Week 4-2

How do we tell the story of a breakup?

Take a few minutes to check in with your group and finalize whatever you need to finalize before we share these. When you're done, email them to me at joshuag@cos.edu.

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
  • 9/11 (twice?)
  • fred is dead
  • /r/aita
  • our band broke up but we stuck it out
  • "i really don't think the guy i'm sleeping with has anything to do with our marital problems"
  • my evil dad bribed a college basketball with $3 million dollars to ship my boyfriend off to another state

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.

How does this clip feel?

The Great Library - Phase II