OWC 304 D — Novel II: Plot and Structure
Quarter: Spring
Instructor(s): Jack Livings
Date(s): Apr 1—Jun 7
Class Recording Available: Yes
Tuition: $1240
Refund Deadline: Apr 4
Unit(s): 3
Enrollment Limit: 15
Status: Closed
Quarter: Spring
Unit(s): 3
Duration: 10 weeks
Date(s): Apr 1—Jun 7
Tuition: $1240
Refund Deadline: Apr 4
Instructor(s): Jack Livings
Enrollment Limit: 15
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Closed
This course is not open to the public, but rather by admission only. For more information on the Online Writing Certificate Program and its application process, please click here.
In this course, students will focus on how to create and sustain the “long middle” of their novels, continuing their journey toward the completion of their manuscript. The long middle is the area where plot and structure of the novel are most important, because we may have lost that burst of energy that propelled our beginnings, but the end is not yet in sight. This course will teach students how to continue building suspense and intensity past the inciting incident by alternating between different subplots and points of view, to ensure modulation; and framing scenes and chapters for maximum tension, to keep readers turning pages.
In this course, students will focus on how to create and sustain the “long middle” of their novels, continuing their journey toward the completion of their manuscript. The long middle is the area where plot and structure of the novel are most important, because we may have lost that burst of energy that propelled our beginnings, but the end is not yet in sight. This course will teach students how to continue building suspense and intensity past the inciting incident by alternating between different subplots and points of view, to ensure modulation; and framing scenes and chapters for maximum tension, to keep readers turning pages.
JACK LIVINGS
Former Stegner Fellow, Stanford
Jack Livings is the author of the novel The Blizzard Party and the story collection The Dog, which received the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and the Rome Prize in Literature. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies. Livings is a former contributing editor at The Paris Review. He received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Sigrid Nunez, The Friend (ISBN 978-0735219458)
(Required) Lysley Tenorio, The Son of Good Fortune (ISBN 978-0062059598)
(Required) Lysley Tenorio, The Son of Good Fortune (ISBN 978-0062059598)