short fiction

I will have students write a work of short fiction using the story map as a guide, once they start writing the actual story they must stay very close to the original story map.The reason is that beginning writers of short fiction usually have problems with randomly straying from the main point.The other main aspect of this is that the core of the story should be at least loosely based on some real experience, and then fiction can be added on, like frosting and colorful little burning candles on a birthday cake.
I decided to go with just one image on this video because I thought it would go along with the idea of singleness of effect, which is one of the main points of this writing lesson along with staying focused on the core of the story. I chose one image
that I thought generally expressed the idea. This is not at all necessary, in fact I originally had a whole group of images picked out to use, but then decided to do it this way simply to emphasize the point.

The lesson for creative writing students is to use the story map as the core and then once the core is established the writer can expand using:

• dialogue
• description
• character development

But not:
• additional characters
• extra plot development

The story I posted on Teacher Tube follows these rules, it has a core of real experience and then just story telling all around the core. I think that using movie maker with its time limit along with a story map will be an excellent tool for short fiction and non -fiction writers. It really works by forcing a writer to stay within the story.
You can find my story example by going to teacher tube.




A rubric for the digital story can be found at
Google Docs