Introductory description

EN3B9-30 The Practice of Fiction: Context, Themes & Techniques

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 1
Week 1 – The Place We’re In
Richard Ford, Wildlife. Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop (Secondary Reading: John Williams, Stoner. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary. Helen Simpson, Hey Yeah Right Get A Life, Constitutional, Cockfosters.)
Week 2 – Other Minds and Other People
“Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People”, Lorrie Moore, Birds of America. “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage”, Alice Munro, from the book of the same title. (Secondary Reading: William Trevor, Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel. Agota Kristof, The Notebook.)
Week 3 – Times, Echoes, Foreshadowings
William Golding, The Inheritors. (Secondary Reading: David Malouf, An Imaginary Life. Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian.)
Week 4 – Beyond Genre
Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. (Secondary Reading: Philip K. Dick, The Man In The High Castle. Brigid Brophy, The Finishing Touch.)
Week 5 – The Idea: Concepts, Paradox, Satire
Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths. (Secondary Reading: Danilo Kis, The Encyclopaedia of the Dead. Nikolai Gogol, “The Nose” in Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. Paulette Jonguitud, Mildew.)
Weeks 7–10 – Fiction Workshops and Readings
Please Note: it is essential that students read the primary named texts for each weekly section throughout the year. Familiarity with the books on the secondary and suggested reading lists is also highly desirable.
Term 2
Week 1 – Beyond the Short Story
Snow, Orhan Pamuk
Week 2 – Journeys, Shapes, Maps
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Week 3 – Keeping Time
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
Week 4 – Voices
Battleborn, Claire Vaye Watkins
Week 5 - Endings, Finales and Conclusions
My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
Week 6 – Reading Week
Weeks 7-10 – Writing Workshops

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Generate and develop original creative work to a satisfactory standard.
• Demonstrate an engagement with creative and intellectual experiment, risk-taking and an understanding of process over product.
• Demonstrate a satisfactory range of editorial skills.
• Undertake research to support their writing, while seeing their own writing as a form of research in itself.
• Deploy to a satisfactory level the rules, conventions and possibilities of written and spoken language in a range of forms, genres and media.
• Demonstrate a creative engagement with the expressive and imaginative powers of language.
• Demonstrate an independent commitment to their own writing.
• Demonstrate a critical and practical understanding when reading and responding to published work and to work in progress.
• Demonstrate a satisfactory understanding of the historical and cultural dimensions of language use and literature across print and digital media.
• Understand writing as communication, with a variety of audiences, possible destinations and purposes, involving different priorities and skills.
• Engage effectively with others in order to improve their own and others' work.
• Demonstrate a satisfactory understanding of issues around reading (and where appropriate, writing) in translation.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Subject specific skills

• generate and develop original creative work to a satisfactory standard
• demonstrate an engagement with creative and intellectual experiment, risk-taking and an understanding of process over product
• demonstrate a creative engagement with the expressive and imaginative powers of language
• demonstrate an independent commitment to their own writing
• demonstrate a critical and practical understanding when reading and responding to published work and to work in progress

Transferable skills

demonstrate a satisfactory range of editorial skills
undertake research to support their writing, while seeing their own writing as a form of research in itself.
deploy to a satisfactory level the rules, conventions and possibilities of written and spoken language in a range of forms, genres and media
demonstrate a satisfactory understanding of the historical and cultural dimensions of language use and literature across print and digital media
understand writing as communication, with a variety of audiences, possible destinations and purposes, involving different priorities and skills
engage effectively with others in order to improve their own and others' work
demonstrate a satisfactory understanding of issues around reading (and where appropriate, writing) in translation