English 100F - Spring, 2024

Creative Writing: Fiction

Class Information

Instructor: Harvkey, Michael
Time: TR 1:40-3:00pm
Location: 248 Voorhies
 

Description

Admission to this course is by application.

This fiction workshop-seminar will give students an appreciation of the craft of fiction and the kind of work that goes into writing successful stories, with an emphasis on the revision process (we may rethink/re-imagine/rebuild our stories entirely, more than once). An increasing understanding of what makes fiction work will come from our own written and oral analysis of writing from our peers and published authors. We'll learn to recognize and discuss the choices writers make as they build a successful story, including point-of-view, voice, character, dialog, tension, structure, and temporal landscape. We'll also discuss what makes a story a story, how to engage a reader, how to create a cathartic ending, and how much control over all of this writers really have.

Grading

Workshops and seminars are student-driven formats, and success depends almost entirely on student engagement. Therefore, students will be graded on both the quality and quantity of class participation, on thoughtful engagement with the writing of their peers and the published authors we read, and on the quality of the creative, critical, and revision work submitted.

Texts

Provided on Canvas by the professor.