Creative Nonfiction Writing V2.0: Exploring Conflict through Open Writing - Mar 2010

In order to explore and create the context for facts, this course will focus on a single theme for the entire duration of the six week course. Creative Nonfiction Writing V1.0 was all about the Take Away Narrative, grounding the narrative in a concrete place so as to adhere to a constant over time. This didn't work so well during the pilot because of the duration of the course----6 weeks is not enough time to see or produce the changes in environment that engender changes in writing, scope, conflict, etc. In Creative Nonfiction Writing V2.0, rather than emphasize environment, we will emphasize conflict. People who apply to the course should already come with a conflict in mind; in fact, they apply and want to write because of conflict, or a problem in their lives or the world that they don't necessarily want to solve (because you need more than writing to do that, ie. "Solve anything! Building ideas through design") but to explore and relate to others. Essentially, this will be much more final project-based and not so heavy week-to-week writing as was the last iteration of this course. Most of the writing will occur in 2-3 weeks.

In Creative Nonfiction Writing V2.0, each writer will choose a conflict in her life, whether it be personally inspired or by current events (local or foreign) in her world. The facts the writer observes or remembers will be extracted from his situation and funneled into narrative from the first person point of view. The writer will explore one conflict over six weeks. The goal is to cover the conflict perspectivally, not comprehensively. (This is not a course in journalism.) One might also uncover something new about the self in this process of open writing.