Fiction for the Way We Live: Short Stories with Aiden O’Reilly

Course Summary

Based around close readings of classic (including in translation) and modern short story writers, writing exercises every week in class, and the completion of a first draft of a short story.

The course takes as premise that the short story is the natural art form for a view of life as fractured and in flux. Frank O’Connor wrote that it is for a ‘submerged population’

Andre Debus: “I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.”

Course Outline

Week 1: Introduction via classic short stories. A look at Frank O’Connor’s seminal text. A look at oral story-telling. Reading list of short stories that give voice to a ‘submerged population’.

Week 2: Plotting, impetus, drama. Storyboarding a favourite book/movie. Creating an outline of a story. (Following O’Connor’s suggestion)

Week 3: Description – embodied and dynamic descriptions. Dialogue technique. Check on progress in developing story from outline. Reading list of short stories that make use of the surreal/New Weird.

Week 4: Voice and point of view. What to omit from the finished text to give it more power. Editing exercises

Week 5: Editing workshop: Class swap short stories for editing.

Week 6: Rewriting. Workshop feedback. Opportunities and Resources to advance your writing.

Course Outcomes

Participants will complete a full short story and a shorter piece, and do a variety of exercises in-class.

Aiden O’Reilly is the author of the short story collection Greetings Hero. His fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Dublin Review, The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly, The Missouri Review, and many other places.

www.aidenoreilly.com

Booked out? To be added to the waiting list for this course, please email info@irishwriterscentre.ie.