Escritura creativa: desarrollo de personajes y de historias (15-18 años)

This class will teach the students to create characters and build stories around them. When we work with  characters  we will trigger our imagination to create stories, worlds and other characters. In many ways, this process works in the same way as when children play freely and use their imagination. The difference is that we will write it all down. 

I encourage each student to write with their own style and their own voice. This doesn't mean that we can't get better. Writing is just like a muscle. The more we do it the better we get. In the end of this class my goal is that each student will have started to write a longer story that could be developed into a short story or even a novel. 

Lesson 1 will be all about getting the creativity going by doing short writing prompts. This will get the student a chance to write and share with the others. And also get to know each other a little in a relaxed way. 

During lesson 2 we will work with character building. Each student will create a character and we will flesh them out by doing a brainstorming map with the characters name in the middle. We will include; physical features,age, likes and dislikes, and fears. We will also develop a small family and friends tree for the character.

Lesson 3-6 will be about story development.  

How do we describe every day life to make it feel real?

How do we capture our reader's interest?

How do we introduce drama/conflict into our story? 

How do we propel our story forward? 

How can we utilize memories and dreams in our stories? 

Lesson 7 and 8 I will leave open for now and plan around the group of students I have. Each group is different and I want to be able to personalize the last two lessons after what they need and like to work with.