First-Year Studies: Exploring Subject Matter in Fiction

How do we, as writers, take our lived experiences and transform them into fiction? The novelist Janet Frame observed, “Putting it all down as it happens is not fiction; there must be the journey by oneself, the changing of the light focused upon the material, the willingness of the author herself to live within that light, that city of reflections governed by different laws, materials, currency.” Through weekly writing assignments and exercises, we will begin the journey into this softly lit territory of subject matter, asking questions along the way that will hopefully expand our grasp of the craft of fiction: What makes a story a story? What is the difference between showing and telling? Do we write what we know or what we don’t know? Class will be divided between the discussion of student stories and of published authors such as Nikolai Gogol, Flannery O’Connor, Cornelius Eady, George Saunders, Edward P. Jones, Alison Bechdel, and Alice Munro. Students will explore an author in depth for conference work and will be required to attend at least two campus readings per semester. This workshop will also focus on developing the art of the critique—which, developed over time and in a supportive and open-minded atmosphere, will ultimately help us better understand the workings of our own creative writing.