Good Energy: A Graduate Prose Workshop
ENG 613C Graduate Writing Workshop (Fiction/Narrative Prose)
Fall 2026 / Tuesday 6-8:30pm / In person / Sakamaki D103
Professor Kristiana Kahakauwila (she/her)
Office Location: Kuykendall 524
Email: kkahakau@hawaii.edu
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Kinetic energy. Wasted energy. Low energy. Positive Energy.
For every adage about energy is a writing technique for how to employ and control it in narrative.
This Graduate Workshop looks to understand ideas of narrative energy and what we mean by that term. Questions that frame our study include: Where does the energy come from in a narrative? What animates a work, providing it with forward momentum? How does a writer keep a reader from leaving the page? How do we balance depth with energetic drive? How do we toggle between different sources of energy to create a sustained, satisfying, and unified story?
The semester begins with a workshop submission – likely, a short story, novel chapter, or essay that you have already written and developed. Over the course of the first few weeks, we will read and analyze these student pieces alongside those by published authors in order to illuminate techniques such as profluence, clocks, conflict, desire, tension, suspense, showing, telling, and dilation. Craft essays such as Lincoln Michel’s “On the Many Different Engines That Power a Short Story,” Ursula Le Guin’s “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” Antonya Nelson’s “Short Story: A Process of Revision,” and Marie-Helene Bertino’s “A Master Class in Disrupting Realism and Making Magic” will augment our discussion, giving us craft language and lenses by which to grow our work.
Weekly writing exercises I call “Experiments” allow everyone to produce new writing, responding playfully and energetically to what’s being read. As our brief experiments expand, developing into longer, more sustained pieces, we will consider narrative design rooted in chronology and causal effect as well as formal patterning, spiral narratives, mosaics, and four-phase quadtychs. Here we will draw from works such as Jane Alison’s Spiral, Meander, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative and Henry Lien’s Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling.
Exchange of work via a series of whole-class and small-group workshops is central to the course. Through workshop we learn to learn from our discovery drafts, noticing how weight and meaning intersect, how object and pattern can usefully resonate, and how the micro and macro elements of narrative energy feed off each other. By the end of the semester, the goal is not only to become better readers of others’ work, but also more astute readers of our own, and to carry that energy into revision and further writing.
Although this course is listed as 613C (fiction), the class is designed for prose writers producing fiction, nonfiction, and/or hybrid work. Poets are welcome, too, and have much to add to the conversation. The key requirement is a commitment to the workshop process and the community we forge together.
COURSE TEXTS
The majority of the course readings will be available as PDFs or hyperlinks via Lamakū. Students are also required to have a dedicated course notebook and writing utensil for every class as well as three books in print form. Though not yet confirmed, the finalists for these purchases include:
- Matthew Salesses, Craft in the Real World
- Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars
- Karen Tei Yamashita, Questions 27 & 28
- Ocean Vuong, The Emperor of Gladness
- Witi Ihimaera, Whale Rider
MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS
- 6 experiments: 500+ word first drafts, based on prompts designed by the instructor
- 4 workshop submissions: 1500+-word second drafts
- 4 sets of editorial letters or notations
- 4 workshop reflections
- 4 revision assignments, including adding a clock to a scene, experimenting with gravity & weight in writing, following “a mountain of revision” process, and employing at least one step of Antonya Nelson’s “Short Story: A Process of Revision”
- 2 reading notations with analysis, 500-1000 words each, and ability to lead small-group discussion
- 1 in-depth craft report on an excerpt of the student’s own work
- final portfolio in lieu of an exam
- Attendance at two literary events + written reflection
STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Establish a writing practice with discipline, rigor, and playfulness on the way to discovery and innovation.
- Grow your fluency in creative writing workshop methods and learn how to become a better reader of your own work and the work of others through attention, reflection, and critical engagement.
- Develop the ability to identify, define, and employ various creative writing techniques to articulated effect. As well, demonstrate written and verbal ability to map, contextualize, and/or historicize craft choices as they relate to your literary traditions and audience.
- Engage in community building in the spirit of collaboration, advocacy, and solidarity toward an inviting and invigorating creative environment.