ENG 613C: Graduate Workshop
Wednesdays: 3:15-5:45pm, Synchronous
Kristiana Kahakauwila
Consider This a Vessel: On Story & Structure
When fiction writers think of story we tend to focus on linear structures such as plotline or Freytag’s triangle, with its emphasis on conflict and climactic satisfaction. Ursula Le Guin in “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” argues instead for a story model that would be better described as a vessel, which gathers elements and holds them in relation to one another. Taking this as our starting point, we’ll look at fresh ways to structure everything from a sentence to a scene to a novel, and how to employ the most resonant structures for our particular work. We’ll explore what different genres have to teach us, study community- and culturally-specific vessels as examples of decolonial and other politically implicated shapes, and consider how assumptions of structure can favor one kind of story over another, how craft—the way we tell—is tied to the ethics of that telling. By shaking up assumptions of narrative structure, I hope to offer new ways to connect you with your own work, so come ready to produce as well as to reconsider previous pieces in need of a fresh lens.
Required Texts
Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison
Potiki by Patricia Grace
PDFs uploaded to Laulima
Optional Texts
There, There by Tommy Orange
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
(I will provide PDFs of the excerpts we’re going to study closely but some of you may wish to read the whole of these novels as well.)
Assignments
Stories (drafts and revisions) for workshop
Editorial Letters for your peers
Reader Response posts and discussion questions
Brief oral presentation on a theme, theory, or text of your choice
Final portfolio with analytical apparatus
Student Learning Outcomes
To draft, re-envision, and refine a body of prose
To reflect upon and articulate one’s craft choices, particularly those related to narrative structure, form, syntax, and resonance.
To advance one’s practice in close reading a range of texts, engaging with the cultural, aesthetic, and political implications of various craft traditions
To apply intentional interpretive care and analysis to others’ storytelling and prose
To develop advanced practices of narrative structure and form
To build writing community and the tools for continuing that community beyond the course