ENGL 387 - International Storytelling

What makes a good story? Your answer to that question may depend on where you’re from, or when you were born, or the stories your grandmother heard when she was growing up. In this creative writing workshop course, we will explore narrative structures across a variety of time periods and cultures. Topics may include Aristotelian tragedy, Freytag’s Pyramid, Edgar Allen Poe’s single effect theory, the Hero’s Journey, Kishōtenketsu or the four-act structure of Chinese fairy tales, the nested narratives of The Arabian Nights, non-linear approaches in Latin American fiction, and the place-driven emphasis of stories from Central Africa. Throughout, our goal as a class will be to expand our understanding of how stories can be told. By the end of the semester, every student will have written multiple drafts of two original works of short fiction. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 150 Every year. (4 Credits)