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CREATIVE WRITING - COM351 Spring 2021
Course
Anthony Marais
The aim of COM 351 is to improve your creative writing and critical thinking skills, enable you to generate writing in the future, and to impart the methodology necessary for a career as a creative writer. To accomplish this, students will receive training in practical and theoretical aspects of creative writing through lectures, critical readings and exercises, focusing on narrative fiction in four types: essays, screenplays, novels and short stories.
Here is the course outline:
1. Introduction
Feb 10
Syllabus Review, Teaching Creative Writing, Art vs. Science, Rules of Writing |
2. Crafting Conversation
Feb 17
Art & Creativity, The Aesthetics Schematic, Aphorisms vs. Truisms, Narrative Structure (1) |
3. Essays and Aphorisms
Feb 24
Word Choice, The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Artistic Ethos, Narrative Structure (2) |
4. Memes and Archetypes
Mar 03
Pet Rocks, Memes and Archetypes |
5. Public Reading (part one)
Mar 10
The Charles Bukowski Archetype |
6. Aristotle’s Poetics (part one)
Mar 17
Concepts of Tragedy: Hamartia, Anagnorisis, Peripeteia, Catharsis |
7. Aristotle’s Poetics (part two)
Mar 24
Components of Tragedy, Elements of Plot, Qualities of Character |
8. Character Development (part one)
Mar 31
Psychology and Art, The Alchemical Process, Character Arcs, Empathy |
9. Character Development (part two)
Apr 14
The life and death of Antal Szerb |
10. Plot Structure
Apr 21
Screenplay analysis: “Psycho” by Joseph Stefano (based on the novel by Robert Bloch) |
11. Sex and Violence
Apr 28
The invisible Art: novels vs. film, Modernism, Beauty vs. Novelty, Catharsis |
12. Reviewing and Editing (part one)
May 19
Dalton Trumbo and the Importance of Words |
13. Reviewing and Editing (part two)
May 25
Poetry in Cinema: The Films of Albert Lewin |
14. Public Reading (part two)
May 26
Public reading of original work |