J298 Features

“She wakes to the sound of breathing. The smaller children lie tangled beside her, their chests rising and falling under winter coats and wool blankets. A few feet away, their mother and father sleep near the mop bucket they use as a toilet. Two other children share a mattress by the rotting wall where the mice live, opposite the baby, whose crib is warmed by a hair dryer perched on a milk crate.”

This is the lede of one of the stories we will read this semester. There is a rhythm to the words, the sentences. The details–the bucket, the hair dryer, the chests rising, falling, under coats and blankets–take you to this room, to this family, so that you can see them as they sleep.

These are the things we’ll discuss this semester. You will learn to tell stories based on reporting and facts, using the narrative elements often employed in fiction writing.