CW901 Fiction Workshop 2

Convenor and Tutor: Dr Nell Stevens

Module aims

The main aims and objectives are to enable students to develop advanced writing skills in long fiction: the novella and novel forms. Students will have already completed 'Warwick Fiction Workshop (1)', and will continue to develop critical insights into contemporary literature and the processes of literary production. The module aims can be broken down as follows:

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The allure and impossibility of the novel form
Propulsive mechanisms (beginnings)
Direction and sustenance
Plottiness, meanderings and breadth
Character development and the insatiable desire for change
Narrative positions
Voice
The novel and the body
How to stick the landing (endings)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

By the end of the module the student should be able to: have deepened their practical and critical knowledge of the construction of longer fiction in terms of language, genre, form, narrative, character, dialogue and description, and furthered their understanding of representative examples by published writers.
demonstrate the development of their prose styles employed in constructing short stories to a higher standard in the novella or novel. Some understanding of the impact their work can have on an audience will also be achieved.
analyse writing sentence by sentence to see how each works in terms of meaning and voice;
reflect critically on the relationship between theory and practice in creative contexts;
understand the mental processes involved in creativity, and apply critical analysis to their own work.
some students will progress to become published authors. For other students, careers in TV, radio, print journalism and teaching will more accessible since these industries require and value people who can write well and expressively on a range of subjects. The final objective of the module will therefore be geared to familiarising students with the literary marketplace most suited to their needs and expertise, especially as applied of the student's own original fiction.

Indicative Reading List

Novels

Open City, Teju Cole
Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss
The Accidental, Ali Smith
Station Eleven, Emily St John Mandel
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong
Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters
The Friend, Sigrid Nunez
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk
Small Rain, Garth Greenwell
Trust, Hernan Diaz

Books on the practice of contemporary writing:
Lodge, David (ed.) Modern Criticism and Theory (Longman, 1988)
Bradbury, Malcolm, The Modern British Novel (Penguin, 1994)
Josipovici, Gabriel, The World and the Book: A Study of Modern Fiction (Macmillan, 1971)
Todd, Richard, Consuming Fictions: The Booker Prize and Fiction in Britain Today (Bloomsbury, 1996)
Walder, Dennis (ed.) Literature in the Modem World (Oxford University Press, 1990)
Saunders, George, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (Bloomsbury, 2021)