Fiction Writing (English 90)

Fiction Writing (English 90)

Stanford University, Fall 2014

Monday & Wednesday 11:00 – 12:50

Building 20, Classroom 21G

Instructor: Austin Smith

Office: Margaret Jacks Hall, Room 213

Phone: 725-1209

Email:

Office Hours: Mondays 2:00 – 4:00, Wednesdays 3:30 – 4:30

“There comes a timewhen you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.”

- James Salter

English 90 is a beginner course for those who have a passion (or wish to cultivate a passion) for fiction writing.Any and all Stanford majors and minors are more than welcome. I prefer to think of this class not in the usual way of a teacher instructing their students, but as a community of devoted artists who will spend ten weeks supporting one another in the difficult work of writing good prose. Our first and foremost goal is to write and write and write, both in class and out of class. We will also be reading literature that I hope will inspire and instruct us in the challenging but rewarding art of sentence-making. It is my hope that you will walk away from this class with a passion for writing that will only grow in the years ahead. My wish is that this class will set you on your way to becoming a writer.

Texts

The four texts for this class are:

Light Years by James Salter

Stoner by John Williams

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Letters to a Young Poet is a book that we will be reading and interacting with throughout the quarter. You should bring your copy to every class.

Light Years and Stoner are novels. While I hope that you will read both books, you will be responsible for choosing one to read this quarter and writing a response to it, due on December 1st, which means you will have the entire quarter to finish the book at your leisure (which is the ideal way to read a novel!). Why a novel? Novels give us a little more room to consider such vital elements of fiction as setting, plot, and character development. We get to dwell in them for a little longer. I’ve assigned these novels because I greatly admire them, and believe they contain, within their very language and structure, many lessons for young writers. But you are more then welcome to dislike them, in which case your responses might be even more interesting.

You can leave The Writing Life on the shelf for awhile: we’ll be looking at this luminous book on the life of the writer after Thanksgiving break.

Throughout the quarter I will also be bringing in handouts of shorter pieces: short stories, essays on craft, inspirational letters, interviews, etc.

It is vitally important that you purchase a writing notebook to use throughout the quarter. I will be asking to see your notebook on Wednesday, September 24th as a key to admission into the classroom. When choosing your notebook, choose wisely, considering how the form of the notebook might affect how you write in it. For instance, some prefer lined pages, others blank. Some like wider notebooks, some narrower. No matter what kind of notebook you get, it should be long enough to contain all of the in-class writing assignments you’ll be doing this quarter.

Films

We will be watching two films this quarter. The first is Dead Poets Society, because I think it’s a film that celebrates the wild, exuberant energy that becoming an artist demands. The second is a documentary called Forever. It is about a very famous cemetery in Paris called Pere Lachaise, but is also very much about the transcendent power of art.

Class Blog

I will be setting up a class blog simply for the sake of giving us a medium to share thoughts, ideas, songs, readings, YouTube videos, what have you. It will be very informal. I expect that some students will be more active on it than others, which is perfectly fine. I just hope it can be a place where our work can continue outside the bounds of the classroom.

Course Requirements

Class Participation: 30%.

This grade will be determined by a number of factors. Of course, absences will greatly affect your Class Participation grade. You have two excused absences for the quarter. An excused absence is a family or medical emergency that must be documented in writing. Absences for any other reason are unacceptable. As for lateness, I will begin teaching promptly at 11:00, and expect you to be present before class begins. Lateness will be penalized two points. Finally, simply being in the classroom is not enough: I expect everyone to contribute to our in-class discussions. Cell phones must be turned off upon entering the classroom. Use of a phone during class time will cost you two points. Finally, laptops are the worst tool ever invented for writers. They lead to distraction and procrastination. Use of a laptop is not allowed in class.

Included in class participation is my request that you come see me in office hours (if these times don’t work for you, let me know and we can arrange another time to meet). Issues that come up in the writing life are oftentimes worked out better in one-on-one interactions than in the classroom setting. And I hope that you’ll all come see me sometime in the first three weeks of class to discuss the progress of your first story.

In-Class Writing Assignments: 15%

You will be doing a number of in-class writing assignments this quarter. All of these assignments should be written in the same notebook, which you will work in throughout the quarter.

Two Short Stories: 30% (15% each)

Short stories are very hard to write! While many great short stories have been written at one sitting, you will be writing only two short stories this quarter, at least one of which you will thoroughly revise after considering the comments of your classmates and (perhaps) instructor. Engrave these dates on your writing desk:

Monday, October 13thand Wednesday, October 29th

Why are these dates so important? Because these are the dates that your two stories are due. You will hand in your first story on October 13th, and your second story on October 29th. As with late arrival to class, I have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to late stories.

A note on formatting: when you hand in your first story on October 13th, it must be typed, double-spaced, written in 12-point Garamond font. Your stories should be somewhere between ten and twenty pages long. If you think your story may fall outside these page parameters, please speak to me first.

When you hand in your stories, you must also hand in handwritten or typewritten first drafts. Writing first drafts on the computer is a bad habit: much good work gets deleted or lost, and the computer contains distractions that a piece of paper or a typewriter do not. It doesn’t matter to me if the handwriting is illegible to everyone who isn’t you. This is simply my way of getting you in the habit of writing the first draft in the healthiest and most concentrated way possible.

Reading Response: 10%

At the end of the quarter you will write a short response paper on the novel you chose to finish, either Stoner or Light Years. Creative responses are encouraged (i.e. A letter to Salter or Williams; an imitation of the style; etc.).

Readings and/or Adventures: 15%

You must attend at least three readings, art exhibits, concerts, or other manifestations of art, on or off campus, during the quarter. You may substitute one of these three for a trip taken outside the Palo Alto area (to the ocean, the redwoods, San Francisco). To get credit for these three excursions, you must write a very brief synopsis of what the experience was like, and hand it to me in person as the quarter progresses. Each worth five points.

Students with Documented Disabilities

Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of AccessibleEducation (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, andprepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE assoon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066,URL:

Honor Code

The Honor Code is the University's statement on academic integrity written by students in 1921. It articulates University expectations of studentsand faculty in establishing and maintaining the highest standards in academic work:

The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and collectively:

1. That they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation ofreports, or in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading;

2. That they will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the HonorCode.

3. The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from takingunusual and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above. The faculty will also avoid, as far as practicable,academic procedures that create temptations to violate the Honor Code.

4. While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic requirements, the students and faculty will work together to establishoptimal conditions for honorable academic work.