4-Week: Structure as Alchemy

In this generative course, we’ll take a fresh approach to the perplexities of structure—whether for short-form or book-length works, fiction or nonfiction—by working outward from the narrative climax. Fiction writers are conditioned to assume that the climax is simply our story’s point of highest action; for nonfiction writers, the necessity of a climax in our structure is mentioned as an afterthought if at all. This seminar will reconceptualize narrative climax as an alchemical transformation utterly necessary to all prose works and deeply connected to a given work's motivating questions—a transformation that, when crafted intentionally, can unlock the blueprints for the structure of the entire work. The class will include a balance of lecture and discussion, with opportunity for in-class writing; participants will leave equipped with ample readings and writing exercises to help develop the climaxes of their own works and reimagine and/or solidify their larger narrative structures.