Creative Writing

On this page:

• Speculative Fiction: World Building
• Character Creation
• Story Structure
• The Hour-A-Day Novel
• The Short Story: A Short Fiction Workshop
• Children’s Fiction: Exploring the Genres, Finding Your Voice

Speculative Fiction: World Building

Speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror) is a hot commodity in the literary landscape, especially in juvenile and young adult literature. As a writer, having an imaginary world of your own gives you a jumping off place for an infinite number of stories. In this workshop, learn what it takes to create a full-scale imaginary world and how to make yours so enticing readers won’t want to leave. Whether your world is an alternate reality, a dystopian future, or set among the stars, your world book will be your priceless guide.

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Character Creation

Develop realistic characters that pop off the page. Learn to use psychology theories and frameworks as tools to move beyond flat stereotypes into characters that feel real to the reader. You will explore a variety of theories and how they relate to fiction and then have the opportunity to put these theories to work in your own fiction with in and out of class writing assignments. Eileen Cook is a multi-published author whose books have been translated into six different languages.

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Story Structure

Good stories don’t just happen, they’re built. Like a blueprint, you need a sound structure to build an effective emotional journey for your readers. Through a combination of lecture, in-class exercise, homework, workshop, and discussion, you’ll explore both common and unconventional story shapes used in fiction. You'll also look at genre conventions, three-act structure, and the hero’s journey to develop the tools you'll need to build emotionally satisfying stories again and again.

Required text: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

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The Hour-A-Day Novel

Join the over 1,000 people who have completed this workshop—an absolute must for anyone wanting to write a novel. Learn how to outline, write and sell your work through topics covering story development, characterization, style, plot and narrative, tone and suspense, successful novelists’ work patterns, and marketing the completed work.

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The Short Story: A Short Fiction Workshop

The compact structure of the short story as a literary format allows a unique opportunity to study the key elements of fiction: character, plot, point-of-view, theme and more. Through lecture, discussion, and writing exercises in a workshop environment, students will learn about the mysteries and techniques used in short fiction and come away with constructive feedback for their own works-in-progress.

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Children’s Fiction: Exploring the Genres, Finding Your Voice

Join in this interactive examination of the writing process of different genres of children’s books including board books, early readers, picture books, illustrated books, and chapter books. A brief history and techniques for writing each genre will be introduced. You will experiment with each genre through various writing prompts and work-shopping. This exploration will help you discover the genre that suits your writing voice the best.

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