Poets & Writers

It's one of the first things you learn about the craft of storytelling: Freytag’s Pyramid. Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The structure from which the greats riff, rebel, but ultimately obey. In this workshop, we will examine short fiction and break it down according to this model’s classic components. How do skilled writers make them work? How can we replicate them while adding our own little twitch? In the midst, we’ll read stories from Junot Diaz, Donald Barthelme, and Toni Cade Bambara, in addition to crafting our own short narratives. The challenge: Write a story in a week and then revise by enhancing each lens of Freytag’s setup as it occurs in our pieces. Through mini-lectures, text discussions, and in-class writing prompts, this class will guide you to a carefully considered short story that adheres to this famous shape of limitless possibilities.