❗The content presented here is sourced directly from Masterclass platform. For comprehensive course details, including enrollment information, simply click on the 'Go to class' link on our website.

Updated in [July 19th, 2023]

This course, The Art of the Short Story - Joyce Carol Oates, provides an in-depth look at the craft of writing short stories. Students will learn how to write a draft, revise it, and share it with others. Joyce will also discuss rejection and how to protect your writing time. Journaling is a tried-and-true method for expressing yourself and finding your voice. Joyce will read from one of Virginia Woolf's diary entries. She will also explore how delving into the darker aspects of your personality and past can provide compelling, heartfelt fodder for fiction—as well as a way to find a unique audience. Joyce will examine experimental approaches to structure, including thinking about the shape of a story on the first page and writing a one-sided dialogue. She will read a passage from her story "Heat." Students will also examine childhood influences, interviews family, and recall physical locations that have left an indelible impression on them. Joyce will examine very brief narratives (a few pages or less) for the language and structure they require. As an example, she will read "The Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams. Writing a monologue can be a useful stepping stone toward writing a novel, as well as a good exercise in exploring the perspectives of characters who are different from yourself. As an example, Joyce will read her monologue story "Lethal." Joyce will explain what inspired — and how she wrote — her most well-known and reprinted story, including how she chose the main character's point of view and how adjusting perspective can help you write your own story. Joyce and two of her students, Lindsay Skillen and Corey Arnold, will perform a reading from Ernest Hemingway's story "Indian Camp." They will go over the work in the same way they would in one of Joyce's collegiate or graduate classes. Joyce will also lead a workshop based on her student Lindsey's story "Labor Day," which can be downloaded ahead of time, as well as a workshop based on Corey's short story "Near Death," which can be downloaded ahead of time. Through this course, students will gain a better understanding of the art of the short story and how to write their own.

Course Syllabus

Principles of Writing Short Fiction

Journals: Observing the World

Ideas: Exploring Taboo and Darkness

Structure and Form

Ideas: Writing the Familiar

Form Study: Miniature Narrative

Form Study: Short Monologue

Story Study: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”

Reading and Studying Writing

The Writer’s Workshop: “Indian Camp”

Revision Workshop: “Labor Day”

Revision Workshop: “Near Death”