Class Description
Is your protagonist a witch or a conjurer? Sorcerer? Necromancer? Enchantress-Diviner-Thaumaturg? Okay, maybe they’re just a regular old human in a world where sometimes weird things happen. Writers from Tomi Adeyemi to Neil Gaiman, to Kelly Link have all engaged the unreal in their writing, yet their stories and worlds are incredibly different. The one thing they have in common? They move readers beyond the “willing suspension of disbelief” by engaging what JRR Tolkien called the “inner consistency of reality.”
In this class you’ll learn tricks to engage the more-than-real (you know, that thing that makes fantasy…. well, fantasy!) in a way that feels and grounding rather than overwhelming. We’ll talk about engaging magic in ways that are organic and original (beyond googling synonyms for “magician”), developing the laws or guidelines of your invented reality, and determining their limitations, costs, and weaknesses. We’ll learn from authors who’ve gone ahead of us on this world-forging path, as we discuss common tropes and pitfalls of magic systems and how to use genre conventions to our advantage while steering clear of oversimplification, Cool Object Syndrome, and accidental essentialism. Because as Ursula K LeGuin puts it, “when fantasy is the real thing, nothing, after all, is realer."
Class Format
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. About 15 minutes before your class is scheduled to begin, you'll receive an email from your instructor with a link to join the class meeting!
Scholarship Information
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.