Course Overview
In this four-week workshop, you'll gain the knowledge, skills, and tools you need for writing scary stories that whet the most insatiable appetite for horror by tracing the grisly birth of the most popular genre to its Gothic origins.
Learn how to chill readers to their core with hair-raising techniques, terrifying atmospheres, and nerve-wracking twists with featured classics from Edgar Allan Poe to contemporary masters Stephen King and Neil Gaiman.
Elevate your prose to strike fear in the hearts of your audience through the petrifying perspectives of successful film directors Alfred Hitchcock and the Cohen brothers.
Polish your writing with detailed feedback from the instructor Jacquelyn Rodriguez, and write terrifying tales of horror that'll leave your readers craving more!
What You’ll Learn
How to discover a purpose for writing and avoid writer’s block by distinguishing between key features of the Gothic genre and its various subtypes
How to grow an audience by writing prose that achieves certain effects and elicits desired responses from an audience
How to use a Gothic writing style with startling precision for atmospheric intensity
How to craft compelling characters motivated by fear with psychological and emotional complexity
How to heighten suspense with mind-bending twists and turns by manipulating key elements of fiction
Your Outcome
You'll submit (3) pieces of writing for peer review and instructor feedback.
By the end of the course, you'll have the ability to produce writing polished to professional standards and ready for publication.
Course Outline
Session #1: Grim Beginnings
Focuses on the principles and aspects of narrative design--plot structure, genre conventions, thematic development, and narrative forms.
Session #2: Frightening Fiction
Focuses on using psychology for complex characterization with internal/external conflicts; primordial urges shared by every human; how fear is motivating, and; creating atmospheric intensity through place-setting.
Session #3: Petrifying Perspectives
Focuses on how to use cinematic techniques in writing; altering perceptions of time and manipulating the reading experience; using narrator reliability and points-of-view as skilled techniques over preference; and when to show or tell (scene vs. summary).
Session #4: RIP (Revising in Progress)
Mood, tone, and voice; style, diction, and syntax; clarity, precision, and cohesion; how to show, not tell; experiment with more advanced literary techniques and rhetorical devices; return to revision; start polishing a work-in-progress.