ENG 414: Fiction Workshop
In this generative fiction workshop, we will explore the art of short fiction while clarifying our own goals and intentions as writers. Through close reading, discussion, and practice, we will evaluate the elements of fiction writing, attending to place, characterization, voice, style, time, and dialogue in both published works as well as the works of our peers. Indigenous/Kānaka ʻŌiwi, Asian American, and western perspectives will be considered through the lens of consecution: examining the events, languages, and stories of our ancestral pasts to steer fiction into the future.
In the first half of the semester, we will engage with short stories by writers from Hawaiʻi and around the world. I will make everything available for free online in the form of PDFs and/or direct links. By cultivating a close reading practice of both stories and craft essays, we will learn how to study and appraise the short fiction form. Using the language of desire to frame our conversations, we will work to understand what precisely makes a piece “work” for us as individual readers then apply this knowledge to our own writing, which we will create both in and outside of our class. Along with reading and writing, we will discuss the ancestral inheritance of our creativity, our literary lineage, our kuleana as literary citizens, and the communities we write for and from.
In the second half of the semester, we will meet and discuss each other’s creative works in progress in the form of a feedback workshop. Utilizing an open dialogue format, we will prioritize each student writer’s intentions for the piece, using their guiding questions as a springboard for conversation. Always as generous editors, we will attempt to understand the writer’s goals first, then try to help them realize those goals with our comments. We will also discuss the work in relation to the craft principles examined in the first half of the semester, paying special attention to the way these conventions are applied, reinterpreted, and/or subverted. The purpose of a feedback workshop is to provide a safe space of possibility and excitement for a work in progress, and collective participation is required, ensuring that we meet each piece with equal parts rigor and respect. Likewise, you will hone your skills as both readers and critics by responding to workshop submissions both verbally and in feedback letters.
Expectations for this fiction workshop include keeping an observations journal, submitting weekly reading responses, writing and workshopping at least two works of short fiction, and composing two final projects.
SLOs:
- Identify and analyze craft terms for exploration in your writing.
- Engage in a variety of prose techniques, forms, and genres.
- Develop the discipline and endurance to write and revise in the long-term.
- Develop editorial skills through a care-informed practice of close reading, workshop, and feedback.
- Plan and build a short story toward a full-length collection, or an opening chapter toward a novel.
- Revise with an understanding of audience, and an eye toward submitting your work for publication.
- Collaborate and thrive in a writing community.