Writing Speculative Fiction

Course Description

In this class we will write. A lot. We will write every day. And by doing so, we will develop as story tellers. We will look at work from the early days of the genre to work written last week. We will look at these stories not only out of a love for sci-fi, but also out of an interest in language. We will see how the great stories were crafted and use that knowledge to inform our own work. This is a class for those of you who love language, who love stories and who love asking, "what if?"

Writing Speculative Fiction is first and foremost a writing class. We will write a number of stories, some of which will be reactionary (i.e. a reading response) and others generative (a short story). Half of each class will be spent workshopping and talking about the student's work. The other half will be a whirlwind overview of one of the most interesting modern genres. We will look at work from the golden age of science fiction, to contemporary surrealism, using each piece to push and inform our own writing.

The goals of the class are threefold: first, to explore a variety of authors, from the highly technical SF of the seventies, to eastern European fairy tales of the eighteenth century (even stories all about giant insects). Second, we will develop critical reading skills, we will hone the ability to talk about what we like/don't and most importantly, why. Lastly, we will write a lot in this class, each reading will be accompanied with a short writing assignment culminating in the second week to a long story that we will workshop with the whole class.

Prerequisites: None