A creative writing course focused on writing novellas.

Taking a course in creative writing is not necessary to become a successful creative writer. What is necessary is the ability to identify craft elements in good stories and then seamlessly and creatively consider how a new story might be shaped effectively. This course’s purpose, then, is to expedite the aspiring writer’s journey to successful creative writing through immersion in craft. In a single term devoted to study and critique from a community of fiction writers, one can learn quickly what might otherwise take years. In this course, the student will take a specific interest in the novella. Thus, many craft considerations will be determined by the length that typifies the novella, which tends to be neither as short as a short story nor as long as a novel.

Textbook readings and lecture presentations/notes

No details available.

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussion Workshop Assignment

Discussions are collaborative learning experiences. Therefore, the student will complete 1 discussion in this course. After reviewing the Discussion Workshop Assignment Questions, the student will respond to others’ excerpts by answering the questions in this document. Each question should be answered in a minimum of 150 words. By the end of the week, the student will be responsible for posting responses to the set of questions for 2 peers. The student will type the responses directly onto the document, then save the answers and copy them into the discussion replies. The student should be sure to reply to peers that do not have numerous replies already. Every student should have three replies before the student would add a fourth to a peer.  

Outline Assignment

The student will submit an outline of their novella idea. The Outline Assignment should be 1 page and include brief points.

Novella Checkpoint Assignments (8)

The student will submit drafts of his or her novella each week. Each week the student is expected to submit 2,500 new words. The purpose of this assignment is to incentivize the student to achieve the goal of writing a complete novella by the end of the course.

Annotation Assignments (3)

The student will write 3 annotation essays responding to specific questions about the assigned readings. The essays must be 1–2 pages and written in current MLA format.

Novella Excerpt Review Assignment

The student will submit a 10-page excerpt of their novella, in addition to a cover letter that provides narrative context for the excerpt. The cover letter must be a 1-page, single-spaced narrative explanation of the excerpt that helps the instructor make better sense of the excerpt in the context of the whole novella draft.

Artist Statement Assignment

The student will write an informal reflection on how he or she has grown as a writer throughout the course. This assignment invites the student to consider how various aspects of the course have aided his or her development as a writer. The statement must be 1–2 double-spaced pages written in current MLA format.

Quizzes (6)

Each quiz with cover the Learn material for the assigned Module: Week. Each quiz will contain 7 or 8 questions and have a 15-minute time limit. Quizzes consist of multiple-choice questions or multiple-choice and true/false questions. All quizzes are open-book/open-notes.