Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques
Overview
Course No. 2541
Award-winning novelist and Iowa Writers’ Workshop instructor James Hynes teaches you the craft of fiction writing in this 24-lecture masterclass. You’ll learn essential techniques for creating compelling characters, building immersive worlds, crafting dialogue, and structuring plots that keep readers engaged.
From first drafts to final revisions, this course provides practical tools to transform your ideas into polished stories. Whether you’re writing literary fiction or genre novels, you’ll gain insights into point of view, pacing, scene construction, and the business of being a writer.
Video Lectures
01: Starting the Writing Process (30 min)
Overcome blank page anxiety with effective opening strategies.
02: Building Fictional Worlds (29 min)
Master “show don’t tell” to create vivid settings.
03-06: Character Development
03: Characters vs. Real People (30 min)
04: Character-Building Methods (30 min)
05: Introducing Characters (30 min)
06: Character Types (29 min)
07-08: Dialogue Crafting
07: Dialogue Mechanics (29 min)
08: Integrating Dialogue (30 min)
09-14: Plot Construction
09: Story vs. Plot (30 min)
10: Freytag’s Pyramid (31 min)
11: Complex Plots (31 min)
12: Plotless Narratives (31 min)
13: Strong Beginnings (30 min)
14: Satisfying Endings (32 min)
15-17: Point of View
15: POV Fundamentals (30 min)
16: First-Person Narration (31 min)
17: Third-Person Narration (31 min)
18-20: Advanced Techniques
18: Evoking Setting (32 min)
19: Pacing Control (32 min)
20: Scene Building (32 min)
21-24: The Writing Life
21: Drafting Strategies (30 min)
22: Painless Revision (31 min)
23: Research Methods (33 min)
24: Publishing Paths (35 min)

