Memoir Sequence
This is the main assignment. The buttons above will direct you to the other components in the assignment sequence.
WRD 102
Writing Project 2—Memoir
Rough Draft due Wednesday, September 24
Final due Friday, September 26
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to allow you to practice:
1. The techniques of fiction writing: creating character, setting, conflict, and theme.
2. The craft of descriptive writing, “showing rather than telling,” using detail and dialogue.
3. The craft of writing scenes with beginnings, middles, and ends.
Audience
While your initial audience will be the professor (me!) and others in your writing community (your classmates), you could choose to take steps toward publication of your memoir. Threshold, the DePaul University literary journal, accepts submissions from undergraduate students. The First Year Writing Showcase also displays writing (and pays cash prizes) for exemplary writing done by FYW students. If you wish to submit to a larger market, you may wish to check out the Writer’s Market, an annual catalog of American and Canadian publications that accept freelance work.
Writing Prompt
Write a memoir, a true story about some part of your life. Your story can relate a single event or a series of closely linked events. Show a change of mind or heart, a discovery, a confirmation or contradiction of a belief, a disappointment, or a decision. Be sure to include the following narrative elements:
1. Scenes full of detail and imagery
2. Characters with motivation and depth
3. Incremental, logical development of the plot (story arc, turning point)
4. Conflict and theme
Each memoir will also include a change of heart or mind—more simply, the reader should understand why he or she is reading about the event or series of events.
Technical Details
1. Length should be three-and-a-half to four full pages long.
2. Set margins at 1” all around.
3. Use 12 point, Times New Roman font.
4. Double space.
5. Indent paragraphs.