Beginning, Middle, End, Beyond: Time and Narrative Structure in Fiction

Course Description

Summary

There are as many ways to tell a story as there are stories to tell — and, indeed, infinitely more than that. Do we, as Lewis Carroll’s King of Wonderland advises Alice, “Begin at the beginning . . . and go on till you come to the end: then stop”? Ought we draw up a traditional schematic, in the manner of the (in)famous Gustav Freytag, wherein an inciting incident leads to a climax and, finally, its dénouement? Dare we challenge that traditional structure, as Jane Alison does in her text Meander, Spiral, Explode? “Something that swells and tautens until climax, then collapses,” Alison writes skeptically: “Bit masculosexual, no?” In this craft intensive, we will study the shape of approximately two dozen stories, reading and deconstructing a wide variety of works of fiction to determine how they are put together both schematically and intuitively. Essays or excerpts from book-length works on craft will be assigned to supplement each week’s reading. Brief weekly creative assignments will afford students the opportunity to experiment with form and structure both in and outside of class. In the interest of experimenting with fresh structural approaches and embracing rigorous revision, final projects will consist of a significant restructuring of, expansion on — and, possibly, alchemical synthesis of — at least one, if not two or three, of the brief creative pieces produced in previous weeks.