Mary LaChapelle

Nabokov stated that there are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. We will consider all three, but it is with the art of enchantment that this workshop is most dedicated. In the first semester, you will acquaint yourselves with such basic elements of fiction as point of view, character, plot and structure, dialogue and exposition, detail, and scene. We will study these elements as put into practice by a wide range of virtuosic writers: Jamaica Kincaid, Donald Barthelme, ZZ Packer, James Baldwin, Raymond Ken Liu, Carmen Maria Machado, Tobias Wolff, and Gina Bierault, among others. We will also familiarize ourselves with concepts related to the craft and imaginative process of fiction, such as counterpoint characterization, defamiliarization, narrative urgency, etc. The core of the course is the students’ own development as fiction writers. We have a lot of fun trying numerous exercises and approaches to stories. In conference, we work closely on your writing; we will develop your crafting of scenes at first, then meet in small groups to workshop your first drafts. You are responsible for writing critiques for each other’s stories, as well as for participating thoughtfully and actively in the workshop discussion. By the end of the semester, each of you will present at least one final developed story for our workshop discussion. In the second semester, we will venture into more unlikely fictional territories: dream narratives, preposterous situations served up matter-of-factly, unscary ghost stories, speculative fiction, and virtuosic works that elude comprehension but deliver you to the profound and pleasurable edges of apprehension. To jar us from our more prosaic and safe forms of fiction, we will begin the semester with a series of exercises inspired by the stories of authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Borges, Nabokov, George Saunders, Carmen Maria Machado, and Octavia Butler, as well as essays by Carl Jung, Immanuel Kant, and Charles Baxter. You will generate your conference work from the readings and exercises; develop it through close critique in our classes and conferences; present first drafts in preliminary workshops; and, finally, submit your best work in a series of formal workshops at the end of the semester.

Nabokov stated that there are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. In this yearlong workshop, we will consider all three; but it is with the art of enchantment that this workshop is most dedicated. We will walk through the process of writing a story. Where does the story come from? How do we know when we are ready to begin? How do we avoid succumbing to safe and unoriginal decisions and learn to recognize and trust our more mysterious and promising impulses? How do our characters guide the work? How do we come to know an ending, and how do we earn that ending? And, finally, how do we create the enchantment necessary to involve, persuade, and move the reader in the ways that fiction is most capable. Our course will investigate the craft of fiction through readings, discussion, and numerous exercises. In the second semester, we move on to explore dream narratives, the sublime, the absurd, and the fantastic. We study a democratically chosen novel and, possibly, graphic fiction and a film. Our objective is for you to write, revise, and workshop at least one fully developed story each semester.

Nabokov stated that there are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. We will consider all three, but it is with the art of enchantment that this workshop is most dedicated. We will walk through the process of writing a story. Where does the story come from? How do we know when we are ready to begin? How do we avoid succumbing to safe and unoriginal decisions and learn to recognize and trust our more mysterious and promising impulses? How do our characters guide the work? How do we come to know an ending, and how do we earn that ending? And finally, how do we create the enchantment necessary to involve, persuade, and move the reader in the ways that fiction is most capable. Our course will investigate the craft of fiction through readings, discussion, and numerous exercises. In the second semester, we move on to explore dream narratives, the sublime, the absurd, and the fantastic. We study a democratically chosen novel and, possibly, graphic fiction and a film. Our objective is for you to write, revise, and workshop at least one fully developed story each semester.

In this yearlong fiction-writing workshop, you will acquaint yourselves with basic elements of fiction such as point of view, character, plot and structure, dialogue and exposition, detail and scene, as well as other more sophisticated concepts related to the craft and imaginative process of fiction. Principals such as counterpoint characterization, defamiliariazation, and the sublime, among others, are explored through lessons, writing exercises, and assigned readings, as well as authors’ works that you wish to share with the class. We attend readings and craft talks by the guest writers in our reading series. We form small groups to more closely study various aspects of fiction and to help each other draft your stories. We move on in the second semester to explore the unconscious, dream narratives, the absurd, and speculative fiction. We study two democratically chosen novels and a film. Some of the authors we will be studying and, at times, modeling are Flannery O’Connor, James Agee, James Baldwin, Tobais Wolff, ZZ Packer, Marquez, Kafka, Borges, Nabokov, Carmen Marchado, George Saunders, and Octavia Butler. The core of the course is the students’ own development as fiction writers. We have a lot of fun trying numerous exercises and approaches to stories. We work closely in conference on your writing, and each of you will present at least one final developed story for our workshop each semester.

In this yearlong workshop, we will meet twice a week in 90-minute seminars. Every other week, you and I will meet in individual conferences; in the alternate weeks, we will participate in a group activity. During the first weeks together, we will walk through the process of writing a story. Where does the story come from? How do we know when we are ready to begin? How do we avoid succumbing to safe and unoriginal decisions and learn to recognize and trust our more mysterious and promising impulses? How do our characters guide the work? How do we come to know an ending, and how do we earn that ending? And, finally, how do we create the enchantment necessary to involve, persuade, and move the reader in the ways that fiction is most capable. Our course will investigate the craft of fiction through readings, discussion, and numerous exercises. Eventually, each of you will settle on a semester writing project. In the second half of each semester, you will discuss and critique each other’s drafts in successive workshops—first just a few pages, then full first drafts, and finally your well-developed stories or chapters. In the spring semester, we move on to explore dream narratives, the sublime, the absurd, and the fantastic. We study a democratically chosen novel and, possibly, graphic fiction. Our objective is for you to write, revise, and workshop at least one fully developed story each semester. Examples of our group activities are watching a film together or attending one of our writing colloquium sessions in which various writing faculty members present some aspect of the writing process and give you writing exercises that we will share in our next class meeting.

Imagine a hero who grows up in the Appalachian Mountains and receives a scholarship to a private school in Malibu Beach, or a hero who is a Mexican immigrant and lives near the Oakland shipyards. Imagine a child from Norway whose family immigrates to North Dakota in the 1870s, or a teenager who develops solar technology for her village in India. What about their characters will begin to distinguish each as a hero? What flaws or beliefs? What innovative actions will their circumstances, culture, gender, or time in history necessitate? The only requirement for each student’s hero(es) is that he, she, or they are human and living on Earth. Over this yearlong course, each writer will develop a sustained hero’s tale that will require the accurate imagination of place, time, character, and actions in response to each hero’s challenges and obstacles. Writers will research, as well as reflect on, heroic models from antiquity to the present day. Because this is a FYS course, we will incorporate exercises and lessons related to the basic elements of fiction, point of view, structure, character, setting, and dialogue. We will read and analyze model stories that reflect those aspects of craft and depict different kinds of heroes. We will also read contextual texts such as Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, as well as a short digest of historical events called A Little History of the World. In addition to meeting in our biweekly class seminars, I will meet with each of you individually in biweekly conferences. In alternate weeks, we will meet in small focus groups.

In this one-semester, fiction-writing workshop, you will acquaint yourselves with basic elements of fiction such as point of view, character, plot and structure, dialogue and exposition, detail and scene. We will study these elements as put into practice by a wide range of virtuosic writers: Jamaica Kincaid, Donald Barthelme, ZZ Packer, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, and Gina Bierault, among others. We will also familiarize ourselves with concepts related to the craft and imaginative process of fiction, such as counterpoint characterization, defamiliarization, narrative urgency, etc. The core of the course is the students’ own development as fiction writers. We have a lot of fun trying numerous exercises and approaches to stories. We work closely in conference on your writing to develop your crafting of scenes, at first, and then meet in small groups to workshop your first drafts. You are responsible for writing critiques of each other’s stories, as well as participating thoughtfully and actively in the workshop discussion. By the end of the semester, each of you will present at least one final developed story for our workshop discussion.

This one-semester workshop will venture into more unlikely fictional territories: dream narratives, preposterous situations served up matter-of-factly, unscary ghost stories, speculative fiction, and virtuosic works that elude comprehension but deliver you to the profound and pleasurable edges of apprehension. To jar us from our more prosaic and safe forms of fiction, we will begin the semester with a series of exercises inspired by the stories of authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Borges, Nabokov, George Saunders, Carmen Maria Machado, and Olivia Butler, as well as essays by Carl Jung, Immanuel Kant, and Charles Baxter. You will generate your conference work from the readings and exercises, develop it through close critique in our classes and conferences, present it in preliminary workshops, and, finally, submit your best work in a series of formal workshops at the end of the semester.

This one-semester workshop will venture into more unlikely fictional territories: dream narratives, preposterous situations served up matter-of-factly, unscary ghost stories, speculative fiction, and virtuosic works that elude comprehension but deliver you to the profound and pleasurable edges of apprehension. To jar us from our more prosaic and safe forms of fiction, we will begin the semester with a series of exercises inspired by the stories of authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Borges, Nabokov, George Saunders, Carmen Maria Machado, and Octavia Butler, as well as essays by Carl Jung, Immanuel Kant, and Charles Baxter. You will generate your conference work from the readings and exercises, develop it through close critique in our classes and conferences, present it in preliminary workshops, and, finally, submit your best work in a series of formal workshops at the end of the semester.