Great courses (DVD)

Lecturer: James Hynes, novelist and writing instructor

Whether you?re huddled around the campfire, composing an email to a friend, or sitting down to write a novel, storytelling is fundamental to human nature. But as any writer can tell you, the blank page can be daunting. It?s tough to know where to get started, what details to include in each scene, and how to move from the kernel of an idea to a completed manuscript

DVD

Disc 1: Starting the writing process -- Building fictional worlds through evocation -- How characters are different from people -- Fictional characters, imagined and observed -- Call me Ishmael: introducing a character -- Characters: round and flat, major and minor --

disc 2.

Mechanics of writing dialogue -- Integrating dialogue into a narrative -- And then: turning a story into a plot -- Plotting with the Freytag pyramid -- Adding complexity to plots -- Structuring a narrative without a plot --

disc 3.

In the beginning: how to start a plot -- Happily ever after: how to end a plot -- Seeing through other eyes: point of view -- I, me, mine: first-person point of view -- He, she, it: third person point of view -- Evoking setting and place in fiction --

disc 4.

Pacing in scenes and narratives -- Building scenes -- Should I write in drafts -- Revision without tears -- Approaches to researching fiction -- Making a life as a fiction writer