A foundational, process-based course for creative writing majors in the craft, tools, and techniques of three genres: fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students will compose works of their own informed by traditional and contemporary models. Instructors may place special emphasis on the genre of their primary field.

Texts

• Turning Life into Fiction, Robin Hemley (ISBN: 978-1555974442)
• Brevity, David Galef (ISBN: 978-0231179690)
• Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories, Editors: James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka (ISBN: 978-0393308839)
• A Short Stay in Hell, Steven Peck (ISBN: 978-0983748427)

Other Materials

A bound writer’s notebook (about 5x8 in). I’ll call this your Life Book, and for the semester it will be the receptacle of all your thoughts, bombasts, rants, musings, errands, notes, lists, story ideas, observations, etc. At the end of the semester, you will submit portions of this book for points.

• Students will demonstrate an understanding of various forms and structures of fiction, and a familiarity with a variety of professional writers’ styles and voices in fiction in order to develop their own individual styles. (AI, QUACS, WLT)
• Students will become familiar with and practice the elements of fiction: character, point of view, narrative structure, imagery, symbol, diction, and theme. (AI, WLT, Writing Exercises)
• Students will demonstrate the habit of consistent writing. (Writing Log)
• Students will demonstrate the application and practice of fiction craft and aesthetics in their writing. (WLT, Writing Exercises)
• Students will demonstrate knowledge of editing and revision techniques, the world of publishing, and other career-related aspects of writing. (My Pathway to Revision, Submission Letter)
• Students will produce an extended work of fiction. (Short Story)

3 Flash Fiction Stories, Each No Longer Than 1,000 Words

The first two will be graded initially on completeness and whether they’re turned in on time, and the third will be a new story for your final portfolio. Late drafts and half-finished drafts will not receive full credit.

Flash Fiction Story Requirements:

• A story written for this class.
• A story between about 500 and 1,000 words.
• High stakes, consequence, collisions, and conflict: death, love, hate, infidelity, murder, broken hearts, doubt, faking it, disillusionment, environmental destruction, growing up, getting old, etc., etc.
• A story that emerges from something personal in your life, from your deeper self, from a place of vulnerability. Without these, your story will lack personal investment and feel devoid of life.
• A story that grapples with an existential mystery, a human reality, a story that asks hard questions about the human experience.
• An interesting perspective, a new angle.
• Deep characterization: a character who desires something and eventually experiences a change and/or realization
• A small cast of complex characters, like two or three people. Center the gravity of the story in two people.
• The story must be told chronologically, with no flashbacks.
• Stands alone as an independent work and not a section or chapter of a larger work.
• Set in the contemporary world
• No speculative or generic elements. No dragons, fairies, witches, magic, ghosts, or talking wolves. Learn to tell a story first before you enter the realm of genre writing.

Readings

I expect you to buy the class texts and come prepared to each class session having done the readings. In a small class, the unprepared are readily recognized. Consistent lack of intelligent preparation tells the professor you are not very interested in or committed to the class. I don’t hesitate to elicit your responses by calling on people. A portion of your grade depends on your preparation and insights.

AIs

AI stands for awesome ideas. For each reading assignment from Burroway, Hemley, or Galef, identify two direct quotations from the chapter that resonate with you and then write a two to three sentence explanation about why these quotations resonated with you. Upload these to Canvas by the beginning of class. AIs are worth four points.

QUACS

More on these below. Basically, the QUACS is a reading framework you’ll apply to the short stories we read and discuss for this class. QUACS are worth six points and are due by the beginning of class.

Writing Log Time (WLT)

For the entirety of this course, I will treat you as writers, and I expect you to think of yourselves as writers and act like writers. As such, you must develop writerly habits, one of which is devoting a certain number of hours each week to your own writing. For our fourteen weeks together, I expect you to devote two hours a week to writing, for a total of twenty-eight hours by the end of the semester. You will keep a writing log (included at the end of this syllabus) of when you write and what you work on. Keep a broad perspective of what “writing” is. Writing might be scribbling some notes about a character, writing a poem that focuses on an image you might want to use, or writing about an experience from your life you might use in your flash fiction. This should also be an opportunity for you to apply the concepts and techniques you learn in class to the short story you’re writing. You will submit this writing log at the end of the semester. (Point Warning!!! This is a significant part of your grade! Be aware and don’t neglect this assignment.)

Cultural Events

This semester, you must attend two campus cultural events. After attending an event, you’ll write a short paragraph on what ideas you found interesting and what you learned that might help you become a better writer. Cultural events might be a play, a museum visit, film, an art exhibit, etc. One of these cultural events, depending on the semester, might be a visiting writer.

Final Portfolio

For your final assignment, you will turn in a portfolio with your best work. I will grade these pieces on your efforts to revise them and on overall quality. More on the portfolio later.

Grade Breakdown (Approximate)

The Nasty Business of Grades

I will grade your assignments on labor, completion, and thoughtfulness. Your work, I believe, must reflect an investment of time and energy; otherwise, I will not accept it. If this happens, I will provide a reason why I won’t accept the work and allow you the opportunity to revise. However, there are some assignments due at the end of the semester, like the final portfolio, attendance/participation points, cultural events, and the writing log, that I will not allow you to revise—you either did them or you didn’t.

As for your final portfolio, I will provide a grade based on your application of what you’ve learned in the course to a new piece of flash fiction and on your thorough revision of one piece of flash fiction. Again, I’m looking for labor, completion, and thoughtfulness. Not revising will result in a lower score. One last point about the portfolio: invest time and energy, take imaginative and creative leaps, but please provide work free of spelling, punctuation, grammar, and mechanical errors. For me, this is an issue of courtesy. Utilize the Writing Center and friends and family to check your work for these errors. On your final drafts in the portfolio, I will dock a point for each spelling, punctuation, grammar, and mechanical error, up to fifteen points for each story. It’s that important to me!

QUACS: Responses to Readings

One skill we’ll be working on developing this semester is metacognitive awareness, which is a fancy way of saying “noticing what you’re noticing.” Rather than just letting a text wash over us while we read, we want to pay attention to precisely how we experience that text. What parts leave us confused? Which passages are particularly beautiful, and what characteristics of the text make us feel that beauty? Making notations on the page (underlining, jotting notes) while we read is one good way of practicing metacognitive awareness. Another is keeping a reading journal, wherein we can reflect on the text at more length than in our on-the-page notations but at less length than we would in a full essay. QUACS are worth six points, and, to avoid late penalties, must be uploaded to Canvas before the beginning of class.

For this course, you will produce reading responses to our texts. Each response should be between 250 to 350 words long, or so, and be single-spaced. Rather than focusing on length, though, you should concentrate on adequately responding to each of the following:

Questions: First, present at least two questions (or sets of interrelated questions) that you have about things that come up in the text. Your questions might be big-picture theoretical or critical questions about ideas, concepts, or themes, or they may relate aspects of the text to another text or idea we have read or discussed in class (or that you have encountered elsewhere). You might ask one or more close-reading questions that focus on something curious or confusing that is happening in the language of the text. Or, you might ask a question that seeks to clarify or better understand something that is happening in the narrative, with a character, or with a situation. (Feel free to ask a variety of kinds of questions. Your questions do not have to be related to one another. You do not need to answer your questions.)

Understanding/Analysis: In this section, you will quote something small from the text—a line, a sentence, a keyword—and provide a close-reading of it. The close reading can be used to argue a particular point, or it can be a series of detailed observations about the text that could lead to an interesting discussion.

Comment: Assert an opinion or personal response to the text—to anything in the text that strikes you, moves you, delights you, bothers you, interests YOU—emotionally, culturally, politically, aesthetically, thematically, stylistically.… I think of this as the “book club response” portion of the QUACS, because it’s a chance for you to share gut feelings about and reactions to—rather than analysis of—the text.

“Steal”: Steal isn’t the right word, but it will do. For this section, find an idea, technique, theme, scenario, conflict, etc. you might want to use from the text and incorporate into your imaginative writing.

How I grade QUACS:

• -2 points: Two questions
• -1 point: A direct quotation from the story
• -1 point: Your thoughtful analysis and understanding of that quotation
• -1 point: A thoughtful comment
• -1 point: Something from the next you’d like to “steal”: borrow, imitate, etc.

Total point possible: 6

Writing Log

Total Hours: _____________ (add “time writing” or I will deduct twenty-five points)

Tentative Schedule (subject to revision)

Late Work

I will penalize late work up to twenty percent. After a week, I will no longer accept it.

There is a twenty to twenty-five percent penalty for late work. If an assignment is more than a week late, I will not accept it—unless there are extenuating circumstances. I also reserve the right not to comment on late work. If you’re ill and believe you won’t meet an assignment deadline, please speak with me before the due date.

Email

Often, I will send important information to the class via email, so make sure your email is set to receive notifications from Canvas. On weekdays, I will respond to your emails within twenty-four hours. After 4:00 pm on Fridays, I won’t respond to emails until Monday morning.

Technology

No texting during class, no surfing the Internet. To eliminate paper waste, I will often ask in class that you access your assignments on Canvas via your phone or laptop so you can share them. If you finish an in-class writing assignment, work on your Writing Log rather than texting.

Zoom

There will be no live stream or recordings of classes. All course materials will be posted to Canvas “Files.” If you need to request academic adjustments or accommodations, contact SUU’s Disability Resource Center.

AI

The use of websites or services that sell or generate essays and creative work (including Artificial Intelligence) is a violation of these policies; likewise, the use of websites or services that provide answers to assignments, quizzes, or tests is also a violation of these policies.

Attendance/Participation: It’s no secret (and a well-researched fact) that students who come to class learn more, perform better, and score higher. I will allow two excused absences, no questions asked. For each unexcused absence after two, I will dock five points from your final attendance/participation grade. Also, please note that when you are absent you may miss a quiz or an in-class writing assignment, or both. These cannot be made up. If you are having a problem attending class, please talk to me. Each tardy will be a two-point reduction from your attendance/participation grade.

For a creative writing class to usefully improve your abilities, you must be willing to participate, accept criticism, give a helping hand to your peers, turn in your work for evaluation, and work hard. Your attitude and contributions will affect your final grade.

To provide the best possible educational experience for you, I will do my best to follow this syllabus, but I reserve the right to make changes to it if necessary.