Creative Writing I - Intro Course

Course Goals

• 1. Gaining a basic understanding of literary history, from the ancient world to the present.
• 2. Learn linguistic and narrative devices
• 3. Learn various compositional theories
• 4. Gain a basic understanding of the complexities facing would-be authors when approaching publishers and agents.

Target group

Anyone already writing in English (or who would like start), as well as those writing in other languages who would like a new perspective on narrative and linguistic theory.

Skills needed

Participants should be relatively fluent in spoken and written English.

Topics covered:

• the relationship between fiction and non-fiction writing
• sound symbolism, lexicon, and grammar
• punctuation and sentence structures: meaningful syntax
• linguistic and narrative pacing
• modifiers: utilitarian versus poetic (how, when, why)
• narrative flow and mechanics: memories and flashbacks
• perspective, including shifting between
• tense, including shifting between
• dialogue and discourse analysis
• choreographing action

Course plan

The course is both practical and theoretical. About half our time is spent workshopping our texts, while the other half is spent discussing literary theory, linguistic techniques, writing strategies, and publishing trends. Some of the skills we cover are: syntax and sentence rhythm, poetic devices, descriptive language, phonetic effects, tense, and perspective. The course meets Monday evenings, 6-9:15 p.m. February 3 to to April 21. 

Literature

Essays (excerpts from): “The Philosophy of Composition”, by Edgar Allen Poe (1846), “Art as Technique” by Victor Shlovsky (1917), “Modern Fiction” by Virginia Woolf (1919), Styles of Radical Will by Susan Sontag. Fiction (excerpts from): A Christmas Carol and Bleak House by Charles Dickens, Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf, Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany, The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel by David Foster Wallace, The Room by Harold Pinter, Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam.

Teacher

Kevin Frato is an author and educator originally from Ohio, USA. He has published fiction and non-fiction with Natur och Kultur, Myrios novell förlag, X-Publishing, and Kabusa Böcker. He is the main-author of Natur och Kultur’s long-running Echo series of English readers (stories and non-fiction at the upper-secondary level), which has been reprinted yearly since 2013 and is now in its second edition, revised and with many new stories. He has also worked as a journalist in the US and Sweden, as well as a free-lance editor, voice-actor, proofreader, and translator.

Har du frågor?

Kontakta Folkuniversitetet i Stockholm

direkt@folkuniversitetet.se