How do we tell the story of a breakup?
Who did this right?
It's a stupid question, isn't it?
We had to make decisions about…
- What genre are we working in?
- Whose point of view are we writing from?
- Who makes the first move?
- How old are they?
- Where is our focus? On the details? On the feelings?
- Do we like these people?
- How does it end?
- How do they want us to feel?
What caused things to end?
- Long distance
- Cheating
- Secret love revealed through minor identity theft
- I don't know I'm a dog but something happened to my owners :(
- Oops! We're siblings!
- Oh no, we both fell in love with each other's dads!
What genre are we working in?
Some other approaches I've seen from students.
- Epistolary Writing
- Two-Voice Poems
- Dating Sim
- Storyboard for a Reality Show
- Dialog (via text)
- Ukulele tablature
- A musical...?
Do we like these people?
The Last Five Years
Some takeaways
- There is no right or wrong. There are only choices.
- The choices we make as writers have certain effects on our readers.
- That doesn't mean that there's no such thing as "good" or "bad."
- What counts as "good" or "bad" really depends on whether our choices achieve the effects we intend.
The Great Library - Phase II