The Art of Me

Why should fiction writers have all the fun of building new (or old) realities? In this class, we will use found poetry, black out poems, acrostic poems, character development, respons poems, and more. We will analyze and critique the world we live in and its rules, and then work to construct our own - how we want things to be.

Ever wonder what makes a great film script? Is it the characters? The scene creation? What about the major plot twist that makes you go: ‘Woah, I didn’t see that coming’? For four weeks we’ll be the writers and producers of our own mini scripts. Together, we'll brainstorm ideas, and before we start writing, we’ll have them pressure-tested by a group of critics—helping us understand the structure of a screenplay and why each part matters. Then we’ll craft our first drafts, cast them, and hold a table reading. We’ll take notes, rewrite, and finish with a three-act script we can table read for family and friends.

Sometimes images speak louder than words, but what kind of impact can you create if you put them together? In From Flash to Fiction, we explored the writing of, from, and alongside the images that spoke to us. Together, we wondered about how to bring images to life with our words and sharpened our imaginations by playing in the crosshairs of writing and photography. Using photos we took ourselves or ones we found through research, we found inspiration for short stories. 

‍