Seminar
in the Writing of Fiction: ENGL 309/609:
Spring 2005
Instructor:Robert
Love Taylor
Office: Carnegie 201
Hours: To be determined
email:rtaylor@bucknell.edu
An
advanced course in the writing of literary fiction, this seminar should
help you to expand and strengthen an already emergent sense of craft.
By the end of the semester, your characters should become more complex,
your descriptive language more resonant, your plots more subtle. The
process of composition itself, including thoroughgoing revision, should
become increasingly gratifying, important to your sense of who you are
or might become.
Course Requirements
- Preliminary
exercises in description, action, and dialogue (to be assigned on
first class meeting).
- Four short stories, the last of which will consist of a
substantial
revision of one of the earlier stories. The stories should be set in
the present or recognizable past, with a main character who is not made
to die in the end. Manuscripts not adequately proofread (more than four
errors on the first page) will be ineligible for workshop discussions.
Minimum Lengths: First story: 2500 words; Second: 3000 words; Third:
3500 words; Fourth: 4000 words.
- Brief (about 200
words each) written responses to stories handed in for workshop
discussion, due on the day the stories are scheduled to be discussed.
Bring two copies of each response, one to be given to the writer of the
story, the other to the instructor.
- Oral
reports & discussion leading responsibilities: At least twice, you
will present a brief (about ten minutes), informal response to a story
from our anthology. Following your report, you should be prepared to
lead a discussion of the story.
- Conferences with the
instructor should be scheduled two weeks before each of your stories is
due. Bring a fairly detailed prospectus or the first page or two of the
story.
- Keep a loose-leaf journal in which you record
your thoughts about writing fiction. Entries should be made three or
four times a week at a minimum. You are developing your own theories
about sources of fiction as well as what distinguishes a good story
from a less successful one. Journals will be collected weekly during
the semester and with the final portfolio.
WORK
TURNED IN LATE WILL BE INELIGIBLE FOR WORKSHOP DISCUSSION. ONE DAY
LATE: THREE-QUARTERS CREDIT; TWO DAYS: HALF CREDIT; THREE DAYS:
ONE-QUARTER CREDIT; FOUR DAYS: NO CREDIT.
ALL
EXERCISES, STORIES, AND CRITIQUES MUST BE SINGLE-SPACED.
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