| My creative thesis---working title, "Tender is the Notion"---is a collection of inter-related short stories following a family of women. I anticipate that the final composite novel will include at least 8 short stories written in third-person POV, bridged by at least 4 second-person POV sections. Each of these pieces will be linked not only be their characters' familial relationships, but also thematically, as each story deals with issues of fidelity, romance and disillusionment in these women's relationships.;The third-person POV was chosen as I believe that it best reflects the "storytelling" element of the collection. Each of these short stories are re-tellings of events and relationships shared with the "you" character by either her father or the protagonists of those stories, themselves. In this way, the "you" is able to relay all the information therein to the reader. By the same turn, the audience is invited to consider themselves as the "you" character in the second-person bridging chapters, and to distill all of the information of the short stories into something that can be applied to the situation "you" are living. This structure will, hopefully, force the reader to engage with what he or she is reading in a more active way, and to consider how external information---typically gleaned from family stories and experiences---influence the way he or she approaches their own relationships. |
