59-1302 CRW: First Novels

Course will expose student writers to the creative and intellectual processes of published writers early in their careers. It will show students that a) writing is an ongoing process of writing and rewriting; b) the creative process is both unique and universal to each writer; and c) published writers faced the same bogeys at the beginning of their careers that student writers face. Through contrast and comparisons (in the journals and class discussions) students will examine and comment on the prose forms, character developments, and story structures first-time novelists have effectively used, along with the writing processes the authors employed to get their first novels finished. Through journal entries and essays, students will examine what all this tells them about how they might go about solving the questions of structure and process presented to them by their own writing. Students will be required to read three novels and conduct research by reading writers’ diaries, notebooks, letters, and autobiographies. There will be discussion of the assigned texts and journal readings every week.

4 Credits
Requisites COREQUISITES: 59-1201 Fiction Writing I