Intermediate Creative Writing

Fiction

ENGL 3200 01W
MW 12:30pm – 1:45pm, Pafford 309
Dr. Margaret E. Mitchell

Office: TLC 2235

Email: mmitchel@westga.edu

Website: http: //www.westga.edu/~mmitchel

Phone: 678.839.4852

Office Hours: MW 4-5; T 11:30-4; by appointment.

This class will provide an intermediate level immersion in the writing of fiction, cultivating the imagination, the observant eye and the discipline that are essential to crafting good stories. Readings in short fiction will plunge us into the contemporary literary landscape and introduce you to some classics of the genre; not only will this acquaint you with various elements of the craft, but encourage you to situate your own emerging voice among those of other writers. Your journal will encourage you to think of yourself as a writer, to watch and to listen, to find stories at odd moments and in unlikely places, to practice playfulness as well as rigor. In workshops, you will benefit from intense discussions of your own work and that of other students. We will emphasize revision; by the end of the semester you will have produced a polished portfolio of short fiction.

Texts: Best American Stories 2008, Ed. Salman Rushdie; Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson. Requirements: Writing journal, formal and informal writing assignments, short analytical essay, 20 page portfolio, written responses to other students’ work, active participation in class.

What follows is a rough schedule of readings and of major deadlines. Specific activities and other readings will take shape in the course of the semester: I do not want to impose a too-rigid structure on the class before we have even met. This schedule, then, is subject to change at my discretion. Changes will be announced in class and posted online.

M 8.17 Introduction. Short shorts. What is a story? Writing exercise.

W 8/19 Stephen King: “What Writing Is” (95-99) and “Toolbox” (103-131). More shorts.

M 8/24 SK 135-188. Assignment due: write a short-short story, keeping in mind the three examples we've read so far, as well as the story components we discussed today. Remember that the reader needs to be persuaded that this is, in fact, a story, and not simply a fragment of something larger. Aim for about a page, or roughly 250 words. Make sure it's typed and double-spaced.

W 8/26 A.M Homes, “May We Be Forgiven” (BASS 107); Katie Chase, “Man and Wife” (BASS 51)

M 8/31 SK 188-254. Assignment due.

W 9/2 Christine Sneed, “Quality of Life” (BASS 269); Danielle Evans, “Virgins” (BASS 72)

Write 5 pages of a story (it may be a complete story, but doesn’t have to be) in which the main character is—like Lyndsey and Erica--on somewhat dubious moral or ethical ground. Your goal is to make the character engaging nevertheless, which means the questions facing him or her must be fairly complex—not black and white. Be careful to avoid didacticism, preachiness: as a writer, it isn’t your job to teach your reader a lesson. You may use either the first or third person, but make sure you provide us with access to the main character’s thought processes. Pay attention to the way you balance narration and “Action,” or scenes. (Make sure you indicate whether you want me to read this piece as a complete story or as a scene from a longer one.)

M  9/7 Labor Day—no class

W 9/9 Submit journals. Assignment due (see above). Rebecca Makkai, “The Worst You Ever Feel”; Miroslav Penkov, “Buying Lenin” (BASS 230)

M 9/14 Assignment due.

W 9/16 George Saunders, “Puppy” (BASS 260); Karen Russell, “Vampires in the Lemon Grove” (BASS 244)

M 9/21 Assignment due: story beginnings exercise. Using the same story idea, craft an opening line using each of the strategies described in the handout. If you missed class on Wednesday you'll have to stop by my office to pick up the handout; I have placed some copies in the box outside my office. Karen Brown, “Galatea” (BASS 36).

W 9/23 C Kevin Brockmeier, “The Year of Silence” (BASS 22). For today: Write a 2-page beginning for a story in which the weather plays a significant part in the tension but is NOT the central event; it must act as a backdrop for some other tension. Like “Puppy,” this story will move back and forth between two characters with radically different world-views.

M 9/28 Assignment due. 5-page expanded version of assignment described above. Discuss endings.

W 9/30 A poetic digression: Komunyakaa. We'll discuss the Critical Response assignment.

*Reading: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komenyakaa, Campus Center Ballroom, 7:30.

M 10/5 Keeping in mind our discussion of Komunyakaa's poems on Wednesday, come up with at least two metaphors you think it might be interesting to build a story around. Explain briefly in writing.

*Tues. Oct. 6: Last day to withdraw with a W

W 10/7 Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son. Critical Response due.

M 10/12 Read Jesus’ Son through p. 54.

W 10/14 Jesus’ Son.Assignment: Five-page beginning of a story that makes use of our dialogue exercises last week: must blend summarized dialogue and direct dialogue, attributions and non-attributions. MUST be correctly punctuated. Dialogue need not dominate the story, but it must be in some way crucial to the story’s development, even if there are only snippets of actual speech. Furthermore: I want you to play around with time in this story. Begin constructing a narrative with the idea that this story will not be strictly linear: it will move back and forth in time.  (Moving between the present and a remembered incident or moment is of course one of the most common ways to do this, but there are others; think about how Denis Johnson’s stories manage time.)

M 10/19 no class: work on story

W10/21 5-page story due (see description above.)

M 10/26 Assignment due. (~10 p expansion of last week's 5-page story)

W 10/28 Reading TBA.

M 11/2 Assignment due. Reading TBA. Journals collected.

W 11/4 Reading TBA.

M 11/9 Assignment due. Workshop. (Workshop responses always due at workshops)

W 11/11 Workshop

M 11/16 Workshop

W 11/18 Workshop

M 11/23 Workshop

W 11/25 no class—Thanksgiving break

M 11/30 Workshop.

W 12/2 Last day of classes. Submit journals. Anthology.

Portfolios due.

Assignments: Nearly every week, you will submit an assigned piece of writing—sometimes brief and informal, sometimes more substantial. You’ll receive clear, detailed instructions in advance. These pieces of writing will be graded on a ten-point scale on the basis of how successfully you engage with the requirements of the assignment. I expect your work to reflect the various tenets and concepts we discuss in class—in terms of style, grammar, structure, etc. These assignments must be typed and double spaced, and you will turn them in in person unless instructed otherwise. Email is unreliable, and I cannot be responsible for printing your work. Print it out, turn it in. Make sure you know where you can print, or that your printer has toner; make sure your work is saved and backed up. This will prevent mishaps. If you turn an assignment in late, you will automatically lose 3 points out of a possible 10.

Writing journal: You’ll keep a writing journal in which you make at least two entries each week. Write for at least 20 minutes (or the equivalent of a page—250 words or so.) You may, of course, write more. This is not a diary. Since this is a fiction-writing class, you’ll use your journal to record observations or ideas that might be useful for your fiction. The possibilities are nearly endless, but they include character sketches, snippets of dialogue, powerful reactions to the fiction you read in (or out of) class, descriptions of potential settings, story ideas, etc. In other words, your entries might very well be inspired by the people and scenes that make up your world, but you will be thinking and writing about them as material for fiction. Learn to be observant. Be a little mercenary. Think: how could I use this? Buy a blank book or notebook, something you’ll be comfortable carrying around with you. Ideally, it should be a material object you can imagine developing a real attachment to, so its aesthetics are by no means irrelevant. Be open to writing whenever and wherever an idea strikes you. DATE your entries. I will collect and grade these three times in the course of the semester, and your grade will be based primarily on the faithfulness and seriousness with which you approach this. Undated entries won’t count.

Portfolios: At the end of the semester you must submit a well-crafted 20-page portfolio of your work. It is up to you to decide what to include in your portfolio (although I should emphasize that only stories written FOR THIS CLASS, in response to assignments, are eligible for inclusion. The only stipulation is that all work included in your portfolio be carefully revised; you will be required to submit all earlier versions in order to demonstrate this. You will be expected to work on revisions throughout the semester, rather than hastily revising everything at the last minute. Revision is part of the process. You may submit revised work for comments at any time during the semester; make sure to include the original for the sake of comparison. The purpose of the portfolio is to showcase your work and illustrate your progress.

Peer Responses: The final weeks of the semester will be devoted to workshops, during which we will, as a class, engage in a close and constructive discussion of student stories distributed in advance. You must submit a thoughtful, typed response of at least 200 words to each student being workshopped ON the day of the workshop. Late responses will not be counted. You MUST bring two copies to class—one for me, to be graded, and one for the student. I’ll provide more extensive guidelines later, but essentially these responses will give you an opportunity to identify each work’s greatest strengths and potential weaknesses. Each response will be worth 5 points. If your evaluation is serious, constructive, and meets the required length, you will receive the full point value. If it’s short, you’ll lose points; if it’s glib or lacking in seriousness, you’ll lose points; if you don’t really seem to have read the story, you’ll lose lots of points; if you are unable to be constructive, you will lose points. If it’s not on time, you’ll receive no points. (If you must miss class, have someone else bring your responses or email them to me before classtime.) These are intended to be helpful, not hurtful.

Attendance: In many ways, writing is a solitary pursuit. In the end, after all, everything comes down to you and the page. Most stereotypes of the Writer involve reclusive, antisocial cabin dwellers. Or café dwellers. Loners. However, this class—and classes like it—are founded on the assumption that it is valuable to forge a community of writers. As a member of this class, that’s what you’ll be a part. of. In order to be a valuable member of the community, you have to be here. Moreover, you must be actively present, not just physically present. Otherwise, everyone loses out. I had to turn approximately 15 people away from this class. Your spot is in great demand. Make the most of it. You will be permitted two absences without penalty in the course of the semester. A third absence will affect your grade. After four absences, you must meet with me to discuss your standing in the class, and the advisability of dropping. If you miss more than four classes you will not pass. No exceptions.  (Try not to be late, either; lateness disrupts class and wastes everyone’s time. If you are late three times it will count as an absence. It really will: do not test me.)

Grading:

Assignments: 30%

Journals: 20%

Responses: 10%

Portfolios: 40%

Other policies:

Ø  Please turn off cell phones and other potential sources of electronic disturbance before you enter class and remove them from sight. If such a device does go off during class, or if I see you checking messages, texting, etc., I will mark you absent.

Ø  If you fall asleep, I will ask you to leave and mark you absent.

Ø  Assignments and information relevant to the class, including updates to the schedule, will be posted regularly on my website. (I will also announce them in class.) It is your responsibility to check this.

Ø  I check my email regularly; this is always a good way to contact me. University policy dictates that we correspond via your westga email account rather than any email accounts you might have. Make sure to use your My Westga account when you write to me. (Should this policy becomes untenable in the course of the semester, I will inform you of new procedures.) In addition, I’d like you to address me properly (rather than as “Hey!”, which I tend to find somewhat alienating), write in complete sentences with conventional punctuation and capitalization, and sign your name. These are good habits to acquire: corresponding with your professors is not the same as corresponding with your friends.

Ø  You MUST bring any texts under discussion to class with you. These books are not optional. Nor is it acceptable to share with someone else. If you don’t have a book with you, I may mark you absent.

Ø  I expect you to preserve an atmosphere of courtesy, respect, and intellectual maturity in the classroom, to take your own work and that of the other students seriously. Anyone who does not comply with this expectation will be asked to leave: this is for everyone’s sake.

Ø  Academic honesty. Yes, people have been known to plagiarize in creative writing classes, and yes the consequences are the same. Here is a broad definition of plagiarism: If you ever have a question about whether something would constitute plagiarism, please ask. Anyone who turns in work not entirely their own will fail THE CLASS.

And another thing….

Openmindedness: True, we’ll be studying craft and form in this class. You’ll have specific assignments. And yet, the word “creative” guarantees a degree of unpredictability; it promises freedom of expression. We won’t necessarily all share the same views or values or interests. No doubt it would be dull if we did. But this means that you may, in the course of the semester—whether in the assigned writing or in the writing of your classmates—encounter language or situations that make you uncomfortable, or even that you find offensive. Remember that you are both a student and an adult. Whatever your personal feelings, it’s important to learn to respond to such material on a serious, intellectual level. In order for this class to succeed, everyone must be able to count on that kind of fair reception. If you anticipate having a serious problem with this, you might reconsider whether this is the class for you. (With that said, I should add that there is of course no merit in shock value purely for its own sake. What is important is that you feel free to follow the dictates of your material.)

Genre: If you want to become a writer of genre fiction, I am with you all the way. Stephen King would be, too, no doubt. But it’s not what you’ll be writing in this class. What do I mean by “genre” fiction? I offer, for the first time in my career, a definition from Wikipedia that pretty well covers it:

Genre fiction is a term for fictional works (novels, short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre. In contemporary fiction publishing, genre is an elastic term used to group works sharing similarities of character, theme, and setting—such as mystery, romance, or horror—that have been proven to appeal to particular groups of readers….

All fiction is essentially generic. But genre fiction is overtly and intentionally so, signalling its generic identity in the clearest possible terms. A horror novel, for example, makes it clear through its cover design, its blurb, the comments printed on the cover from other novelists, and so on, that it is a horror novel; and it will be shelved in the appropriate place in bookstores.

The problem with genre fiction, in an academic setting, is that—as you can see from the definition above--it has rules. It is governed by fairly strict conventions designed to please its fans, regardless of literary merit. Literary fiction, on the other hand, seeks to portray a world more or less unmediated by such generic restraints. There can be gray areas, certainly: elements of horror or mystery or fantasy constantly stray into literary fiction, and with good reason. But once they do, the rules go out the window. As they should. So: no genre. If you aren’t willing to comply with this—if you are determined, for instance, to pursue a science fiction project you have in mind--you probably will not be happy in this class.

If you have special needs of which I should be aware, please meet with me as soon as possible to discuss satisfactory arrangements.

For additional information, please see the online version of the syllabus.