Courses

Bharati Mukherjee wrote that “‘voice’ is our shorthand for the process of decision-making regarding tone, diction, pacing, texture, withholding, etc. in a given work.” Each writer, and each story or novel, has a particular voice—or sometimes a chorus of voices—that takes a reader deeply into characters’ lives and worlds: setting the tone, revealing the point of view, establishing a guiding presence, and determining meaning. Our decisions about dialogue weave the voice of the novel with the voices of the characters, along with their actions, gestures, and ideas. Together, we will read and discuss novel selections and short stories from Mukherjee, Ruth Ozeki, Toni Morrison, George Saunders, Zadie Smith, Italo Calvino, Grace Paley, Helen Oyeyemi, and others. Our readings and writing exercises will help you develop new approaches to the voice, POV, and dialogue in your own stories or novels and also touch on all the other elements of fiction, including character and plot. You will post up to four writing exercises or selections from your fiction (500-1,250 words each, up to 5,000 words total) for brief, substantive, supportive feedback from your peer group and instructor. By the end of the course, you will have a deeper sense of how your point of view and style decisions can transform your fiction and help bring your writer’s voice more vividly, distinctly alive.