The Artist’s Toolkit: Annotation / Innovation
Mădălina Telea Borteș
In this hybrid seminar/workshop we’ll develop a process of annotation that’ll allow us to see craft in action.
We’ll begin by reading a fictional text closely, very closely, marking it up with lines, symbols, and signposts until all of its component parts and networks are revealed. Then, we’ll apply what we learned to our own work in progress.
Students will be invited to work on one story—either a short story or a portion of a novel—throughout this course and submit a short excerpt for workshop and revision.
Expect to sharpen your instinct for how you can employ strategic questions—where to start a story, what to include, what to expand, what to omit, how to manage narrative time—to create stories that feel propulsive, satisfying, inevitable, complex, and whatever else you’re aiming for.
Objectives
As a result of completing this course you will be able to:
Develop a practice of annotation and critical discourse with fictional prose
Define and critically consider a variety of craft elements—character, complex emotion, change, consequences, suspense—and understand their applicability to a variety of creative work
Develop a greater facility with strategic fiction development questions: where to start a story, what to include, what to omit, how to manage narrative time
Analyze how different writers utilize craft elements and strategic thinking to create compelling works
Apply annotation techniques, craft elements, and strategic thinking to one’s own and another’s work