Description
Are you ghost-, alien-, eldritch-, or magically-curious, but don’t know where to start? Have you heard a lot about science fiction and fantasy and want to play in the sandbox for a minute? This 4-week class will give you the tools you need to write your first speculative story with confidence. This class is perfect for anyone new to writing short stories, speculative fiction, or both.
You’ll write a complete speculative fiction story and workshop it by the end of class!
Week 1: Your Novum is Showing! Starting with the foundations of creative writing, we’ll deep-dive into the specifics of short fiction and introduce what makes speculative fiction special.
Week 2: Systems, Rules, and Rebellion: Some of us want to build elaborate magic systems. Others want to build spaceships. The rest of us want to tear everything down. We’ll talk “world building” with an eye to specificity.
Week 3: The Relationship Between Structure and Speculative: The best part about writing speculative fiction is its playfulness with story structure. We’ll talk about point-of-view, characters, and how to present our stories to our readers.
Week 4: Workshop! You’ve written your first story. Let’s test-drive it with the community we’ve created together!
