Writing Fiction from Real Life

For writers who feel overwhelmed by the notion of starting a story from nothing, the real world can provide a useful gateway into the fictional world. Plus, the art of shaping credible fiction often means that we look to the actual world around us for ideas and cues. This six-week class will use personal experiences and observations to craft compelling fiction and characters. The first two classes will focus on in-class exercises, explorations, and low-key mini workshops of student work. The last four classes will focus on workshopping one longer work (up to 15 pages) by each student, along with in-class exercises and readings, as time allows. 

This course offers a model for workshopping your manuscripts in which, instead of remaining silent, you will be an active participant in the conversation about your piece, with a focus on concrete revision options. Classmates will be encouraged to incorporate content-based criticism (e.g. “what are the socio-cultural implications in this piece?”) with craft-based criticism (e.g. “how is the structure working in this draft?”) This approach aims to give the writer a stronger voice in their own critique, for readers to thoughtfully examine and learn from their initial feedback during the workshop, and for everyone to leave class with a clearer revision strategy for their work. By the end of the course, students will have built several scenes and story starters along with one fuller draft ready for revision. They will also have a toolkit of practical approaches for translating real-life elements into fuel for their fiction.