NOTRE DAME OF NEW ILOILO, INC.

A Diocesan School
NEW ILOILO, TANTANGAN, SOUTH COTABATO
Tel. No. (083) 229 – 1113
Email Address: notredamenewiloilo@gmail.com

SUBJECT: CREATIVE WRITING GRADE LEVEL: TWELVE

QUARTER: ONE WEEK: ONE (October 19-23, 2020)

I - OBJECTIVES: At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:

1. identify subgenres of fiction;
2. recognize current trends in fiction writing;
3. produce short scenes applying the various elements, techniques, and literary devices.

II - PRE-ASSESSMENT
Direction: Read and understand the question below and answer it on a separate sheet of paper.
1. When was the modern short story finally defined?

III - CONTENT/ DISCUSSION/ INFORMATION

Short Fiction: How Short Is Short?
Fiction: Modern, Literary, Genre
A word about the word: Fiction, as you may have been taught in the past, is originally defined as literature in the form of
prose-that is, writing without metrical and rhythmic structure (as opposed to lines of poetry) that describes imaginary or
made-up events and people (as opposed to a report of real-life events and persons), exemplified by novels and short stories.
Note: The relative closeness of novels and short stories is tied to their history as you will see shortly how the short story
genre (established around the 18th century) came out of the novel (established in the 17 th century) tradition.

Today, thanks to modern technology and the evolving human consciousness, you can now express fiction – modern fiction,
that is-in various formats including short writing (like the sketches and vignettes and incomplete narrative works that you
have been writing as exercises so far), blogs (established in the late 1990s), live performances, electronic media, recreational
play, among others.

Whereas traditionally, fiction includes novels, short stories, fables, legends, myths, fairy tales, plays, and narrative poems
only, modern fiction now also encompasses comic books, operas, films video games, radio programs, dances, spoken
narratives, and so on. Thus, unless you use the word fiction in a narrow sense to mean a particular literary form, fiction is
generally understood as a classification or category rather than a specific mode or genre.

You may have heard of the labels literary and genre fiction. Well, if you can, for a moment, distinguish ideas from emotions
or art from commerce, those are the keys to understanding these two classifications.

Literary fiction, a.k.a. serious fiction, is the fiction of ideas, the primary purpose of which is to provoke thought. As
“literary”, it is supposed to be more concerned with the writer’s personal style and self-expression, and some well-
constructed stylistic writing that stresses character development and good descriptions.

Genre fiction, a.k.a. popular fiction, a.k.a. commercial fiction, on the other hand, is the fiction of emotions, the primary
purpose of which is to entertain the readers. As “popular,” it is more concerned with great dialogues, fast-paced plots, and
characters with whom readers can easily identify, and perhaps rightly so, because this form of fiction is expected to take in
huge profits for the publishers.

Genre fiction is sometimes called category fiction, or formula fiction, too, because as a marketing tool, it is used to
categorize subgenres as, among others, romance, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical, crime/detective, Western,
suspense/thriller, gothic, and horror, which are further supposed to have some basic formula for writing.

Vocabularies for Subgenres of Fiction

Formula fiction is easily characterized by its special vocabulary that matches the genre or subgenre. The best way to learn
these subgenres and vocabularies is to read and sample them yourself.

Based on the given sample vocabularies, can you recognize which subgenre of fiction is represented? Identify into which
genre the group of words belong: adventure, horror, historical, sci-fi, espionage, romance, fantasy, or mystery stories.
 Operative, headquarters, special operations, hidden camera, mole, debriefing, secret agent, behind enemy lines,
counter-intelligence, encryption, defection, clandestine, infiltration, false identity, mission, deep cover, secret
service, surveillance, double agent, transmitting device.
 Clone, teleport, robot, extraterrestrial, android, galactical, alien, space station, humanoid, portal, hyperspace, UFO,
cyborg, DNA, force filed, outer space, Earth-like.
 Amulet, omen, magic, enchantment, immorality, wizard, unicorn, dragon, sorceress, druid, labyrinth, potion,
kingdom, mermaid, warlock, centaur, goblin, fairy, invisibility, witchcraft, elixir, spell, oracle, dungeon, realm,
dwarf, gorgon

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 NOTRE DAME OF NEW ILOILO, INC.
A Diocesan School
NEW ILOILO, TANTANGAN, SOUTH COTABATO
Tel. No. (083) 229 – 1113
Email Address: notredamenewiloilo@gmail.com
The Shortest Story in the World
A man was born. He lived; then died.
Eight words. Short story. The end.
So, what is the world shortest story? By a general consensus, for now, it is the baby shoes story attributed, but not
substantiated, to Ernest Hemingway. Here it is in its entirety:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn
And then, of course, based on that, you got six-word memoirs, and with new media technology, the Twitter stories of 140
character or less.

It is all right to write these very, very, very short stories; and if you are a genius, you may even become the poster child for
the genre. But perhaps, you should first consider writing good short stories using the traditional elements and techniques
before you break convention.

If you are a fan, or are fond,of numbers, you may want to know how the fiction genres are traditionally categorized according
to length. Here’s the general consensus (with estimated number of pages, counting a page as containing approximately 300
words):
 Flash fiction is a work of at least 50 to 1 000 words (1 to 3 pages).
 Short story is a work of at least 1 000 to 7 500 words (3 to 25 pages).
 Novelette is a work of 7 500 to 17 500 words (25 to 60 pages).
 Novella is a work of 17 500 to 50 000 words (60 to 170 pages).
 Novel is a work of 50 000 words or more (more than 170 pages).
 Epic is a work of 200 000 words or more (more than 680 pages).

What Makes a Good Story?

From your own reading experience, you already have an idea of what makes a satisfying story. In most likelihood, whatever
elements and literary techniques you find interesting in the stories of other writers will help you improve your own writing,
too.

Literature continues to grow because people like you always find something new to say or, if not something totally new to
say, at least a new way of saying and looking at things. There is always a Romeo and Juliet story somewhere. Maybe a
Romeo-and-Romeo kind of Romeo and Juliet? But whatever you do, you must first believe that you have something unique
and different to contribute to the world’s growing literature.

The Story of the Short Story

A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or
series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of
literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient
communities across the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century.

The precursors of short story were legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, fables and anecdotes which were present in
various ancient communities across the world. These short pieces existed mostly in oral form and they were transmitted from
one generation to another in oral form. A large number of such tales are found in ancient literature, from the  Indian epics
the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. The 1001 Arabian Nights, compiled for
the first time probably in the eighth century, is also a storehouse of Middle Eastern folk tales and fairy tales. Emerging in the
17th century from oral storytelling traditions and above-mentioned written works of the ancient times (which themselves are
based on oral traditions), the short story has grown to encompass a body of work so diverse as to defy easy characterization.
With the rise of the realistic novel, the short story evolved in a parallel tradition, with some of its first distinctive examples in
the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann. The character of the form developed particularly with authors known for their short fiction,
either by choice (they wrote nothing else) or by critical regard, which acknowledged the focus and craft required in the short
form. An example is Jorge Luis Borges, who won American fame with "The Garden of Forking Paths", published in the
August 1948 Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Another example is O. Henry (author of "Gift of the Magi"), for whom
the O. Henry Award is named. Other of his most popular, inventive and most often reprinted stories (among over 600)
include: "The Ransom of Red Chief", "The Cop and the Anthem", "The Skylight Room", "After Twenty Years", A Municipal
Report, An Unfinished Story, A Lickpenny Lover, Mammon and the Archer and The Last Leaf. American examples
include: Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, John
Cheever, and Raymond Carver. Science fiction short story with a special poetic touch was a genre developed with great
popular success by Ray Bradbury. The genre of the short story was often neglected until the second half of the 19th century.
The evolution of printing technologies and periodical editions were among the factors contributing to the increasing
importance of short story publications. Pioneering role in founding the rules of the genre in the Western canon include,
among others, Rudyard Kipling (United Kingdom), Anton Chekhov (Russia), Guy de Maupassant (France), Manuel
Gutiérrez Nájera (Mexico) and Rubén Darío (Nicaragua).

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 NOTRE DAME OF NEW ILOILO, INC.
A Diocesan School
NEW ILOILO, TANTANGAN, SOUTH COTABATO
Tel. No. (083) 229 – 1113
Email Address: notredamenewiloilo@gmail.com
An important theoretical example for storytelling analysis is provided by Walter Benjamin in his essay The Storyteller where
he argues about the decline of storytelling art and the incommunicability of experiences in the modern world. [8] Oscar Wilde's
essay The Decay of Lying and Henry James's The Art of Fiction are also partly related to this subject.
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best
known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central
figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest
practitioners of the short story. He is also generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further
credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a
living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
Poe and his works influenced literature around the world, as well as specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography.
He and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are
dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual award known as the Edgar Award for
distinguished work in the mystery genre.

IV - ASSESSMENT
A – Direction: Answer the following questions carefully and write your answers on a separate
paper.
1. What are the various subgenre of fiction? Give atleast 2 and explain.
2. Produce short scenes applying the various elements, techniques, and literary devices.

V - FEEDBACK
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