Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques

Overview

Master the craft of fiction writing with professional techniques from an award-winning novelist and writing instructor.

Course No. 2541

Storytelling is fundamental to human nature, but transforming ideas into compelling fiction requires skill. This 24-lecture course, taught by James Hynes (former visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop), reveals:

• How to develop believable characters and authentic dialogue

• Techniques for building immersive fictional worlds

• The fundamentals of plot structure and narrative pacing

• Point of view strategies that shape reader experience

• Practical approaches to drafting and revising your work

Whether you’re beginning your first story or refining your craft, these lessons provide essential tools for any fiction writer.

Video Lectures

1. Starting the Writing Process (30 min)

• Building Fictional Worlds through Evocation (29 min)

3. How Characters Are Different from People (30 min)

4. Fictional Characters, Imagined and Observed (30 min)

5. Call Me Ishmael-Introducing a Character (30 min)

6. Characters-Round and Flat, Major and Minor (29 min)

• The Mechanics of Writing Dialogue (29 min)

8. Integrating Dialogue into a Narrative (30 min)

9. And Then-Turning a Story into a Plot (30 min)

10. Plotting with the Freytag Pyramid (31 min)

11. Adding Complexity to Plots (31 min)

12. Structuring a Narrative without a Plot (31 min)

13. In the Beginning-How to Start a Plot (30 min)

14. Happily Ever After-How to End a Plot (32 min)

15. Seeing through Other Eyes-Point of View (30 min)

16. I, Me, Mine-First-Person Point of View (31 min)

17. He, She, It-Third-Person Point of View (31 min)

18. Evoking Setting and Place in Fiction (32 min)

19. Pacing in Scenes and Narratives (32 min)

20. Building Scenes (32 min)

21. Should I Write in Drafts? (30 min)

22. Revision without Tears (31 min)

23. Approaches to Researching Fiction (33 min)

24. Making a Life as a Fiction Writer (35 min)