Whether you’re huddled
around the campfire, composing an email to a friend, or sitting down to
write a novel, storytelling is fundamental to human nature. But as any
writer can tell you, the blank page can be daunting. It’s tough to
know where to get started, what details to include in each scene, and
how to move from the kernel of an idea to a completed manuscript.
Writing
great fiction isn’t a gift reserved for the talented few. There is a
craft to storytelling that can be learned, and studying the fiction
writer’s techniques can be incredibly rewarding—both personally and
professionally. Even if you don’t have ambitions of penning the next Moby-Dick, you’ll find value in exploring all the elements of great fiction.
From evoking a scene to charting a plot to selecting a point of view, Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques
offers a master class in storytelling. Taught by acclaimed novelist
James Hynes, a former visiting professor at the famed Iowa Writers’
Workshop and the University of Michigan, these 24 insightful lectures
show you the ins and outs of the fiction writer’s craft.
More
than just delivering lectures, Professor Hynes offers the first steps
of an apprenticeship, showing you not only how fiction works but also
how to read like a writer. Here you’ll find explications of novels and
stories across the ages:
- Rediscover classics such as Jane Eyre, Bleak House, Middlemarch, Mrs. Dalloway, and others.
- Gain new insights into bestsellers such as the Harry Potter and Game of Thrones series.
- Explore the world of literary fiction, from Chekhov’s “The Kiss” to Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping.
- Reflect on what makes characters such as Anna Karenina and Sherlock Holmes so memorable.
- Find out how to create suspense like Dashiell Hammett, George Pelecanos, and John le Carré.
In
addition to showing you how the elements of fiction work, this course
is an interactive toolkit. Professor Hynes closes each lecture with an
exercise to get your creative juices flowing. Only you know what story
you want to tell, but the many examples and writing prompts in these
lectures will get you from thinking about writing to the act of
writing—often the toughest part of any project.
Begin with the Basics
William
Faulkner once said that writing a novel is like a one-armed man trying
to hammer together a chicken coop in a hurricane. That may be an
exaggeration, but finding your way into a story can take an equal
amount of creative experimentation. In the opening lectures of this
course, you will learn how to:
Evoke a Scene:
There is a fine art to selecting just the right imagery to bring a
scene to life. Whether you’re heeding the old advice to “show, don’t
tell,” or you’re seeking to create what novelist John Gardner called a
“vivid and continuous dream,” scenic detail is the life-blood of good
fiction. Professor Hynes shows you how to choose rich details while
keeping your narrative uncluttered.
Develop a Character:
When you create a fictional character, you’re creating the illusion of
reality—suggesting a real person rather than replicating one. Four
lectures on character development teach you how to build characters who
think and act in plausible ways. See how novelists such as Joseph
Conrad, Virginia Woolf, George R.R. Martin, and many others develop
their believable and memorable characters.
Craft Great Dialogue:
Just as characters are illusions that suggest real people, so too does
dialogue suggest authentic speech. Good dialogue serves at least one
of a few key functions in a narrative, such as evoking character,
advancing the plot, or providing necessary exposition. A two-lecture
unit sheds light on balancing dialogue with narration, with examples
from the work of Charles Dickens, Alice Munro, and Toni Morrison, as
well as the professor’s own fiction.
Build the Story’s Structure
Literature
creates order out of chaos. To do so, you need to provide structure to
your story, which can be one of the most challenging aspects of
writing fiction. Among the topics you’ll study are:
Story versus Plot:
Whether it’s a novel, a short story, or a blog post, one of a story’s
primary functions is to keep the reader reading. One way to achieve
this is by creating a compelling plot. After exploring the difference
between “story” and “plot”—as defined by E.M. Forster—Professor Hynes
unpacks the many techniques of storytelling, and he concludes this
six-lecture unit with some thoughts about keeping momentum in relatively
“plotless” fiction such as James Joyce’s “The Dead.”
Point of View:
As you’ll see in this three-lecture unit, much of a story hinges on
the perspective from which it’s told. From the omniscience of Middlemarch to the free indirect discourse of Light in August, and from the double consciousness of Huck Finn to the unreliable narrator of The Aspern Papers, Professor Hynes surveys the range of narrative possibilities.
Time, Place, and Pace: A story’s setting is a powerful way to create mood. Think of London in Bleak House, or Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings
trilogy. Time plays an equally important role in fiction—the era of a
story’s setting, the sequence of events that occur, and the timing with
which information is revealed to the reader are all pivotal elements.
You’ll learn how to syncopate action and exposition, scene and summary,
short scenes and long scenes, present-time narrative versus
flashbacks, and more.
Drafts and Revisions: All
stories must come to an end. In this course’s final unit, you’ll step
back from the specific elements of scenic composition and consider the
story as a whole. How do you build a complete draft? What are some
strategies for revision? And what do you do when you’ve finished?
A Practical Toolkit to Get You Writing
As
a working novelist, Professor Hynes is able to imbue his teaching of
the elements of fiction with the wisdom of personal experience. He uses
vivid examples from the history of literature as well as lessons and
anecdotes from his own time in the novel-writing trenches. He shares
his personal processes and techniques, and even examines specific
examples where he struggled as a writer, revealing how he overcame
those difficulties.
But this course is meant to be a toolkit, not
an instruction manual. The beauty of fiction writing is that it’s a
creative field. There are no right answers, no single way to tell a
story. A wealth of exercises will get you writing so that you can
practice the many techniques you learn. Along the way, Professor Hynes
is an able guide, showing you what has worked for him and other
novelists, and pointing out pitfalls to avoid. Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques is truly an exceptional course for anyone interested in storytelling.
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