Creating Characters That Live and Breathe

(EGL 323)

Character is the backbone of fiction. A compelling situation is important. Attention to detail crucial. But it is your characters who keep readers turning the pages, who provide the “experience” that Flannery O’Connor once said equals meaning in fiction. In this course we will focus intensely on characterization, examining work by Joyce Carol Oates, Junot Díaz, Isaac Babel, and others. Frequent in and out of class exercises will be geared toward taking characters beyond an assemblage of traits and into complex, revealing action. In the process, we will quite naturally touch on other craft points such as fictional time, setting, and point of view. We will look at minor characters and how to get the most out of them, and discuss the tricky work of pulling characters directly from our own lives. Finally students will put their characters into motion in a longer piece, which we will critique in a supportive environment.

Jeff O'Keefe, William M. Chace Lecturer; Former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer

Jeff O’Keefe received an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona. His stories have appeared in Epoch, The Greensboro Review, Swink, Fourteen Hills, and on KQED’s The Writer’s Block.