Aims of the course:
- To introduce students to the art of short story writing
- To foster an understanding of various subgenres of the short story, through guided reading and interpretive commentary
- To encourage and guide students' own experiments with the form through practical writing exercises
Learning outcomes
As a result of the course, within the constraints of the time available, students should be able to:
- understand how a short story ‘works’;
- appreciate the variety of techniques and strategies available to the short story writer;
- apply their awareness of the above to their own writing.
Course content overview:
- This course will begin with a consideration of what makes a short story - apart from its length - a distinct genre, introducing the elements which combine to produce the short story's unique effect.
- Each week will focus on a particular short story (with reference to others) by one of the genre's key exponents, to illustrate developments and variations in the genre. The story will also be used to demonstrate a technical aspect of short story writing.
- Students will discover how writers achieve certain effects and be encouraged to appropriate and experiment with these techniques in their own original writing.
Schedule (this course is completed entirely online):
Orientation Week: 12-18 April 2021
By studying this week the students should have:
- Become familiar with navigating around the VLE and from VLE to links and back
- Tested their ability to access files and the web conferencing software and sorted out any problems with the help of the eLearning team
- Investigated the ICE Online Resources repository
- Learnt how to look for, assess and reference internet resources
- Used Qmail to introduce themselves to other students
- Contributed to a discussion forum to introduce themselves to other students and discuss why they are interested in the course, what they hope to get out their studies and also to respond to News item sent out on behalf of tutor
Teaching Weeks: 19 April - 16 May 2021
Week 1 What is a short story?
This week is devoted to a consideration of what makes the short story a distinct genre. While there are no rules which apply uniformly to all short stories there are many characteristics commonly found. Students will be encouraged to see the usefulness of these to making their own writing more effective.
By studying this week the students should have:
- An awareness of the basic literary nuts and bolts that make up the short story
- An ability to detect writers’ deployment of these
- A sense of how they might make use of these elements in their own writing
Week 2 Plot
This week we get to grips with the ‘event-plot’ story, concentrating on how the key events of a story are identified and organised. We will look at simple forms such as ‘puzzle/key/revelation’, ‘problem/pivotal moment/resolution’ and move on to more complex forms and experiment with these.
By studying this week the students should have:
- An understanding of where, in the wider story, the short story begins
- An appreciation of useful plot devices
- A sense of how they can control their own stories’ direction
Week 3 Anti-plot
This week we look at the other dominant type of short story: the Chekhovian, ‘formless’ or ‘slice of life’ story. Not all stories have to have a plot but they do have to have a point. We will look at how a story can have meaning without a conventional structure.
By studying this week the students should have:
- An awareness of Chekhov’s key innovations and influence on the genre
- An understanding of how rejecting conventional plotting can make writing feel more realistic
- A sense of how they can use a pivotal moment to tell a wider story
Week 4 Characterisation
This week we look at how to make characters come alive. We observe the effectiveness of the strategy of ‘show; don’t tell’ and consider how characters reveal themselves by dialogue and action. While this is a requisite of fiction in general, we will find out how short story writers create characters with particular economy.
By studying this week the students should have:
- An understanding of how realistic and three-dimensional characters are achieved in short form fiction
- A sense of how they can create believable characters in their own writing
Week 5 Narrative voice and style
This week covers creating a voice with which to tell a short story. It addresses the relative merits of first- and third-person storytelling, the effect of tense, and asks what the storyteller knows. It also addresses how to create pace, tension, emotion and drama, and deciding where your story should end.
By studying this week the students should have:
- An awareness of the effect of the narrative voice and the means by which this is achieved
- An understanding of how the reader connects with the narrative voice
- A sense of how they can discover a voice appropriate for their story
Feedback Week: 17-23 May 2021
Each week of an online course is roughly equivalent to 2-3 hours of classroom time. On top of this, participants should expect to spend roughly 2-3 hours reading material, etc., although this will vary from person to person.
While they have a specific start and end date and will follow a weekly schedule (for example, week 1 will cover topic A, week 2 will cover topic B), our tutor-led online courses are designed to be flexible and as such would normally not require participants to be online for a specific day of the week or time of the day.
There are no live web seminars as part of this course, partly due to the difficulty of delivering that at a time which would suit students all over the world in different time zones. The teaching is delivered in videos and reading materials, but the tutor is ‘present’ throughout the course, responding to students’ work every week. Students are encouraged to post writing (which is in response to suggested exercises) every week, and they are also encouraged to respond constructively to each other’s work. The tutor will identify what works well in a student’s writing and suggest strategies for improving it. The general atmosphere of the course is one of collective endeavour, trust and support.
Unless otherwise stated, all course material will be posted on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) so that they can be accessed at any time throughout the duration of the course and interaction with your tutor and fellow participants will take place through a variety of different ways which will allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning (discussion boards,etc).
A Certificate of Participation will be awarded to participants who contribute constructively to weekly discussions and exercises/assignments for the duration of the course.
What our students say
“The content greatly exceeded my expectations. It had clearly been well thought out, and the format tested over time… I was given activities and choices that could and did stretch me and develop me as an aspiring writer.”
“The tutor had a genuine, personal interest in the course and me and my fellow students.”
“Sarah is excellent in giving guidance and advice, both practical and creative.”
