course material

1. Anarrative describing a unique day in the life of your protagonist,
Topic: You will write a narrative describing a unique day in the life of your protagonist, who
should be loosely, if not fully, autobiographical.Order Description-> Person: Coco Chanel,
Steve Jobs, Meryl Streep-> Place: New York City, Moldive, Australia, France->Activity:
Walking Red Carpet, Party, escape, travel by boat, Scuba DivingExecution:You will write a
narrative describing a unique day in the life of your protagonist, who should be loosely, if
not fully, autobiographical.As a class, you will determine an event or activity which all
protagonists will experience together —at some point during the “ day.” Your story must
encounter in some way this event at some point during the “ plot.” The location of the event
will most likely dictate some geographical location in your story.You story must span at
least ""six hours""" and include the following observations in the plot:1. Place, location /
surroundings, described in detail —both subjectively and objectively2. Activity, what are
you doing there? what is happening?3. Emotion, what is the protagonist feeling in the space,
about the activity at hand, who they are with? Relaxed? Tense?4. Number of people; is the
environment crowded —or solitary?5. Sounds, what do you hear? is there music? how does
it make you feel?Collect images that support your observations. You could find imagery to
describe the mood, physical surroundings, activity, etc. that occurs during the plot. While
the specific number of images will vary from student to student, find as much imagery as
possible, as it will be very useful in presenting your project and in future
assignments.Example:• The day begins for our protagonist aboard a small sailboat docked
in Puget Sound. He’ s alone with only the sound of lapping waves against the sides of the
vessel.• At some point in the night, the heat must have finally died since, as he prepares his
coffee, he can see his breath in the small berth.• Turning on the machine however, it is
apparent that the reason for the frigid temperature is that the electricity has gone out. What
time is it?• A quick glance at his watch reveals that it’ s 9:55am! Five more minutes and he
would have reached the dreaded double digits —not something that this “ type A”
personality ever allows. How could he have slept so long?• In just a few minutes a car will
arrive for the airport…In this short example, we learn a lot about the protagonist’ s
surroundings —and even a bit about his personality (components of which might influence
his design philosophy?). We know that the action(s) —waking up, making coffee, realizing
he’ s running late —takes place in a cold, sailboat. He’ s alone and the sound of waves is all
he can hear. If the narrative were to continue we might follow our protagonist as he

2. describes the car, the airport, the plane, etc. All of which would give us a sense of the space
and his emotional interpretation of that space based on activities and emotions.