Short Fiction Workshop
Score Requirements: Humanities and Social Science
About the Course: Where do ideas for stories come from? How does a writer take these ideas and develop and shape them into an interesting and meaningful story? This course will provide students with a variety of strategies for generating and wrestling with their ideas as they explore story structure, conflict, primary and secondary characters, dialogue, point of view, and theme. Students will read short works by authors such as Kate Chopin, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and Alice Walker, and they will analyze and discuss the ways these authors use various techniques and fictional elements to convey a specific message. Swapping short fiction drafts in a workshop format and trading interpretive theories on discussion boards and in live chats will be the main modes of discourse as students apply these techniques to their own creative fiction.
About the Instructor: Rolin Moe holds a B.A. in English from Centenary College of Louisiana and an M.A. in Radio/TV/Film from the University of Texas. A Duke TIP faculty member since 2003, Rolin has taught various writing courses for TIP’s Summer Studies Program, including Screenwriting and The Writer's Workshop. Rolin's work experience includes stints as a journalist, visual and written media instructor, feature and documentary film production assistant, and literary agent for television writers. Rolin's short stories and short films have been published in regional magazines and viewed in national festivals. He is currently writing several feature films, various short fiction pieces, and a how-to book for teenage screenwriters.
Instructor(s) subject to change.