• Flash Nonfiction: “Settling on Structure” (3 chapters); “The Singular Moment” (3 chapters)—pp. 113-156

Craft Group prompts should be discussion starters that explore some specific quote from The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction chapters assigned for this week. Your one prompt is due by Sunday at 11:59 pm. This assignment will not show up on the calendar because the Week 1 Craft Group doesn’t close until Wednesday at 11:59 pm when the responses are due. Late prompts or responses will receive no credit. This is your chance to grapple with the notions that Moore and other writers suggest about writing in general or the flash nonfiction specifically. Think of craft as the deliberate choices writers make when creating their work. Be sure to

(1) introduce and include a quotation from the chapter, video, or podcast you’re discussing that exemplifies the craft element you want to explore.

(2) Tell us what you think about the quote, then

(3) ask an open-ended question that refers to it.

You’ll need all three elements to get full credit. These prompts should be ideas that get us started thinking and discussing. They should not be questions that can be answered with a fact or with a yes or no. Make sure you read all the prompts that have been submitted before yours. Do not repeat a prompt that someone has already submitted. This would be plagiarism.

Example: In The Rose Metal Press Field Guild to Writing Flash Nonfiction, Dinty Moore writes, “The brief essay, in other words, needs to be hot from the first sentence, and the heat must remain the entire time.” He goes on to explain that “the heat might come from language, from image, from voice or point-of-view, from revelation or suspense, but there must always be a burning urgency of some sort, translating through each sentence, starting with the first.” All this heat is a daunting imperative, but I think it’s important for writers to get adept at finding the heat of their ideas and stories in order to write engaging prose. Where do you find heat in Lia Purpura’s essay “Augury,” which we had to read for this week? Does the heat come from more than one source?

2. Perusall Critiques: After the Writing Assignment: Essay #2 drafts have been uploaded to Blackboard, I will move those drafts to a Perusall Group folder under “Library.” It used to be under “Documents,” but Perusall decided to change names midway through this course! (This is all accessible via Blackboard), and you will be responsible for critiquing each of your group’s essays, including at least two specific positive comments and two specific suggestions for improvements. Each post counts as ONE comment.

I’ll give the file for essays