English 398 – Fiction Workshop
Fall 2015
Thursdays, 4:30
William Miller
wmiller@gmu.edu
Office: Rob A487
703.993.2763
Hrs: Thurs 2-3 p.m.
Other times by appt.; email
to arrange
Overview
This is a course in writing fiction and has at its heart the workshopping of your stories and the
discussing of published stories. Workshopping will give you practice in setting up stories,
creating characters and devising plots, evoking moods and invoking emotional reactions in your
readers, and listening to and learning from the criticism of others about your doing of all these
things. Discussing published stories will show you how more developed writers accomplish
those same things.
We will read from three books: A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, Music for Wartime by
Rebecca Makkai, and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. For what to worry about first
and the order of the rest, see the course calendar at the end of this syllabus.
Workshops
You will each have four workshop sessions. You will write two new stories (workshop rounds 1
and 3) and revise them (workshop rounds 2 and 4). The thing about a workshop is to not see it as
a chance to get a prescription for all that ails your story, or as a chance to hand such a
prescription to another writer for his or her story. If you are the writer whose work is up for
discussion, take all the notes you want, but don’t go home and rearrange your story according to
the notes. You’d no longer have your story. Workshop discussion is feedback. Readers react to
what you’ve written. Workshops discussion, most importantly, is an indication of how readers
see and experience a story versus how you, writing it, imagined readers seeing the story.
What you want to do with your collection of responses, then, is to see how closely they match
your expectations. You would want to revise based not on the specifics of what was said but
rather on how the reactions met your own expectations of those reactions. Revise to get the
responses you want from your readers.
In addition, through the process of revising after a workshop, you probably will end up letting go
somewhat of your own expectations and accepting a broader view of the piece. That is part of
growing as a writer. You should learn to appreciate your writing more because of the reaction of
others, because it is different from what you expected, at least somewhat, and also just because it
exists.
When you’re on the advice-giving end of the equation rather than the advice-getting, do not feel
you have to tell anyone else how to “fix” his or her story. Instead, feed back to the writer what
you experienced as a reader. Tell what you saw going on inside the story, what parts worked
well, what you think most needs attention. Talk about how the story affected you, what you got
out of it. Make detailed comments about specific aspects of the story, such as characters, plot,
narrative voice and structure, use of creative language, creation of metaphors or similes, etc.
Whatever else you do, resist all temptation to take over the story and make it your own. Each of
us can only write his or her own stories, and the goal of a workshop is to help us get better at
that.
Mechanics
The semester is divided into four “rounds,” one each for drafts of two different stories and one
each for revisions of each of the two stories. To make this easier, each of you will set up an
account on a web site called Writertopia.com and then sign up for your four submission dates
over the course of the semester, one date per manuscript, one manuscript per “round,” following
generally the start and end dates for the “rounds” as they are noted on the calendar for the course
(included with this syllabus) and again on the Writertopia web site. If your story is not ready as
your date nears, you can change the date but only to a week when there is another blank slot and
only to another week more or less in the same “round.”
To leave time for reading and commenting on the manuscripts prior to each class, you must
submit your manuscript to the Writertopia website no later than the deadline to which we all
agree. I propose a deadline of 5p.m. each Monday, giving us from then till class time to read the
manuscripts and comment. Uploading earlier than the weekly deadline, of course, is fine. Later is
not acceptable. It is important that everyone meet the weekly deadline for filing. Failing to do so
will lower your course grade through the class participation portion.
So, sometime over the next week, you will log onto Writertopia.com with the invitation code I
will give you, and then you will set up your own identification and password for return visits.
Each week, each of us logs on to the Writertopia site, signs up for our dates, posts our stories,
downloads the other stories we are to read, prints them out, reads and comments, and brings the
printed manuscripts to class for the discussion. After discussions, each of us passes back to their
creators the manuscripts on which we have commented.
Admittedly, it seems old fashioned to require that each of you submit written comments on each
other’s stories but there is tremendous value in a writer’s getting written comments and being
able to compare one person’s reaction with that of another. For one thing, we will not always
agree with each other. And having the comment in writing, on the manuscript, allows the writer
of the story to take in the subtle differences in reading that each of us brings to the story, and so
enables the writer to better decide how to proceed to continue working on the story. The easiest
way to print out the stories for these purposes is to print each manuscript using two ms. pages per
printed page (In Word, see the “properties” click-on after you first click on “Print.” That will
allow you to change the way the ms. prints and get multiple pages onto each printed page.) and
then to write in the margins as we read and put a summary reaction/observation note at the end.
There are other ways to do it but any other method must achieve the same ends. E-mailing a
comment does not achieve the same end. This is a course requirement, as important as your own
submissions of your own work. In making your comments, you are asked to be fair-minded,
helpful, a writer who reads the work of other writers with a generous spirit and open mind. That
is to say, someone who knows that writing is not a competitive sport. You also are asked to sign
your name at the end of your comments.
Other resources
You could line shelf after shelf with books that promise to help you write better fiction. Some are
better than others. If you would like a how-to-write-fiction book that also includes some short
stories, try Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction or Thomas Arp’s Story and Structure or Marvin
Diogenes and Clyde Moneyhun’s Crafting Fiction or, probably the best such book, R.V.
Cassill’s Writing Fiction. It now is out of print but available in on-line as well as brick-andmortar used-book stores. If you want a wide-ranging volume of stories both old and new to give
you a varied reading experience, try The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction edited by Richard
Bausch. A newer collection full of diverse fiction is On Writing Stories, edited by Tom Bailey.
Again, there are others, way too numerous to list here.
Course grades
When I return your manuscript, along with comments I’ll note my sense of its current quality,
which is a major factor in your grade—collectively 1/3. I’ll evaluate your story both for its
concept and its development at that moment. I’ll give you both grades, one over the other (x/y).
The one above the line is for concept and includes the creativity evident in the idea as well as the
potential of the story once you figure it all out. The grade below the line is for development—the
story as it is so far—and includes the characters and setting, the plot as you have rendered it, the
conflict as you have drawn it, the use you have made of literary devices such as irony and
metaphor, and even the correctness of the manuscript (how free of grammatical and manuscript
errors it is). Note that not included in the grade is anything about the theme of the story, or any
moral or ethical implications it raises.
In addition to the writing component, your course grade will be determined by participation
(completing reading assignments and discussing them, participating in workshops, etc) (1/3), and
the overall conscientiousness with which each student undertakes the weekly writing
assignments (1/3). It would be very difficult for anyone to earn an A in the course without
completing all of the writing and submitting for workshop as required. On the other hand,
anyone can get an A if he or she conscientiously goes through the demands of the course by
meeting the core requirements, engaging in experiments with hjis or her writing, even if the
person comes away knowing that, for sure and without doubt, she or he is not a fiction writer and
is instead, say, a poet.
Course Calendar
9/3 – Intro and first fiction readings: Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying. Narrative technique,
character and action
9/10 – Start round one of student workshops. Up to 7 ms. Readings: Gaines.
9/17– Workshops for up to 7 manuscripts. Makkai, Music for Wartime
9/24 – Workshops for up to 7. Readings: Makkai. Precast: Mandel, Station Eleven
10/1 – Fall for the Book. Class meets at events. No workshop.
10/8 – – End round one workshops, start round two. Workshops for up to 7 manuscripts.
Reading: Mandel
10/15 – Cont. round two workshops, up to 7. Reading: Mandel
10/22 – End round two workshops. Readings: t/k
10/29 – Start round three workshops. Readings: t/k
11/5 – Cont. round three workshops, up to 7 manuscripts. Readings: t/k
11/12 – End round three workshops, up to 7 manuscripts. Readings: t/k
11/19 – Start round four. Workshops for up to 7 manuscripts. Readngs: t/k
11/26 –Thanksgiving
12/3 – Workshops for up to 7. Readings: t/k
12/10 – Workshops for up to 7. Readings: t/k
12/17 – Time of final.
Notes:
Honor Code statement: George Mason University has an Honor Code that requires all members of this
community to maintain academic honesty and integrity. Cheating, plagiarism, lying, and stealing are all
prohibited. Al violations of the Honor Code will be reported to the Honor Committee. See
honorcode.gmu.edu. for more detailed information.
Enrollment: Students are responsible for verifying their enrollment in this class. Schedule adjustments
should be made by the deadlines published in the Schedule of Classes. Details of the schedule are
available at the registrar’s website (registrar.gmu.edu). Last day to add Tues, Sept. 8. Last day to drop
with full tuition, Tues., Sept. 8. Drop by Sept. 15 for 33-percent tuition penalty, buy Oct. 2 for 67-percent
penalty. After that, withdrawing requires the approval of the dean and must be for nonacademic reasons.
Undergraduates do have the option of a selective withdrawal. See the Schedule of Classes.
Disability statement: If you are a student with a disability and you need academic accommodations,
please see me and contact Disability Resources at 703 993 2474. All academic accommodations must be
arranged through that office.