Option 1: Adapt an episode or scene from a play as a short story. For this option, you will need to narrow the scene from the play so that you’re able to cover everything in 500 words. If you choose to re-write a play as a short story, you must write the story with a third-person narrator and WITHOUT any dialogue. Third-person narrators tell the story from the outside. For example, Eudora Welty’s story “Petrified Man” has a third-person narrator who tells the story as a non-participant: “Mrs. Fletcher gladly reached over to the lavender shelf….” This narrator is not Mrs. Fletcher, Leota, or anyone else in the story. The requirement that you write as a third -person narrator means that you must focus on description and setting (things plays have very little of). Note: you cannot use Welty’s story for this assignment.
If you choose Option 1, practice transforming the play’s dialogue into narrative form without using dialogue and in the voice of a third-person narrator. For example, if you’re adapting the masque scene in Act 4 scene 1 of The Tempest, you could imagine—and describe—the scenery within which Juno, Ceres, and Iris perform their fertility dance. You could also describe the costumes of these characters as well as those of Ferdinand and Miranda. If you decide to change the time of the play from the distant past to the 21st century, what would the couple wear to their wedding? How would these characters dance? What music would they dance to? https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23042/23042-h/23042-h.htm#sceneIII_1
