Exploratory Writing on Calvino

Posted on September 11, 2005 at 8:51 pm by Mark Sample

For this exploratory assignment, write your own 2-page beginning of a “novel” which might appear in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Try to model the form and style of Calvino’s truncated “novels.” Remember some of the common elements of all of the novels:

  • Long, ambiguous titles
  • Directly addressing the reader or referring to the act of reading
  • Descriptions of what the novel is saying instead of the actual text of the novel
  • Full of intrigue, including breaking off at a very suspenseful moment
  • Tension between male and female characters

The assignment is due on Tuesday, September 13.

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