How to Tell a Story

ENGLISH 191RW Subject & Catalog Number

Description

How to tell a story? How do writers discover character, imagine worlds, and shape narrative time? This open-enrollment creative writing course will focus on the cornerstones of storytelling. We will move through an expansive reading list—for there is no writing without reading—designed to showcase the many different shapes a story can take. Ask any writer why they became a writer, and they'll tell you that it's because they read. (Octavia Butler, who came from a poor family, once said that she became a writer because she had access to public libraries. Books, in other words; they showed her what was possible.) These conversations about “reading like a writer” will, in turn, inform the creative work you generate this semester: you will write your own stories, exploring different styles and literary techniques. You can expect to leave the course with a portfolio of creative work.