our next story or exercise.

After jotting notes in your journal (brainstorming), create a character sketch article. Look here for notes about how to write a character sketch.

Write a character sketch (no more than 1 page, please--a few descriptive paragraphs is fine) for one of your chosen characters. This should be turned in as lab/writing participation credit.

What to do now that the sketch is completed?

As you know, freeverse is a kind of poetry that is not restricted by specific patterns of meter, measured lines, strict rhyming patterns. It CAN still include quite a few literary devices like imagery, personification, sound devices, metaphor, figurative language, repetition, enjambment, etc.

Freeverse is not just words randomly placed on a page. It is free from formal metrical design, but not from ANY design or craft. You are probably at this point most familiar with freeverse.

Key Poetry Vocabulary you NEED TO KNOW (or remember):

Freeverse.
Enjambment.
Tone.
Voice.
Diction.

Internal monologues are like plays or 1st person POV short stories, but can include more than these forms. Today you will create your own internal monologue poem based on your character sketch (see above). Use your character sketch (not necessarily YOU) and give that character an opinion/attitude or feeling about a dramatic situation or single event occurring in the character's "life".

Things to note: DO NOT WRITE IN FRAGMENTS. Poetry or verse uses SENTENCE structure, just like prose. At this point, do not omit or leave out punctuation. Your sentences should be broken into LINES. LINES should be broken into STANZAS. If you often use stanzas, try not using them. If you never use stanzas in your poems, use stanzas to break ideas apart into smaller chunks.

Examples of internal monologue poems:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot (here's a video of Eliot reading his poem)

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath. The vocal performance read by the poet.

My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. Here's a reading of the poem.

To An Athlete Dying Young by A.E. Housman. The reading of the poem.

Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Robinson. The poem read.

Daddy by Sylvia Plath

Nature Poems:

Petals by Amy Lowell

The Lamb by William Blake

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Fog by Carl Sandburg

The Thought Fox by Ted Hughes

No comments:

About this course!

This course stresses understanding the characteristics & techniques in the literary genres of fiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. This course will continue to build on students’ reading and writing skills begun in previous creative writing classes. Readings and discussions of works by major writers in the field will be examined as inspiration and models of fine writing. This educational blog is designed for the use of the students at the School of the Arts in Rochester, NY.