Narrative Fiction

Recommended Prerequisites

Level C1 in English.

Teaching Methods

The sessions are mainly practical, with various writing exercises, which will lead to debate on selected texts (namely, those of the students themselves). Texts produced will be collected in a portfolio to be delivered at the end of the semester. Assessment will be based on a portfolio, oral participation in class and the production of a short fictional narrative.

Learning Outcomes

Overall aims:

a) To engage with the theory and practice of fictional narrative.

b) To read and reflect about one’s own texts and those of other writers (including colleagues). 

c) To understand the multiple dimensions and relations between fiction and narrative.

d) To explore and critically assess different academic and creative approaches to fictional narrative. 

e) To produce pieces of fictional work as well as critical essays about writing processes.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

This seminar will explore significant elements and dimensions of narrative fiction. We will start by examining the meanings, and promises of fictional writing and by exploring the practical and theoretical relations between fiction and narrativity.  We will consider the possibilities of writing as a process and consequence of (re)readings or critical readings. We will study patterns and discontinuities of form (short-story, novel, novella, etc.), genre (naturalism, fantasy, metafiction etc.) and positioning (critique, parody, passivity etc.). We will examine how voices, sounds and silences can shape fiction and how character and characterisation can inhabit narratives. We will, thus, cover the following issues:

 

1. Fiction and narrativity

2. Writing as re/reading

3. Genre, form, position

4. Language and style

5. Voices, sounds and silences

6. Characters and characterisation

7. Structure, methods and techniques

8. Editing and revising

9. Practices, policies and politics.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Oral participation: 20.0%
Laboratory work or Field work: 30.0%
Synthesis work: 50.0%

Bibliography

ARAÚJO, Susana and Joyce Carol Oates (2006). “Joyce Carol Oates Reread: Overview and Interview with the Author,” Critical Survey 88. 3: 92-105.

BURROWAY, Janet, Elizabeth Stuckey-French and Ned Stuckey-French (2019). Writing Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

CARVALHO, Mário de (2014). Quem disser o contrário é porque tem razão: Letras sem tretas. Guia Prático de Escrita de Ficção. Lisboa: Porto Editora.

CORTÁZAR, Julio (2016). Aulas de Literatura. Lisboa: Cavalo de Ferro.

DAVIS, Lydia (2019). Essays One. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

DERRIDA, Jacques and Avital Ronell (1980). “The Law of Genre.” Critical Inquiry 7. 1: 55-81.

KUNDERA, Milan (2003).The Art of the Novel. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

MAY, Charles E. (1994). The New Short Story Theories. Athens Ohio: Ohio University Press.

MORRISON, Toni (2019). Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations. London: Chatto & Windus.

TCHEKHOV, Anton (2007). Sem Trama e Sem Final. São Paulo:Martins Ed