As you watch film and television representations of authors, writers, plagiarists, forgers, and frauds, ask the following questions. Use the heuristics on the handout "'Reading' Moving Images" to figure how how the effects you observe are produced:

1. How would you describe the writer? What is his or her age, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality? How psychologically and socially stable is the writer? How does s/he dress? Where does s/he live?
2. What is the relationship of the writer to those around him or her? Is s/he a loner? A social success? An outcast? How much responsibility does the writer take for himself or herself and for others?
3. How much power does the writer have over others? Why?
4. How do others react to the writer as a writer? Are they reacting to the writing itself, or to the fact that the person is a writer? How much does gender or sexuality figure into the dynamic between the writer and those who admire him or her?
5. Is the writer an author, widely recognized for his or her work? A writer, one who works at the craft of writing but whose work is not widely known or who is not widely known as the person who produced that work? A plagiarist, forger, or fraud?
6. How much do you see the writer writing? How does the writer behave when writing? How painful or pleasurable is the experience? How much of the time is the writer actually writing, and how much is s/he avoiding writing or unable to produce it?
7. To what extent is the writer influenced by other people or texts?
8. To what extent is the writing collaborative? If you observe collaboration, is it depicted as a normal part of writing, or as an undesirable or even illicit activity?
9. Where does the writer get his or her materials? Through research? Observation? Personal experience?
10. How much information do others want to divulge or conceal from the writer? Why?
11. What is the writer's day job, and what is the relationship between that day job and the writing?
12. What does the writer have to scarifice for his or her art--or in order to get published?
13. What technologies for writing (paper, typewriter, word processor, etc.) are used in this film or show? Who uses what technologies, and with what degree of comfort?
14. What generalizations can you make about the representation of writers in this film?

WRT 428
Authors, Writers, Heroes

Section 1, Fall 2006
Syracuse University
Time: TTh 11-12:20
Place: 323 HB Crouse

Instructor:
Rebecca Moore Howard
Office: 237 HB Crouse
Office hours
Phone 315-443-1620
FAX: 315-691-9821
rehoward@syr.edu
AIM: ProfBfromWV