Creative Writing Assistance?

I am a twelfth grade high school student and I have been given the assignment of writing an analysis of genre and related writing techniques and literary devices of an author from a selection of authors provided to me. I have chosen Fyodor Dostoevsky as I simply adored Crime and Punishment. However, I have not the time to acquire and read through each of his works, so how do you suggest I go about my analysis of his complete works without actually having read his complete works? Summaries and a number of small essays are methods suggested to me by others.

Find an author who wrote plenty of short stories. Stories that are reasonably similar in style and type. Lovecraft comes to mind as a fairly easy target.

Pick 3 novels, and compare them - that's what you'll end up doing anyway.

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Originally Posted by thescholar

I am a twelfth grade high school student and I have been given the assignment of writing an analysis of genre and related writing techniques and literary devices of an author from a selection of authors provided to me. I have chosen Fyodor Dostoevsky as I simply adored Crime and Punishment. However, I have not the time to acquire and read through each of his works, so how do you suggest I go about my analysis of his complete works without actually having read his complete works? Summaries and a number of small essays are methods suggested to me by others.

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Good choice, I loved Crime and Punishment, too; especially as a high school student, choosing Dostoevsky sounds very ambitious! :nod:
As others suggested other writers to choose from, such as short story authors, choose as you will. If you want to 'step up to the plate' with Dostoevsky, I wish you luck. So that you do not have to read through another 1-2 of his typically long novels (like The Brothers Karamazov or The Idiot), he did write shorter novels, such as Notes from the Underground and The Double; though shorter, I believe they fully represent Dostoevsky's blunt, philosophical, dark, and psychological style, as much as Crime and Punishment, yet they do not read with ease.
True, you could try reading summaries and essays, as others suggested, or reading abridged works - always an option, but even an abridged version of The Brothers Karamazov will have a length a few-hundred pages, at least. Personally, I would try his shorter works; Dostoevsky does not seem a simple writer to dissect, but his style has something easy to write of, represented in all of his works.
Good luck! :D

I currently am in possession of the Idiot, and I have previously read Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamasov. I believe I have the requisite knowledge to complete this assignment but I do not know how to go about organizing the information properly in a manner that is appropriate for the assignment.

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Originally Posted by thescholar

I am a twelfth grade high school student and I have been given the assignment of writing an analysis of genre and related writing techniques and literary devices of an author from a selection of authors provided to me. I have chosen Fyodor Dostoevsky as I simply adored Crime and Punishment. However, I have not the time to acquire and read through each of his works, so how do you suggest I go about my analysis of his complete works without actually having read his complete works? Summaries and a number of small essays are methods suggested to me by others.

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This is a hellova project. I'm really impressed. But I'm unclear on the assignment -- you're supposed to do an analysis of the novel genre and an author? I guess I'm trying to find the point of intersection of these two different things.

Are you trying to determine how, in this case, Mr. Dostoevsky exemplifies elements of "the novel" genre? If the answer to this question is "yes," then I think the first thing you need to read up on is not Dostoevsky but some essays on what makes a novel a novel.

Then jot down some of the elements of novelization that you find most appealing or interesting and look for how Dostoevsky exhibits those traits (or does not exhibit them). Most good literature teachers are equally, if not more interested in seeing how a student can see both examples of trends and variances of trends in an author's work.

In any case, good luck with your work.

[As a total side note: we get a lot of homework requests here; but, I've never seen a student follow up and post the finished product. I would kind of like to see that. Of course, I'm fairly new on these boards, so my take my observation a grain of newbish salt]

:)

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Originally Posted by The Comedian

This is a hellova project. I'm really impressed. But I'm unclear on the assignment -- you're supposed to do an analysis of the novel genre and an author? I guess I'm trying to find the point of intersection of these two different things.

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Herein lies the problem: My teacher wants me to analyse the author's preferred or most prominant genre and analyse the way this style is effective to the author's purposes. I am expecting most of the presentations of my peers to be analysis of genre peice-by-piece, but I know that there are more effective ways to order the information and I will need to be able to organise my work effectively to be successful at university.

On the rookie note, my proudest work is posted on the personal poetry board:
Requiem for the shattered soul. I would greatly appreciate your feelings on this piece if you were so inclined;)

With that kind of assignment, I think that your best bet would be to lift something from Study of Style by Charles Kay Smith. There are specific discussions of exactly what you have been assigned to do.