ENG 220 - Introduction to Speculative Fiction Writing

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR (students beginning prior to Fall 2024): Meets general academic requirement AR.
This course is an introductory creative writing course on speculative fiction—fiction in which some element goes beyond the real, is supernatural, futuristic, fairytale-esque, and/or weird—you will be introduced to the many imagined possibilities of this continually widening genre, honing your storytelling skills while developing a serious writing practice. We will consider how speculative fiction poses fundamental questions about morality and the purpose of human existence. And you will explore—through your own attempts at writing speculative stories and workshopping the work of your peers—why and how speculative fiction frequently mirrors—albeit oddly—our deepest insights, desires, hopes, and fear. More generally, we will work to foster an intense, passionate faith in language, observation, contemplation, introspection, and narrative. We will commit to the process of writing, including experimenting with form and content, drafting, active de-familiarization, imaginative play/risk, development, and the serious re-envisioning of our ideas. We will read closely, think boldly, write creatively, and practice self- evaluation. Thinking, reading, and writing are deeply linked activities, and so we shall read quite a bit. This class is designed to give you the time and space to explore a wide variety of tactics and styles specific to speculative fiction. Satisfies the Departmental Prose requirement.