OUR WORLD NEEDS BETTER STORIES

In this workshop, participants will be initiated to the work of important contemporary and classic authors, and specific narrative techniques will be presented and examined.

There will be a continuous interaction with the tutor as the groups are very small (max 5 participants).

The workshop is available online, on Zoom, or in person at Ixelles, Brussels. 

After covering the theoretical part. special assignments will be given for an optimal understanding and application of theory.

In this cycle, we focus on the following subjects:

• Point of View – What is the role of narrators in stories?  What would happen to your story if it were to be told by a different narrator? Can a story be told in multiple points of view?  
• To “show don’t tell’ or “to show and tell”? – The famous “guideline” examined and the role of the five senses in literature and narrative
• The art of dialogue – Do we always speak out what we think? Is what we say, always, what we mean? And what can dialogue reveal about fictional characters and human relationships? 
• Setting - “in the way I want to define it – setting is not just a place where the action happens”, writes Charles Baxter in his book of critical essays “Burning down the house”.  So, what can we possibly achieve with our setting?
• Narrative time - can time be treated in stories as clay on a pottery wheel? Time is not necessarily linear in narrative. We can travel back and forth, we can pause and compress or accelerate time using techniques like flashback, flash-forward, slow motion as well as summaries and scenes. 
• Initiation to story and plot – In 1983 Margaret Atwood writes a short story in six different versions, as a study on what story is. With this text as a starting point we will examine story and plot. 
• Suspense – Cause and effect in fiction, from Aristotle to E.M. Forster and Hitchcock 
• Beginnings - Do stories carry hooks? 
• Inspiration - Is inspiration a state of mind? What can our sources of inspiration be?
  

Benefits: After having completed this workshop, you will be able to read fiction in a critical way, and understand how each text is structured. You will also, start using the analysed techniques, consciously and effectively, your self.