6 Thursdays, May 7-June 11, 1:30 – 3:30 PM
- OLLI at Duke
- Instructor: Shawna Ayoub
- shawna.ayoub@proton.me
Description:
Over the six-week course, we will explore the different types and forms of fiction and nonfiction. Our class sessions will cover where to find inspiration and ideas, the importance of craft and revision, and a brief look at the publishing industry. Writers will develop one- to three-page writing assignments weekly between sessions for group review. In-class prompts and discussions will aid in writers’ story development. Participation is key to success in this course, which is designed for writers at the beginning of their creative writing journey. Plan to bring writing materials (e.g., a laptop, pen/pencil, and paper) to each class session.
Recommended Texts:
Stephen King, On Writing
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
Margaret Schertzer, Elements of Grammar
William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, Elements of Style
Week One: It’s All In the Details
- What do we already know? Gauging experience with writing.
- Why are we here? Assessing goals.
- How do we find a story? How do we know it’s worth telling?
Prompt:
- Describe an object in the room
- Write the object into a different room
- Create a situation near or around the object. What is its role? How does the object affect or drive the story? Contributions?
The object can be the story, hold the story, drive the story, or be a prop. In moving it, we are forced to create a context and answer questions of why it is there or why the reader is there. Characters and setting evolve naturally.
The basis of all good stories is the universal element, and that is achieved through specificity of detail. A common misconception is that “general” equals “relatable”. That’s the difference between knowing what someone is talking about and experiencing it. We want our readers to experience what we are sharing.
In other words, the storyteller’s job is to weave the reader into an experience.
Prompts
- Pick a moment from your own life and outline it
- Choose another moment and list parallel aspects
- What are the shared truths?
From here, you may be able to use the structure or overarching theme of one moment to contain the other, or a grand metaphor may be derived to embed one or both experiences.
Homework: Develop your prompt from class into a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Aim for 500 words. Read “Thank You, Ma’am” by Langston Hughes.
Week Two: Character and Plot and Person
- Lead up exercise are people-watching and character development through observing and recording eccentricities
- Review of first, second and third person narration. What is an omniscient narrator? Provide handout. Touch on voice.
- What makes a compelling character? What makes a person interesting? We are complicated. Think of anyone you know. Every person is full of contradictions. What are some of your own contradictions?
- How do people come together? How do people fall apart?
The above questions are most often what plots a story.
When we think about plot, it’s just like making a party invitation. We ask and answer: Who? What? Where? When? Why? What should I bring? What makes the story land is the detail included about person, place, and thing. What makes the story zing are the word choices.
Prompts
1. Throw a party. Answer the W’s of a party you have been to or a party you imagine throwing.
- What happen/ed/s at this party? Show one scene.
- Who is the most important character? How do we know?
2. Opposite Sex
- Consider a part of your normal routine. Write your routine from a man’s POV. Use first person. Try to embody your opposite sex and experience the routine differently as they would. Remember the details.
Homework: Develop your prompt from class into a story with a beginning, middle and end. Aim for 500 words. “Read “Brownies” by ZZ Packer.
Week Three: Dialogue and Details
Using two characters from your party, write a conversation. Really try to hear your characters as they speak. Does either have an accent? Does it affect their word choices? What are they talking about? What can we learn about who they are through what they are saying? Is a conflict taking place? Does it relate to (or is it) the crisis of your story? Consider what the conversation is adding to your piece.
Voice and detail play a role in dialogue. As a writer, you will continue to develop your own voice. There is a cadence to your word choices, sentence structure, thought flow and themes. The more you write, the more this will become apparent.
Your characters are not you. It follows that they will have different voices than you. A narrator is a character, as we said, and the narrator’s voice is also different from yours with the exception of a personal narrative. In that case, it’s you all the way.
Prompt:
Write a two-person dialogue.
Add in someone who was eavesdropping. Have them interrupt to add their own thoughts. What do they say?
What are some ways you could change the person in your scene?
Choose one character and write their perspective from third person on the topic of the conversation.
Now write it in first person.
Finally, create a request in the second person.
Homework: Develop your prompt from class into a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Aim for 500 words. Read “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson.
Week Four: Setting and Pacing
Before class: Take a walk outside for 20 minutes. Make notes on what you observe. Use all your senses. Get curious about what is around you. Imagine you are someone else. How would they observe this place/moment? What is happening in the background? Does anything in your life parallel what you are seeing/experiencing?
Write in class and discuss pacing, setting, and sentence structure in “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem”
Homework: Develop your prompt from class into a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Aim for 500 words. Read “Understanding Story Theme: What It Is and Isn’t” by Tammy Burke and “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf.
Week Five: Theme and Voice
Before Class: List six topics that call you to the page or that you find yourself writing about regardless of desire.
Prompts:
Use one of your topics to create a shell/structure for sharing the other.
How do these topics correspond?
How can you apply them to an external observation?
Discussion:
Challenging world view by writing outside ourselves or about what we observe. How do our themes affect our voice?
Bring copies of one developed piece to pass out. All writers will review and make discussion notes on each classmates’ work. We will have opportunities to share opportunities and highlight what we loved in each person’s writing.
Week Six
Group Workshop Day
Ongoing projects—outline and create an action plan.