FICT 56 W — Fiction Workshop: Inhabiting Character
Quarter: Spring
Instructor(s): Rachel Smith
Date(s): Apr 2—Jun 4
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Class Meeting Time: 12:00—1:00 pm (PT)
Tuition: $1000
Refund Deadline: Apr 4
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 18
Status: Closed
Quarter: Spring
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 12:00—1:00 pm (PT)
Date(s): Apr 2—Jun 4
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1000
Refund Deadline: Apr 4
Instructor(s): Rachel Smith
Enrollment Limit: 18
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Closed
Characters in novels and stories can affect us profoundly. We become invested in their falling and rising fortunes. We may think about them long after we’ve set a book down. We can be captivated by the way they approach the world, their simple or astonishing actions, and the language they give rise to on the page. So how do we, with mere sentences, craft the illusion of vivid life?
In this course, we will demystify the process by reading stories, novel excerpts, and craft essays—and by doing a good deal of writing. We will study the work of writers such as Denis Johnson, NoViolet Bulawayo, Sherman Alexie, and Elizabeth Strout. We will consider critical perspectives on character from E.M. Forster, William Gass, James Wood, and others. We will complete a variety of writing exercises designed to build authentic, original characters with hopes, desires, dreams, and regrets. Those characters will be the basis for the 8- to 18-page work of fiction (a novel excerpt or story) that students will write in the second half of the course and have workshopped by peers and the instructor. This course is suitable for fiction writers of any level, from beginning writers looking for help getting started to experienced writers wanting to hone the authenticity, depth, and vividness of their characters.
Since most of the learning in this course takes place asynchronously in threaded discussions on the Canvas classroom site, the live Zoom sessions are limited to 60 minutes per week.
RACHEL SMITH
Writer
Rachel Smith’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Seattle Times, The Rumpus, Brevity, and elsewhere. She has received residencies and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Marquette, and the Elizabeth George Foundation and has taught creative writing at Stanford, the University of San Francisco, and the University of Mississippi, where she received an MFA in creative writing. She is at work on a novel. Smith was a Stegner Fellow and William Chace Lecturer at Stanford. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Elizabeth Strout, Anything is Possible (ISBN 978-0812989410 )