940: Techniques of Fiction Writing: Exploring the ...



SYLLABUS FALL 2009

940: Techniques of Fiction Writing: Exploring the Possibilities of Perception & Language (Catalogue Title: Literature and Approaches to Writing the Novel)

A comprehensive examination of the tools of fiction writing.

Instructor: Janet Fitch

Day/time: Tuesday 7-9:40 p.m.

#39210D course no.

WPH 204

Overview:

The art and craft of great fiction is the product of a constellation of skills. This course has been devised to examine of each of these skills in the round, so that students can get a solid grasp of the options available to them in the writing of vivid, convincing fiction.

Each class will combine lecture and in-class writing exercises, with examples from literature. At-home work will consist of the development of writer's notebooks, exploring material presented in class.

Class sessions:

(rough estimation, depending upon the needs of the class and the difficulty of the material.)

SECTION 1--PERCEPTION, MEMORY AND IMAGINATION--THE WORLD OF THE SENSES

Week 1--Aug 25 Overview of the Senses

Why start with the senses?. Examining the possibilities of describing sense impression. The literal and the figurative level. Metaphor. The "best" words. Ban the cliché.

Using the senses to unlock imagination and memory: Who is it, where is it, when is it. Use of Writers Notebooks The first two senses: Smell and taste. Sense exercises in class.

Homework: Writers' Notebook, taste and scent.

Week 2--Sept. 1 Texture and Sound

Texture. The world of the body. Describing texture. Texture as action. In-class exercise: texture into story.

Sound. Using sound to unlock imagination and memory. Who is it, where is it, when is it? Sense exercises: dimensionality of sound, writing to music

Homework: Writers' Notebook, texture and sound.

Week 3--Sept 8 Thinking about Light

Light. The active vocabulary of light. Thinking about vision, altering perception. Examples from literature and art. In class exercises: "Sketching" from life. Notebook section: Portraits Light. Color.

The question of color. The vocabulary of color. Examples from literature. Combining senses: doing the weather.

Homework: Writers' Notebook, Weather Notebook.

SECTION 2-- LANDSCAPE, CREATING THE WORLD OF YOUR FICTION

Week 4--Sept. 15 Authority and Landscape

Landscape convinces us you know what you're talking about, that the world of your fiction is real. The three levels of landscape. Exercise: Creating the three levels of landscape. Consolidation of sense skills, weather observation, in the service of landscape.

Landscape in the writer's notebook. The importance of fresh language.

Naming things--the importance of having the names--the names of architectural features, flora and fauna. Books on architectural features. No such thing as a tree.

Landscape section begins in Writer's Notebook. Exercises: Writing from photographs. Homework: Writers' Notebook, Landscape, plants and buildings.

Week 5--Sept 22 Landscape as Mood and Foreshadowing

Literary examples of landscape foreshadowing. Exercise: foreshadowing and mood in landscape. My blackmailer's house. Exercise: foreshadowing and mood using photographs. Writing the city. City as character. Bodies and neighborhoods.

Exercise: "Imagining Argentina" Writing cityscape from maps and guidebooks.

Homework: Writer's Notebook, Stalking a landscape

SECTION 3-- STORY AND SCENE, FROM THE GREEKS TO TV

Week 6--Sept 29 What is a Scene?

The Aristotelian unities of time and place. The irretrievable change. Setting the scene--where are we, when are we, who are we? Examples from literature Alternation of scenes, number of actors, setting. Always variety. Novels are holographic. You know what's going on, you know where you are, you know who the characters, are wherever we are in the book. Discussion of examples from literature. Exercise: Emotional movement in a scene. Something HAPPENS--can't go back.

Homework: Scene studies

Week 7--Oct 6 What is a Story?

Setup and payoff. Five beat story structure. Exercise: sketch a short story with a five beat structure. The moment of illumination. The decision.

Simple storytelling structure, X Yand Z. Discussion, examples from literature.

Using the tool XYZ to get a better handle on stories, diagnostic tool. Analysis of stories.

Exercise: based on an opening of a literary short story, give us the payoff.

Homework: Writers' Notebook

SECTION 4-- CHARACTER, THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Week 8--Oct 13 Discussion of character and character traits.

Exercise: Give me a character in the language of objects, in the language of food and drink, in the language of weather, in the language of architecture

What is a protagonist? Definition from classical Greece. Necessity of the protagonist. A person who is capable of changing, of achieving change. Qualities of the antagonist. Character in story setup, the X in the equation. John Gardner's Three Dimensional Character grid. Character study--gesture, vocal quality, physical tags. The telling detail in physical description. Exercise: work from photographs.

Homework: Writers' Notebook, Portraits. Gestures, vocal quality, physical tags.

Week 9--October 20 Point Of View

Discussion of character and point of view. What is it we mean when we refer to a character's "spin," his or her "take." We read for the character's view of the world. We live in the body of the protagonist. Discussion of PERSON, first and third, and various viewpoints--authorial omniscient, braided story, unreliable narrator, etc. Literary examples. Possibilities for point of view. Diction. Exercise: adding 'spin'. Exercise: exploring PERSON/point of view.

Homework: Writers' Notebook, Portraits.

Week 10--October 27 The Dialogue Scene

Where all the plates spin. Conflict, scene, landscape, internal thoughts, spin, the sensual world all continue as character emits dialogue. What is stripped dialogue? what is a million dollar line. Discussion of examples of the handling of dialogue in literary sources.

Options of character responses in the dialogue scene. Exercise: Resuscitating the stripped dialogue scene. Exercise: Injecting conflict in the dialogue scene

The special case of the multiple character dialogue scene.

Examples from literature. Exercise: shaping a multiple character dialogue scene.

Homework: Writers' Notebook

Week 11--Nov 3 The Dialogue Scene, continued

Discussion and critique of dialogue scenes.

Problemsolving the dialogue scene.

Homework: Writers' Notebook

SECTION 5-- STYLE, THE ART OF THE SENTENCE

Week 12--Nov 17 The Building Blocks of Style

Word choice and sentence control, the essentials of style. Form and content. The sentence--the basic unit of writing.

Word choice. The necessity of vocabulary, acquisition of new vocabulary. The blow-me-away word. We see the world through vocabulary. Rhythm, poetic devices.

Sentence length, sentence control, variety of sentence construction. Breaking patterns. The long sentence. The sound of the sentence. Exercises: the long sentence,

sentence loading, sentence compression.

Homework: Writers' Notebook

Week 13--Nov. 24 Sentences of the Master Stylists.

Examples from Literature. Discussion of the Techniques. Exercises based on techniques of the great stylists including: control of sentence structure, irony, the hesitation waltz, use of high diction, self-contradiction, minimalism, etc.

Homework: Writers' Notebook

Week 14--Dec 1 Sentences of the Master Stylists continued.

Examples from Literature. Discussion of the Techniques of the great stylists.

Exercises based on techniques of the great stylists.

Homework: Writers' Notebook

Grading:

Grading will be done on the basis of periodic examinations demonstrating the acquisition of skills, and the level of craft and diligence demonstrated in the writer's notebooks.

The A is reserved for writers who show mastery of the skills as evidenced by exams and produce useable, detailed, deeply explored Writers Notebooks.

The A- goes to writers who shows a solid grasp of the skills as evidenced by exams and produce useable, detailed, deeply explored Writers Notebooks.

The B+ goes to writers who show steady acquisition of skills as evidenced by exams and a hearty application of effort in the creation of notebook work.

The B goes to writers whose examinations reveal a tenuous grasp of the skills and whose Writers Notebooks show a weaknesses of output, effort, usability or consideration.

The C represents a writer who has not understood or grasped the skills of the class, and whose writer's notebooks are not useable in creating fiction.

Breakdown in grading: 50% of the grade will be based on skills evidenced in examination; 50% of the grade will be based on the Writers' Notebooks.

Attendence:

The student is responsible for all class content, whether or not he or she was present.

Students are mutually interdependent and may be called upon to share notes with an absent student.

The instructor is to be informed ahead of time of any absences. Three absences is cause for a student to receive an automatic failing grade, especially if s/he has not been in timely communication with the instructor in relation to his/her absences.

A word on tardiness: The most important information in this class will always be presented first. A tardy student is likely to miss the very information for which he/she has taken the course. Students are responsible for all information, the lecture material will not be repeated. In small classes, tardiness is extremely disruptive.

Course Reading:

There is no required reading. However, there is the expectation that, while taking a graduate fiction course, the student is reading work of the highest quality, inspiring him or her to reach the top of his/her ability. This is not the time for recreational reading. It is strongly suggested that writers begin reading poetry, preferably aloud, and attend poetry readings, developing a sensitivity to the sound of words as well as their utilitarian side.

Communication:

Instructor is always available through e-mail: jfitch@.

Meetings can be easily arranged.

Statement for Students with Disabilities

Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.

Statement on Academic Integrity

USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A: . Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at:

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