Understanding Story with Gavin McCrea
Info
Date: September 28, 2022
Time: 6.30pm - 8.30pm
Duration: 6 Weeks
Level: Emerging |
Cost: €165 (€150 Members)
Online/In Person: Online
Course Summary
Please note that this is an online course.
Stories are everywhere: in novels, films, television series, advertisements, computer games, social media… We all make use of stories every day and our lives are shaped by stories. Not only do we tell stories, but stories tell us who we are (and who we were, and who we would like to be).
In this course, questions such as; what is story? How does it function? What are its essential characteristics, will be considered.
Each week, reading exercises will be given from a prescribed reading list. In class, close textual analyses of passages from that week’s story will take place. The focus will be on identifying what information the writer is transmitting in a specific unit of text, how she conveys that information, what she seems to hide or elide, what questions she is trying to answer, and what further questions her answers raise. Faced with the task of conveying similar sort of information, how would we ourselves proceed? What is the story?
Course Outline
Each week, you will focus on a specific theme important to understanding story:
Week One: The Beginning
Week Two: Character
Week Three: The Middle
Week Four: Conflict
Week Five: Suspense
Week Six: The End
Course Outcomes
A single, functioning, compelling short story will have been constructed by each participant by the end of the course.
Gavin McCrea is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, Mrs Engels (2015) and The Sisters Mao (2021), both published by Scribe. His first work of non-fiction, Cells, will be published by Scribe in November 2022. Most recently, he has been commissioned by Hachette/John Murray to write a collection of essays on Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Gavin is currently Guest Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at Bard College Berlin. www.gavinmccrea.com
