Developing the Novel I
X125.1 (2 semester units in English)
Designed for writers who are interested in developing ideas and characters for a novel, this course explores the craft of longer fiction and ways of meeting its creative challenges. Each session includes a lecture on craft, supported by discussion of assigned readings and exercises to unlock the potential of your ideas. You learn how to develop characters, language, voice, pace, tone, theme, and setting, and you participate in a group critique of student work. When you finish this course, you can produce sample chapters of your novel and have a plan for how to proceed.
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MIMI ALBERT, M.F.A., is a novelist, writer of short fiction and nonfiction, book reviewer, and teacher of creative writing. She has published two novels so far, The Second Story Man (Fiction Collective, New York; also excerpted in A Different Beat: Writing by Women of the Beat Generation) and Skirts (Baskerville Press, Dallas), which won a NCBR (formerly BABRA) nomination in 1995. Currently she is working on a third novel, is contributing editor in fiction to the Berkeley literary journal Poetry Flash, and is the chair of the fiction committee of the Northern California Book Reviewers. Most recently, her stories and articles have been published in the magazines Fiction International, Moxie Magazine, The Gilded Serpent, and Southern Lights. She has been teaching creative writing at UC Berkeley Extension for about 10 years.
- Online course: Internet access required
- Enroll anytime: You have 6 months to complete
- $525 (EDP 867614)
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Textbook(s) for this course:
Finding Your Writer's Voice: A Guide to Creative Fiction
Author: Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall
Publisher: St Martin's Press
Publication Year: 1994
ISBN: 0312151284
AND
How to Write a Damn Good Novel
Author: James N. Frey
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Year: 1987
ISBN: 0312010443
Sections closed for enrollment
Wed. March 12, Berkeley
ERICKA LUTZ is a short-story writer, novelist, and personal essayist who has been widely published in books, anthologies, magazines, and literary journals. She is the author of seven commercial nonfiction books. She teaches writing for the M.B.A. program at UC Berkeley and consults privately with writers about their writing and writing process.NOTE: This class is closed. For information about related courses, contact your academic department.
Courses begin every month. A new edition of our catalog is published
three times a year in early April, July and December.