"The main rule of the writer is never to pity the manuscript." -Isaac Bashevis Singer

"I'm happy when the revisions are big. I'm not speaking of stylistic revisions but of revisions in my own understanding." -Saul Bellow

This course is an advanced-level workshop, and the focus will be on large and small-scale revision. The philosophy that informs this course is that stories and novels are not so much written as rewritten. Students who enroll must have completed English 221 and 321 or have the consent of the instructor.

In taking 221 and 321, you’ve no doubt accumulated a number of stories that proceed haltingly and then sputter to half-hearted conclusions. Or perhaps they get off to a roaring start and then lose direction and crash into trees or trucks or defenseless old ladies. Your stories may be flashy but insubstantial, or so deep and ponderous that the reader wades in only a page or two before turning back. We’ll take what you have on the page and give it several go-rounds. As a group and as individuals, we’ll reconsider, rework, re-envision these drafts and find our ways to satisfying conclusions.

Requirements: Successive revisions of one story, an essay on a contemporary short story writer, and a reading/writing journal.

Texts: Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers and You’ve Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe.

Fee: $20.00 for photocopying