This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House

The Craft of Storytelling

Life is full of stories, and, dating from the earliest myths and legends to the cave-paintings at Lascaux, humans are natural-born storytellers. But what are the elements that make up a compelling story? In this class we’ll examine different modes of storytelling, both fiction and non-fiction, and break them down into their component parts: character, point-of-view, dialogue, scene, plot, theme, language, pacing, etc. We will analyze how these elements contribute to a compelling story spanning personal narratives such as memoir to fictional short stories.

The class will look at the work of writers like Annie Proulx, Kelly Link, Karen Russel, Tim O’Brien, Michelle Zauner, Ernest Hemingway, Jennifer Eagan, Michael Cunningham, and more in our excavation of what makes a story worth reading, and what goes into the telling of a worthy story. We’ll apply these lessons to our own writing, both in daily writing prompts and longer pieces to be turned in for workshop. We all have stories to tell—the point of this class is to refine the art of storytelling, to examine it as a craft and consider the intricate lattice-work that goes into the creation of strong stories.