Work Due 19 November 2014

You have two options for an assignment:

1. Write a draft of a short story about anything following Poe's principals of composition  or

2. Write about one of the three horror stories using Poe's Rules to explain how he follows them in the story you have chosen:  The Masque of the Red Death; The Tell-Tale Heart or the Cask of Amontillado.  You must use quotes. 

Here is a summary of the rules to apply to either draft.

1.  be able to be read in one sitting.  Poe defined this as being from one-half hour to one or two hours. Your first draft needs to be about 250-500 words

 

2. strive for unity of effect.  Poe believed the aim of the short story was to create a mood, an ambience, or as he called it, an “effect.” The effect Poe himself often sought to create was terror or horror. This effect can be any emotion that the reader can respond to,.  Examples are anger, joy, sadness or melancholy, excitement, fear etc.

 

3. begin with the first sentence.  Poe insisted that the effect should be created from the very first line.  His best short stories, such as “The Tell-tale Heart,” attempt to create this effect from line one:  “True--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and still am;  but why will you say that I am mad?  The disease had sharpened my senses, not dulled them.  Above all was the sense of hearing acute.  I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.  I heard many things in hell.  How then, am I mad?” 

 

4.  have nothing in it that detracts from the design.  The story should lead directly and inevitably to the conclusion without excess or digressive material.  Get to the point and stay there.

 

5. aim for truth.  This means  truth as the writer sees it .  Truth means the story is believable.