Darling, You’re Making a Scene: Writing Scenes with Áine Greaney

Course Summary

This short, interactive course will help participants to learn and practice the art and craft of writing lively scenes. Learners will also learn and practice the micro and macro aspects of narrative writing—including how to balance and transition between scenes and expository writing. Finally, they will learn some of the nuances or differences between nonfiction and fictional scene-writing.  

Please note that this course is suitable for fiction, memoir or essay writers only. Not suitable for poets, playwrights or script writers.

Course Outline

• The all-important opening scene and how to let your readers “in.”   
• Macro and micro issues of—and tips for–scene building  
• Balancing “live” scenes with your narrative or explainer paragraphs (showing versus telling) 
• Achieving vividness to make your readers care  
• Dialogue in your scene  
• Closing scenes  
• In-class exercises and short writing opportunities.  
• Take-home resources  

Course Outcomes

This short, interactive course, “Darling, You’re Making a Scene,” helps participants to learn and practice the art and craft of writing lively scenes. Learners will also learn and practice the micro and macro aspects of narrative writing—including how to balance and transition between scenes and expository writing. Finally, they will learn some of the nuances or differences between nonfiction and fictional scene-writing.  

Áine Greaney is an Irish-born author who never published anything until she emigrated from Ireland to America, alone, at age 24. Since then, she has published four books (fiction and nonfiction) and a chapbook collection of short stories. Her features, essays and stories have been published and broadcast in publications such as Creative Nonfiction, Books Ireland, IMAGE Magazine, Cyphers, Another Chicago Magazine, NPR/WBUR, PBS The World, The Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Times, Litro,  Tendon: at Johns Hopkins Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine and Pulse: Stories from the Heart of Medicine and other publications. She is also the author of the writers’ instructional book, Writer with a Day Job (Penguin/Random House). Awards and recognitions include the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, a Pushcart Prize nomination and a “Best American Essays” citation.  

As a trained teacher, Greaney has designed and facilitated over 50 writing workshops and presented at universities, libraries and national and regional conferences.  She holds a B.Ed in education and English and an M.A. in English.