Help with grammar, punctuation
The Secret: A Fairy Tale from Autoethnography (First Draft)
Instructions
After completing
Idea Generation: Mapping an Autobiography, ask yourself which of your three free-writes about the three experiences you chose makes you excited to continue to write about.
Then, consider the following. Many people have said that sometimes nonfiction or true stories have the most lies, and fiction and/or counterstories are actually closer to being true. Additionally, sometimes life’s truths can be very hard to write about, especially without some of the liberties that writing in fiction and/or counterstories can offer. For instance, sometimes it can be really hard to write about a trauma that you want people to learn a lesson from. In that case, it might be easier to write about the experience in a fictional or counterstory-based way. Many fairy tales started out as cautionary tales that were framed as fiction but were actually counterstories to dominant expressions of society that were harmful to a particular group of people.
With that being said, transform the autobiographical free-write that you chose into a fairy tale that is at least 500 words (approximately 2 pages double-spaced). In that fairy tale, think of the people from your free-write experience as imaginary characters and feel free to convert any humans into magical creatures or anything else that you think makes creative sense for your fairy tale. After considering your characters, follow the instructions below.
1. Choose any two professions for at least two imaginary characters.
2. Give the two characters a secret that they share with one another. As you might imagine, neither of them would reveal that secret aloud, but they might discuss it. Whatever the secret is up to you, but remember that your fairy tale has to have a lesson that readers learn after reading your fairy tale. (To really challenge yourself, you might also come up with a reason that their secret must be a secret: Is it socially unacceptable to talk about? Are they liable to get in trouble if people find out? Will they ruin a surprise?)
3. For part of your fairy tale paper, write a dialogue exchange between those characters about the secret using only their words (i.e., no “he said” or “she said,” but rather only the language they use). Allow the secret to be revealed to the reader in how the characters speak, what they say, and how they say it. Pay attention to the subtext of what’s being said and how it’s being said. How would these characters discuss their secret without revealing it to eavesdroppers? (Consider
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” as a model.)
4. Be sure that your fairy tale has all five parts of
Freytag’s Pyramid: (1) exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
Submission Guidelines: Submit a .docx or .pdf file in
MLA format that contains your fairy tale. This assignment should be at least 500 words long (approximately 2 pages long when double-spaced). You may write more than two pages if you need to.
