Fiction Workshop

Catalog description

Students study language, tone, structure, dialogue and point of view in order to get at how to create compelling, empathetic characters on the page. We examine extensively the ways exemplary stories connect with readers. The semester's work consists largely of reading and exercises, with some workshopping of student writing. Students are to be thoroughly familiar with the assigned readings and are expected to have useful and insightful responses to relevant issues of craft. The final requirement for the class is a short story (most likely between 8 and 30 pages in length) or a chapter or two of a novel (same page requirements) that has been workshopped at least once.