Purpose. To provide writers of literary fiction stories with instruction and critiques to improve writing and storytelling skills. Memoir and creative nonfiction are not a part of the curriculum.
What to expect. You can work at your own pace. There are assignments designed to introduce you to common problems in writing literary fiction–and to stimulate you to create scenes and stories. 1. Complete an assignment. 2. Submit your work for comment. Comments will suggest ways to be more effective, without subjective value judgments on writing quality. There is an emphasis on storytelling–how to create dramatic meaningful and entertaining literary stories. Reference reading will be suggested as well as other assignment and exercises. 3. You can resubmit revisions for comment as often as you would like.
Comments. All comments are by William H. Coles, award-wining author of novels and short stories, extensive experience in more than eighty academic workshops, and educator with thirty-five years experience as professor in post graduate school, and international lecturer on literature, Georgian antiques, jazz, and surgery.
You are not required to critique other student’s work, and other students will not critique your work.
Cost. The workshop is FREE.
How to participate:
- 1) Assignments are posted periodically. (You can receive email alerts by RSS subscription, available on each page.) References are given. Rationale for completing the assignment presented. When appropriate, examples are given.
- 2) To participate, Submit your solution to the assignment.
- 3) A critique of your response will be posted. (You can see examples by reading assignments.)
- 4) Responses and critiques are saved with the assignments for future reference and study. Access is free and open to all. You are welcome to resubmit your work after revision too. There are two ways to submit: 1) work off line and paste the completed work in the box (note that you will not be able to access it for revision after you submit), 2) work online in the box, (but,remember, you will have to submit when you finish working on line or your work will be lost, and once submitted you will not be able to edit.
- 5) There is a word limitation that is different for each assignment. Only text with words under the word limit is accepted.
