ENGLISH 338: Fiction Writing: Spring 2009

Tuesdays 6-8:30 p.m.                                                             Raubinger Hall 313

Professor Alexis Quinlan

            Available for conferences Tuesday afternoons, by appointment

E-mail alexis@abchaoslex.com

Course Objectives:

This course furthers your adventures in creative writing with an exploration of the art of fiction. We work from assigned readings of excellent fiction, from a book about fiction writing, and from your work. You produce and edit your own portfolio. This is definitely a creative class, exercising your best imaginative muscles. But it’s also a skills seminar. The words on the page are just a strategy – here you become attuned to artistic strategies.

I will grade at least six of your works, and am available to provide comment on a weekly basis. I’ll also happily review other venues – screenplays, plays, memoir – if you are so inspired. I’ll be available for on-campus appointments in the hours before class each week. Several of your poems or stories will be read aloud and constructively analyzed by small groups and/or the whole class. I work on the theory that all writing is revision. I believe the poet who said, “A great work of art is never finished, it is only abandoned.” 

Student Learning Outcomes:

You will have written and extensively rewritten to create a portfolio of creative work. You’ll have constructively criticized your own work and that of other writers through our workshop sessions. You’ll have had a range of experience in several sorts of writing. You’ll be able to recognize good writing.

Required Texts:

The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction, Robert Boswell

The Complete Stories, Flannery O’Connor

Dictionary with etymology included

Thesaurus

Student Expectations/Grading Policy:

            Assignments and reading are mandatory. Class participation constitutes a third of your grade. There may be quizzes on the material. If your participation or the quizzes show you aren’t doing the reading, your grade will be lowered.

            Internet assignments and reading are mandatory.

            Attendance and attitude are key to learning. You are allowed an absence, though it is strongly discouraged. With more, your final grade may be dropped by one letter and you must meet with me to discuss your future in the course. Late arrivals – after fifteen minutes, may also be deemed ½ class absence. Behavior that requires reprimand from me will result in your leaving the class that day and may be counted as an absence.

            Outside activities are smart. Extra credit for a report on either (1) a reading by a professional fiction writer or (2) a reading of one of your own at an open mike night or (3) creating an internet presence via a blog on fiction writing.

            Academic integrity is crucial. Good writers may imitate and great writers steal, but neither plagiarize. 

            Your portfolio will comprise one-third of your grade. First follow the assignments I’ve set out below, explore the fine art of revision, and then create a portfolio of one long (12-20 page) story and two short ones. I don’t believe in grading creative work, but I can tell if you’ve put effort and understanding into revisions. Persistent grammar or spelling problems lower your grade, too (and should make you want to sue previous teachers).

01/20            Introduction: Ab Chaos Lex

            Copy Agreement; Review Syllabus

            Sit-coms vs. Art: Discuss Chapter 1 of Boswell. (Sections 2 & 6)

            Discuss Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

01/27            Show & Tell

            Bring fiction that has inspired you. Be prepared to read a paragraph or two and discuss what, for you, sets apart artistic writing.

            (Bring a paragraph or two of fiction you’ve written to share with the class.)

            Read online (or elsewhere) “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway. Bring to class.

            Review Quotation Punctuation.

            In-class listmaking: 5 Stories You’d Like to Write and 5 Stories You Told This Weekend.

02/03            Icebergs

            Assignment 1. Bring in 8-12 lines of dialogue to share and discuss.           

            Read Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”

02/10            Processing

Assignment 2: First story due: 4-6 pages.

            Skim Chapter 1 of Boswell, since we’ve already discussed it in class. Locate points of interest throughout the book and write a paragraph on one of them.  Also read Boswell’s “Process & Paradigm.”

Workshopping almost begins: Workshop Group A hands out work.

02/17            Free day! Stay home and read “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.”  And go ahead and read “Good Country People,” too—you won’t regret it.

02/24            Good Characters

                        Discuss your reading of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

Student Workshop Group A  (Group B hands out work.)

03/03            Spandrels

Assignment 3: 5-7 pages of Second Story (preferably unfinished).

Read Boswell’s chapter “Spandrels.”

Continue discussion of “A Good Man”

Student Workshop Group B  (Group C hands out work.)           

3/10            Plot: As the River Flows

                        Discuss “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.”

                        Assignment 4: 7-10 pages of story (preferably still unfinished)

            Student Workshop Group C  (Group D hands out work.)

03/17            Spring Break

3/24             Formal Considerations Structure vs. Plot           

                        Read O’Connor’s “Good Country People.”           

                        Assignment 5: Second Story due (12+ pages)

            Student Workshop Group D (Group A Hands Out.)

03/31            Dialogue that Shows

Read Boswell’s “Urban Legends” Chapter.

Student Workshop Group A (Group B Hands Out.)

Assignment 6: 2 pages of fiction (Third Story beginning)

04/07            On Omniscience

                        Read Boswell, “On Omniscience.”

                        Find, print and read first chapter of Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler.

                        Find, print and read first chapter of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Assignment 7: 6 beginnings for one story, demonstrating shifts in POV.

1.      First person reliable.

2.      First person unreliable.

3.      Dialogue only intro.

4.      Third person close – following main character.

5.      Third person impersonal – delivering universal truths as Pride and Prejudice narrator. [you can save this for in-class exercise]

6.      Second person p.o.v. [you can save this for in-class exercise]

Student Workshop: Group B (Group C Hands Out.)

04/14            Character        

Read O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger.”

Student Workshop: Group C (Group D Hands Out.)

Assignment 8: A page on the contents of your final portfolio.

Assignment 9: Turn in Third Story.

04/21            Setting: Don’t settle.

Student Workshop: Group D

04/28  Odd Ends                        

05/05            Last regular class.

Turn in portfolio.

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. Art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.

--Joseph Conrad (1857–1924), Polish-born English novelist.