Fiction Writing I is a comprehensive ten-week workshop incorporating instructional lectures, practical writing assignments, and constructive critique of student projects. The course is designed for beginning writers and those interested in strengthening their fundamental skills and understanding.
The premium Zoetrope fiction workshops are developed in partnership with Zoetrope: All-Story, one of the world's foremost literary publications. Zoetrope: All-Story was founded in 1997 by filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and has received prestigious national literary recognition, including the National Magazine Award for Fiction, while introducing contemporary and emerging literary talent to international audiences.
The premium Zoetrope Fiction workshops represent Gotham online courses enhanced with exclusive supplementary features:
- Complimentary annual subscription to Zoetrope: All-Story magazine, valued at $50 for United States subscribers, $65 for Canada and Mexico, and $99 for international delivery.
- Opportunity to submit a completed short story directly to Zoetrope: All-Story editors, bypassing the standard submission process for careful evaluation and potential magazine publication. (Students have successfully published work in Zoetrope. Publication is not guaranteed, and the magazine maintains stringent editorial standards and accepts very few submissions.)
- Extended question-and-answer opportunity with Zoetrope: All-Story editor Michael Ray concluding the course period
You might also explore Gotham's additional Fiction Writing courses offered at various instructional levels.
Fiction represents a remarkable imaginative act. With merely language and the reader's imaginative participation, a fictional work can traverse oceans in pursuit of a great whale, transcend temporal limits to alternative realities, or concentrate on a brief moment in a common location, drawing readers into an invented narrative that convinces and moves.
Accomplishing this demands integration of technical skill, imaginative boldness, and understanding of human behavior and motivation. This course teaches the established principles of fiction composition and provides guidance in marketing your creative work.
Whether you seek to compose short narratives or book-length works, explore mainstream, literary, or genre approaches, or create comedic or tragic narratives, we will develop your ability to transform your imagination into believable, engaging, and captivating stories.
Important Course Information:
- Fiction I encompasses both short story and novel-length work. Following Level I completion, you have options, including Short Fiction Writing II, which concentrates on short stories, or Novel II Critique or Novel II First Draft for novel development.
- If your primary interest is genre fiction, you may pursue either Fiction or Novel courses, or alternatively, explore our specialized genre courses in Science Fiction & Fantasy, Romance, or Mystery writing.
- Young adult novel writers may enroll in Fiction and Novel courses, specialized genre courses, or our Children's Book workshops covering the complete range of children's literature.
This course provides a comprehensive foundation in fiction composition fundamentals and supports you in developing short stories or novel-length fiction. Course components include:
- Instructional lectures covering core concepts
- Practical writing assignments and exercises
- Collaborative critique sessions with peer feedback (each participant shares work twice)
Online workshop modules:
- Week 1: Fictional Forms and Approaches
- Introduction to fiction varieties, genres, and structural approaches. Identifying inspiration and original ideas. Understanding the significance of craft and technique in fiction.
- Week 2: Character Creation and Development
- Identifying compelling characters. Building nuanced characters through competing desires and contrasting qualities. Creating thorough character profiles. Showing versus telling through character revelation. Techniques for demonstrating character development.
- Week 3: Narrative Plot Construction
- Identifying the central dramatic question. Creating story beginnings, middles, and conclusions. Understanding distinctions between short story and novel plotting. Advantages and disadvantages of detailed outlining.
- Week 4: Point of View and Narrative Voice
- Understanding narrative perspective options. Examining diverse point-of-view approaches and their applications.
- Week 5: Descriptive Language and Imagery
- Incorporating sensory details. Achieving specificity and particularity. Using language creatively and imaginatively. Selecting precise vocabulary. Uniting description with narrative perspective.
- Week 6: Dialogue and Speech Patterns
- Recognizing the necessity of a dramatic scene. Creating authentic dialogue that sounds natural. Punctuation conventions and dialogue tags. Accompanying action and stage directions. Summarized dialogue techniques. Revealing character through conversation. Subtext and hidden meaning. Regional and character-specific dialect.
- Week 7: Setting, Temporal Dynamics, and Pacing
- Creating fictional locations and environments. Temporal considerations and time management. Weather and environmental detail. Integrating character with location. Manipulating narrative time through pacing strategies. Implementing flashback sequences and temporal shifts.
- Week 8: Voice and Literary Style
- Defining authorial voice. Understanding voice variations. Strategies for developing your distinctive voice. Style components include sentence structure, word choice, and paragraph organization.
- Week 9: Thematic Development and Revision
- Understanding theme and thematic material. Categorizing theme types. Weaving a theme throughout the narrative. Examining revision stages and approaches.
- Week 10: Professional Publishing Industry
- Standard manuscript formatting. Targeting appropriate publishing houses, literary journals, and literary agents. Composing effective query letters and submissions.
- Week 11: Guest Instruction with Zoetrope Editor
- Special session with Michael Ray, editor of Zoetrope: All-Story
Note: Content varies among different course sections.
About Online Instruction:
- Online workshops bring together students from numerous countries to participate in Gotham's world-renowned writing instruction.
- Instruction occurs asynchronously, without real-time meeting requirements. You can complete work at your preferred schedule, though material progresses weekly with expected completion of certain elements within that timeframe.
- Participation is available from any location with internet connectivity. Our student community is predominantly United States-based, though we welcome learners from nearly every nation.
- Comprehensive technical assistance is provided.
- A significant online benefit involves retaining complete course materials for ongoing reference and professional development. Written materials and images can be preserved and reviewed indefinitely. (Content is provided as text and images rather than video format.)
