Teaches the Art of the Short Story

Joyce Carol Oates

Meet your new instructor: Joyce Carol Oates, the National Book Award–winning author of 58 novels and thousands of short stories. Joyce welcomes you and discusses the enduring importance of short fiction.

Introduction

You want to write. When and how do you get it done? Joyce explains how to draft, revise, and share your work with others. She also touches on rejection and how to protect your time for writing.

Principles of Writing Short Fiction

Journaling is a tried-and-true method for self-expression and discovering your voice. For illustration, Joyce reads from one of Virginia Woolf’s diary entries.

Journals: Observing the World

Joyce discusses how delving into the darker elements of your personality and past can provide compelling, heartfelt fodder for fiction—as well as a means to finding a unique audience.

Ideas: Exploring Taboo and Darkness

Some of Joyce’s experimental approaches to structure include considering the shape of a story on its first page and writing a one-sided dialogue. She reads from her story “Heat.”

Structure and Form

Your past and your family can be a rich trove of story material. Joyce walks you through examining childhood influences, interviewing family, and remembering physical places that have left a lasting impression on you.

Ideas: Writing the Familiar

Joyce analyzes very brief narratives—ones with no more than a few pages—for the language and structure they require. As an example, she reads from the William Carlos Williams story “The Use of Force.”

Form Study: Miniature Narrative

Writing a monologue can be a useful stepping-stone to crafting a novel, as well as a good exercise in exploring the perspectives of characters unlike yourself. Joyce’s monologue story “Lethal” serves as an illustration.

Form Study: Short Monologue

Joyce reveals what inspired—and how she wrote—her most well-known and reprinted story, including how she chose the main character’s perspective and how adjusting perspective can be helpful for your own story.

Story Study: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”

How do you read with the intention of finding new ideas and learning from writers you admire? Joyce leads a discussion on reading as a writer.

Reading and Studying Writing

Joyce and two of her students—Lindsey Skillen and Corey Arnold—read from Ernest Hemingway’s story “Indian Camp.” They review the work as they would in one of Joyce’s collegiate or graduate classes.

The Writer’s Workshop: “Indian Camp”

Joyce holds a workshop of her student Lindsey’s story “Labor Day,” which can be downloaded in advance of the lesson.

Revision Workshop: “Labor Day”

This workshop focuses on Corey’s short story “Near Death,” which can also be downloaded in advance.

Revision Workshop: “Near Death”

Joyce shares her parting words, advising how to select a place to write that makes you feel inspired and how to continue finding joy in the writing process.

Closing

Joyce Carol Oates Teaches the Art of the Short Story

Hiding from the people you love

What gets a writer writing?

The paradox of taboo subjects

Picking at the thorn in your heart

Imagine yourself as someone else

The value of tinkering in a workshop

No writer is an island

Finding a window into imagination

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