ENGL 237/8/9 - Writing Fiction I / II / III | Summer 2017

INSTRUCTOR: Dan Tremaglio CLASS TIMES: M-Th 11:30-1:20 EMAIL: [email protected], but messaging me through Canvas is better OFFICE: R230 HOURS: By appointment

THE LIE THAT TELLS THE TRUTH

That’s what Albert Camus called fiction. Like most writers, he’s being both ironic and sincere at the same time. By lie, he means a story unconstrained by fact. By fiction, he means storytelling, the oldest and original art form, which exists at the confluence of art, history, religion, politics, myth, and science. Fiction is about what it means to be human. Fiction is about meaning itself.

FIRST, SOME BACKGROUND ABOUT ME, YOUR INSTRUCTOR, BY WAY OF WESTWORLD

Ever watch the HBO show Westworld? If not, think Jurassic Park (also by Michael Crichton) except instead of dinosaurs, you’ve got cowboy robots. Don’t worry, it’s much smarter than it sounds.

Westworld is all about stories, layers upon layers of them. There’s the story of show called Westworld, the story of the theme park called Westworld, the stories of the robots that populate that park, the stories of the characters who build the robots, plus the stories of the park visitors who pay big money to kill and/or kiss the robots.

In a very real sense, we ARE the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. This is especially true in Westworld where park designers must create the personality of each artificially intelligent robot. This is the most fascinating part of the show, how programmers give each robot a collection of memories and a narrative that weaves them all together. These robots are no more or less than the sum of their stories. To the creators of Westworld, storytelling and consciousness are one and the same.

There’s a concept that comes up often on the show called the bicameral mind. According to this theory, human beings did not always have the consciousness we think we have today, which is to say a consciousness that’s conscious of its own consciousness. This final development, according to the theory, took place some 3,000 years ago. Before then, the mind was made up of two separate and distinct parts (hence “bicameral”). One part dealt with sensory and motor functions, while the other was a voice that told the first part what to do. Proponents of the bicameral mind theory argue that ancient humans believed the inner voice we think of today as consciousness was actually the voice of the gods giving them orders. So what catalyzed the shift? In short:

Literature.

This is the super-simplified version, but yes: with the spread of written-down stories came a new universal awareness about what happens inside all our heads, a new consciousness of consciousness.

Now, the big question: do I believe this theory is scientifically true? To be totally honest, I’m leaning towards probably not, but that’s beside the point. We are inside the realm of storytelling now, inside the realm of fiction, and here, when I listen to this story about the bicameral mind and the spread of literature, I recognize a metaphor for my own adolescence writ large.

Time now for a humiliating confession…

When I was young, say eight or nine years old, I genuinely suspected I was the only person in the world who actually thought. Sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. It’s not that I believed I was only person with a brain or the only person with ideas, it’s just that this constant chatter we have inside our heads every hour of every day, this never ending stream of nonsense and self doubt and longing and conjecture—I truly suspected I was the only person afflicted by it. I wasn’t sure it meant there was something wrong with me, but I definitely suspected there was at least something different.

In other words, I was kind of like the bicameral man. I didn’t know what to think of what I thought.

Then the same thing that supposedly happened to all humans 3,000 years ago happened to me. I started reading. A lot. Especially fiction. Across the pages of novels I suddenly recognized the same made-up imaginative fancy I heard inside my head all day long. The fact that none of it really happened did not matter anymore. It was art. It was meaning making.

This is the kind of stuff I talk about when I talk about fiction. It’s what I’m looking forward to talking with you about it all quarter long.

WELCOME TO WORKSHOP

2 That’s how I’ll always refer to class, otherwise known as Writing Fiction 237/8/9. It’s an easy course to summarize. We’re going to sit around and talk about how to make made-up stories feel like they aren’t made up.

Generally speaking, we’ll follow the traditional Iowa workshop format, which means we’ll sit in a circle and together dissect a piece of fiction that’s been written either by a member of the class or an author of renown, the idea being to make the former sound more like the latter.

Now is probably as good a time as ever to tell you I don’t plan to teach you anything. Fiction is an art and art is intuitive, meaning you must teach yourself. Part of teaching yourself anything means knowing what you don’t know and seeking out someone who does. That’s why we’re here. When we sit in a circle, look around. Everyone here knows something you don’t. Everyone here is great at something you’re terrible at. This is the beauty of workshop. Everyone at the perimeter tosses what they’ve got into the middle where it becomes ripe for the taking.

OFFICIAL COURSE OUTCOMES

After completing this class, students should be able to:

 Distinguish between plot and story  Show, rather than tell, by using specific details, naming nouns and strong, active verbs  Develop scenes  Create believable characters through description, action, scene, and dialogue  Establish and sustain a point of view  Create and sustain tension  Control sentence structure, length and word choice to create a particular tone and mood  Critique, revise, and edit works in progress

MY PERSONAL COURSE OUTCOMES

EMPATHY – people who read fiction have been demonstrated in controlled laboratory experiments to be more empathetic than people who do not. If one takes the time to consider what a made up character is feeling, how much easier it is to do the same for a real person.

FAMILIARITY WITH THE WORKSHOP FORMAT – We’re more or less going to be applying the traditional Iowa-style workshop model here: a writer provides the class with a story, the class reads the story, then discusses it’s craft in detail for

3 somewhere between 40 minutes and an hour. This is the backbone of every creative writing program at any school in the country. It’s an art form unto itself. Those of you who are enrolled in this course as 238 or 239 have already encountered it. For the rest, I hope this course is a fit introduction.

A DIMINISHED FEAR OF FAILURE – I wrote “A Fearlessness of Failure” first, but then realized how ridiculous that is, so I went for “A Diminishment” instead. Donald Barthelme put it best when he said:

"Let me point out, if it has escaped your notice, that what an artist does is fail. Any reading of literature, however summary, will persuade you instantly that the paradigmatic artistic experience is that of failure. The actualization fails to meet, to equal, the intuition. There is always something ‘out there’ which cannot be brought ‘here.’ This is standard. I don’t mean bad artists, I mean good artists. There is no such thing as a ‘successful artist’ (except, of course, in worldly terms).”

I do not expect us to get over our fear of failure in the next 7 weeks, but I do hope we begin to see it as part of the artist’s journey.

ENJOYMENT – this is supposed to be fun. Fun can be interpreted broadly, of course, but the point of literature, the point of art in general, is to make life more livable, to make it more meaningful and less lonely, to bring it joy.

A BROADENING OF TASTE – this might be the single biggest thing I gained from my own graduate study in fiction. I went into that program with a very specific taste about what great fiction looked liked which I had cultivated and taught myself to defend with rigorous inflexible opinions. Wrong! One of the greatest gifts of reading and writing fiction is the opportunity to step inside the shoes of someone completely different from ourselves, someone with totally different experiences, attitudes, perspectives, tastes.

WHAT WE’LL DO TO HIT THESE OUTCOMES

Here’s the course in a nutshell: everybody is going to write three short stories, mark the hell out of everybody else’s work, and talk a lot at least halfway civilly in workshop.

THE SHORT STORIES: POST-GENRE, ANYONE?

We’ll have a special focus this quarter and that special focus will be “post-genre.”

Other names for this concept include genre-bending, magic realism, slipstream, speculative, and a big pile of others.

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My personal definition: post-genre is any work of fiction that borrows tropes from genre fiction while maintaining the heart of literary fiction. Another way to say it: a post-genre story is fantastical AND literary at the same time.

Thus, in pursuit of this post-genre thing, we will write three short stories this quarter. The first story will be genre, the second literary, the third post-genre.

Your first two stories will be workshopped by the whole class. The third will be due at the end of the quarter and count as your final.

Note: everybody’s story is due at the same time regardless of when your piece will be workshopped.

RE: FORMATTING STORIES

Stories must be at least 1,000 words and no more than 3,000. Stick to standard manuscript dimensions: 12 point font and DOUBLE-SPACED. This is really, really important. ALL STORIES MUST BE DOUBLE-SPACED! There will be no room for line comments otherwise!

Stories should also have one-inch margins all around and please, please, please, please NUMBER YOUR PAGES! Also put your last name in the header on every page after page 1.

Also very, very important: please label your file names like this: FirstnameLastinitial_STORYNAME.doc.

Like this: ErnestH_THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.doc., or BillyS_HAMLET

Use either .doc, .docx, or .pdf. formats. No .pages or .rtf, please! Canvas doesn’t like them.

Here are a couple common questions: Can I submit the first 3,000 words of a longer short story or of the novel I’m working on?

Short answer: Sure.

Long answer: I gently encourage you to try to submit a COMPLETE short story that falls within the word count window. I say this as someone who has workshopped novel excepts in almost every single undergrad and graduate writing course I’ve been in. It works fine, just not as great as it could. Workshop readers are a hundred times more helpful when they have a complete product in front of them. If you do indeed decide to opt for an excerpt, please be sure to tell us as much with a note at the top.

5 Another common question: Can I submit a story I wrote for another class?

Short answer: Yeah.

Long answer: You’re the best writer today that you’ve ever been. If you decide you want to use a story you’ve written before this course, I say hey, it’s your rodeo, do what you want. Just make sure it’s your best work. Also, let me submit for your consideration Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in any field. For writers, I say it takes 10,000 pages (notebook pages count too). Chances are you’ll become a master faster if you give us something hot off the presses. It’s totally up to you though.

COMMENTS ON CLASSMATES’ STORIES

This is where a lot of the heavy-lifting takes place. You’re going to download, read, and comment on all your classmates’ stories. Once formal workshop begins, we’ll be workshopping two stories per class. For each story, you must accomplish four things BEFORE COMING TO CLASS. They are:

1.) Print out your classmate’s story. 2.) Read the story TWICE. This is required. Though we try, it’s impossible to be a good reader AND editor at the same time. To do both well, it is crucial to read each story AT LEAST a couple of times, first as a reader, then as an editor. 3.) While reading the story for a second time, make copious margin notes. What’s smart, funny, poetic, horrifying, eloquent? What’s confusing, unclear, inconsistent, tedious, grammatically flawed? To get credit, you must make at the very very least TWO COMMENTS PER PAGE. 4.) At the end of the story, write a brief letter, say 100-200 words, to the author, saying what was cool, what needs work, any questions you might have, plus where you hope to see the story go. Don’t forget to SIGN your letter. (Manners, right?) If you’re handwriting is anything like mine, you might want to type this out and staple it to the front or back of the story.

After each workshop, you’ll hand your marked-up manuscripts in to me and I will grade your comments on a pass/fail basis before giving them back to the author the next class. These peer critiques constitute 40 points of your final grade.

REQUIRED MATERIALS

The Best Small Fictions 2015, Guest Edited by Robert Olen Butler Paper A pen/cil Access to the internet and a printer.

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GRADING

Here’s the breakdown of the assignments and their worth. This course is designed on a 120-point scale.

Short Story #1 = 20 points Short Story #2 = 20 points Short Story #3 = 20 points Comments on Stories = 40 points Participation/Attendance = 20 points

Total: 120 points

ATTENDANCE & PARTICIPATION

This course meets only 26 times. That’s crazy brief. Attendance is therefore compulsory. I allow 2 absences without penalty. After that, you lose 2 points off your participation grade for every miss.

The same formula applies to being late. You get 2 free lates without penalty. After that, you get half credit for every class you are late to.

Workshop is one hundred percent based on participation. Everyone is expected to speak AT THE VERY LEAST ONCE for each story we discuss. Don’t worry, you don’t need to soliloquize or pontificate to get credit. Comments can be simple, so long as they are thoughtful and courteous. Not saying a single word is no different from an absence.

GRADES FOR STORIES

Everyone knows art is a subjective business. And yet subjective doesn’t mean arbitrary. The Pulitzer Prize isn’t awarded by lottery. That being said, I find the idea of attributing a numerical value to a work of fiction dubious at best. But the world we live in being such, grades matter, and so we must consider them.

In general I try to grade on a grad school scale, which basically means A’s and B’s. Here’s what each tier means to me:

100% (20/20) - Rapturous. Magnificent. If I had no conscience I would steal this story, write my own name across the top and submit it to the New Yorker. In other words, this is not only publishable right now but exceptional.

7 97.5% (19.5/20) - Very impressive. The piece has obviously gone through several drafts, is coherent and free of kinks and ready to submit to journals and magazines.

95% (19/20) - Really good. The work has a fine overall shape with only minimal glitches and is about one rewrite away from being called done ready to submit for publication.

92.5% (18.5/20) - Nice job. Fun stuff with a just few issues here and there. I’d say it’s two rewrites away from being ready to send out.

90% (18/20) - Good. This is fun, inspired work in middle- to late-stages of development.

87.5% (17.5/20) - Solid start. There’s still some visionary work to be done, also some editing, but it’s on its way.

85% (17/20) - Just about good. Has some problematic stretches but effective parts too.

82.5% (16.5/20) - OK

80% (16/20) - Meh. You probably could’ve done better.

77.5 – 70% (15.5/20 – 14/20) - An obvious rush job.

67.5 – 60% (13.5/20 – 12/20) - The gentleman’s ‘F’. You just handed in a pile of whatever to avoid a zero.

0% (0/20) - You didn’t hand anything in.

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