FICT 95 W — Fiction Workshop: Mastering Point of View
Quarter: Spring
Instructor(s): Evgeniya Dame
Date(s): Apr 15—Jun 7
Class Recording Available: Yes
Tuition: $825
Refund Deadline: Apr 18
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 19
Status: Closed
Quarter: Spring
Unit(s): 2
Duration: 8 weeks
Date(s): Apr 15—Jun 7
Tuition: $825
Refund Deadline: Apr 18
Instructor(s): Evgeniya Dame
Enrollment Limit: 19
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Closed
Finding the best point of view for a story is like picking the door through which to enter a house. In this immersive course, we will examine how the choice of perspective allows all other elements—the story, the plot, the characters—to fall into place. What kind of story is better served by an intimate first-person narrator? How can we use a close or omniscient narrator to control the tale? Is the second person out of fashion? What about switching halfway?
Armed with craft chapters by Francine Prose, Ursula Le Guin, Peter Turchi, and other masters, each week we’ll dive into the intricacies of the choices available, including first and second person, third-person limited, omniscient, and even alternating points of view. Dissecting stories and novel excerpts by Andrew Sean Greer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Haruki Murakami, Jennifer Egan, and others, we’ll examine how authors carefully manipulate the distance between narrator and character to drive the story. In the first half of the course, students will work on several short prompts, trying their hand at different points of view; in the second half, they will have a chance to explore one perspective in depth, drafting a new short story or a novel segment (up to 5,000 words), which they will submit in small groups for light and constructive peer and instructor feedback.
Armed with craft chapters by Francine Prose, Ursula Le Guin, Peter Turchi, and other masters, each week we’ll dive into the intricacies of the choices available, including first and second person, third-person limited, omniscient, and even alternating points of view. Dissecting stories and novel excerpts by Andrew Sean Greer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Haruki Murakami, Jennifer Egan, and others, we’ll examine how authors carefully manipulate the distance between narrator and character to drive the story. In the first half of the course, students will work on several short prompts, trying their hand at different points of view; in the second half, they will have a chance to explore one perspective in depth, drafting a new short story or a novel segment (up to 5,000 words), which they will submit in small groups for light and constructive peer and instructor feedback.
EVGENIYA DAME
Former Stegner Fellow, Stanford
Evgeniya Dame received an MFA from the University of New Hampshire, where she was a Fulbright Fellow from Russia. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Joyland, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and received support from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and Monson Arts. She is a fiction editor at Joyland and is at work on a story collection and a novel.Textbooks for this course:
There are no required textbooks; however, some fee-based online readings may be assigned.