FICT 54 W — Build a Story from the Ground Up: Short Fiction Workshop
Quarter: Fall
Instructor(s): Thomas McNeely
Date(s): Sep 23—Dec 2
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Class Meeting Time: 5:30—6:30 pm (PT)
Please Note: No class the week of November 23
Tuition: $1040
Refund Deadline: Sep 25
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 18
Status: Registration opens Aug 17, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Fall
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 5:30—6:30 pm (PT)
Date(s): Sep 23—Dec 2
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1040
Refund Deadline: Sep 25
Instructor(s): Thomas McNeely
Enrollment Limit: 18
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Registration opens Aug 17, 8:30 am (PT)
Please Note: No class the week of November 23
In this course, we will explore not only the craft elements that go into writing short stories, but also the artistic decisions made when shaping fiction. Each week, students will submit 500 words of a story in progress, revising and incorporating the previous week’s submission as the work grows. At the end of the quarter, each student will have a complete and polished draft. We will explore how to transform experience into fiction by manipulating point of view, developing setting, and creating a “ticking clock,” or narrative shape. We will also look at identifying important objects, images, or props within the story; finding the right age for our main character; creating binaries or opposing forces within a story; and upping tension and stakes to create the story arc. We will read stories from masters who exemplify each craft point. You’ll leave with a finished story and the tools to build new ones from the ground up.
THOMAS MCNEELY
Author
Thomas McNeely is the author of Pictures of the Shark: Stories, a Foreword INDIES award finalist and a Massachusetts Book Awards "Must Read" longlist selection, and the novel Ghost Horse, recipient of the Gival Press Novel Award. He has received an NEA Fellowship in prose, and his stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, and other magazines and anthologies. McNeely was a Jones Lecturer and Stegner Fellow at Stanford and received an MFA from Emerson College. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Anne Bernays & Pamela Painter, What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, Second Edition (ISBN 978-0673990020)