LW414 Why Novels Now? Create Your Own Long-Form Fiction 3CR

Why Novels Now? Create Your Own Long-Form Fiction, an LALW Summative Elective, is designed for upper-level students with an active interest in the longer forms of fiction, especially those who are completing the Creative Writing Minor. Why Novels Now? is a defense of the need for leisurely literature in our electronically-rushed world; it is both an inspection of the history and future of novels and a craft class in which each student plans and writes their own novel or graphic novel. To unlock valuable storytelling secrets, we’ll compare two well-made novels: E. M. Forster’s 1910 English classic Howards End and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, her 2005 parallel to Forster’s book that’s set in the Boston area. Other course texts: Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel and Scott McCloud’s Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels. Each class session will include an in-class writing workshop aimed at practicing a different technique of the writing craft.

Prerequisites: Take 15 cr General Education

Seminar

Spring