Crafting the Novel: Form & Style in Contemporary Fiction
Prof. Joseph Han (jhan2@hawaii.edu)
M 6:00PM – 8:30PM, SAKAM B211 (CRN 78064)
Course Description
The novel as a form is both capacious in its subject matter and precise in its intimacy, and so it’s the goal of a novelist to advance a particular worldview through an intentional use of language. By its very nature the novel is social, focusing on communities and the specific people who live, as novels do, in the tension and contradiction between the inward, sensory experience of being, and an outward life organized by history and structures of power that shapes one’s becoming. This seminar begins with Edith Wharton’s definition of form as the order, in time and importance, in which narrative incidents are grouped, and style as the way they are presented through language, the consciousness of narrator. Taken together, the interplay of form and style defines a novel’s organizing framework and structural concerns, the themes and goals of a narrative, and its guiding aesthetic principles reinforced and forwarded at the line level, as we consider the possibilities of a paragraph, page, section, chapter, and book part in shaping an entire narrative.
Often we are told a writer should find their voice, but put another way, this seminar explores the process of novel writing—as a forum in which we can discover our artistic and creative sensibility, reinforce our aesthetic principles and values, and articulate a new worldview, which is informed by what Margot Livesey calls “the secret psychic life of the author, and the larger events of [their] time and place” (29). What kind of writing are we called to do in the present, for this contemporary moment, when we show up to the page and engage in our artistic practice? What questions will guide our creative life, and how can they reveal a way to structure our novels as such it will bring the most out of our language—challenge us to reach for nuance, layered, and deeper meaning—and bring a sense of purpose and urgency to our work? And finally, how must we keep up with the demands of a novel on our time and our capacities, as we must inevitably transform alongside our writing in recursive and generative ways, and reach for new practices and thus innovate our level of engagement with our work through reading, revision, and being in community?
Through an intensive study of craft—looking toward natural patterns to rethink our traditionally inherited narrative forms, cartography and writing as a form of mapping, and how to write toward and find a novel’s center—we will in turn practice the craft of novel writing and discuss how tone, pacing, focalization, and the purview of a chapter can be malleable depending on the specific needs and goals of a project. We will read and study a selection of contemporary fiction published in the past five years, our examples varying in length, scope, and genre. Students will have the opportunity to advance their own thesis/dissertation projects, learn about the publishing industry, and plan their overall writing trajectory. Though this seminar is focused on novels in particular, writers practicing in other genres are welcome, as many poets, short story writers, and nonfiction writers have been publishing novels recently. Overall, this seminar requires a high level of discipline, rigor, and accountability to our collective artistic practices—and visions for what the novel can become—as we channel our intuition, energy, inspiration, and care in coming together as a literary community.
Student Learning Outcomes
- Establish a writing practice with discipline, rigor, and playfulness on the way to discovery and innovation.
- Establish a reading practice, one’s own literary genealogy, and learn how to become a better reader of your own work and the work of others through reflection, generative feedback/critique.
- Apply advanced research methods and/or creative writing techniques. Demonstrate written and oral ability to map, historicize, and contextualize one’s craft principles and critical perspective within specialized areas, literary traditions, and recent forms—thus engaging in conversation with one’s peers, students, and established writers and experts within their communities.
- Discover and engage in your language, style, and structure—one’s aesthetic and craft principles—to define your project’s themes, argument, and worldview.
- Develop sustained focus and exercise awareness on how to plan, draft, and revise a long-term creative project, meeting self-imposed deadlines while addressing programmatic pathways. Learn to reinforce and protect one’s long-term artistic vision.
- Engage in community building in the spirit of collaboration, advocacy, and solidarity toward an inviting and invigorating creative environment.
Course Texts
This list has not been finalized and is subject to change. Before the semester begins, I will email with a final list of course texts for purchase. The works under consideration include:
Ghost Forest, Pik-Shuen Fung (2021)
The Swimmers, Julie Otsuka (2022)
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin (2022)
The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty (2022)
Biography of X, Catherine Lacey (2023)
All Friends Are Necessary, Tomas Moniz (2024)
Secondary texts (excerpts to be uploaded as PDFs to Laulima):
Edith Wharton, The Writing of Fiction
Haruki Murakami, Novelist as Vocation
Peter Turchi, excerpts from Maps of the Imagination
Jane Alison, excerpts from Meander, Spiral, Explode
Matthew Salesses, excerpts from Craft in the Real World
Margot Livesey, excerpts from The Hidden Machinery
E.M. Forster, excerpts from Aspects of the Novel
Orhan Pamuk, excerpts from The Naive and Sentimental Novelist
ASSIGNMENTS
- Weekly Critical/Creative prompts
- Project Plan/Personal Syllabus
- Facilitate Class Discussion
- Short Essay (4 pages), Craft Talk (10-15 min) + Generative Writing Prompt
- Novel Excerpt (Prologue, 1-2 chapters) + Synopsis
- Workshop feedback w/ editorial letters
- Attend a Community Event
- Class Reading/Performance
- Final Portfolio, including a Letter of Intention + Bibliography