The Practice of Craft: Intro to Fiction

You have a story to tell—maybe you’ve ventured to write it down. But something falls short and you don't yet feel confident enough about technique to make it sing.

“Good prose fiction doesn’t write itself,” says instructor Andy Touhy. “And certainly it can’t move your readers to feel unless it’s crafted well. Your readers must be in good hands to hear the song."

In this five-week course, we’ll dive into the elements of fiction craft: characterization and character desire, patterns of conflict and plot, point of view, scene and summary, and more. Meetings will take the shape of lively conversation, in-class and out-of-class exercises, and the sharing of our work for discussion—all with a focus on understanding and practicing our use of these building blocks.

We’ll also read a host of published fiction for pleasure and guidance on effective choice-making when creating narrative.

“In the end,” Andy says, “my goal is for participants to gain the toolkit they need to read as writers, be more confident storytellers, and write moving fiction.”