Writing Experimental Fiction

WRITING X 413.12E

For writers familiar with traditional fiction writing, this course helps you learn innovative techniques for writing unconventional stories that invigorate your readers.

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What you can learn.

  • Learn how to bend the rules of fiction to discover new modes of storytelling
  • Develop an originality of vision that helps you intelligently evolve structure, character, and description
  • Read selections from inspiring writers and determine what techniques make them work

About this course:

Designed for writers well-versed in the elements of traditional literary fiction, this course focuses on creating a new generation of innovative fiction by showing you how to subvert every craft strategy and practice you've learned—and thereby opening up a vast number of bold and exciting directions your work can take. You learn to question conventional definitions of plot structure, character, use of language, placement of text on the page, and even how to construct your own author bio. Through this process, your own prose, mainstream or not, is infused with your own authentic voice and originality of vision, and by the end of the course, you have several pieces of experimental fiction, and if appropriate, you revisit and revise your own work. Readings include selections by masters of experimental fiction, including Italo Calvino and Kyle Muntz, and opportunities to engage with the experimental community and publications.

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Speak to a student advisor. Hours: Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm.
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