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CREATIVE WRITING - COM351 Spring 2025
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
Jan 30
Syllabus Review, Teaching Creative Writing, Art vs. Science, Rules of Writing |
2. Aphorisms
Feb 4
Art & Creativity, The Aesthetics Schematic, Aphorisms vs. Truisms, Narrative Structure (1) |
3. Crafting Conversation
Feb 11
Word Choice, The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Artistic Ethos, Narrative Structure (2) |
4. Memes and Archetypes
Feb 18
Pet Rocks, Memes and Archetypes |
5. Public Reading
Feb 25
The Charles Bukowski Archetype |
6. Aristotle’s Poetics (part one)
Mar 4
Concepts of Tragedy: Hamartia, Anagnorisis, Peripeteia, Catharsis |
7. Aristotle’s Poetics (part two)
Mar 11
Components of Tragedy, Elements of Plot, Qualities of Character |
8. Character Development (part one)
Mar 18
Psychology and Art, The Alchemical Process, Character Arcs, Empathy |
9. Character Development (part two)
Apr 1
The life and death of Antal Szerb |
10. Plot Structure
Apr 8
Screenplay analysis: “Psycho” by Joseph Stefano (based on the novel by Robert Bloch) |
11. Sex and Violence
Apr 15
The invisible Art: novels vs. film, Modernism, Beauty vs. Novelty, Catharsis |
12. Reviewing and Editing (part one)
Apr 22
Dalton Trumbo and the Importance of Words |
13. Reviewing and Editing (part two)
May 8
Poetry in Cinema: The Films of Albert Lewin |
14. Public Reading (part two)
May 13
Public reading of original work |