High School

Fiction gives you permission to ask almost any “what if?” you can imagine. What if a missing research ship suddenly returned after twenty years? What if two rivals had to work together long enough to survive an attack? What if the person everyone trusted made one decision that changed everything? Your story can become a mystery, an adventure, a science-fiction conflict, a Western, a strange new world, a quiet character story, or something that combines several kinds of fiction. You choose what happens, who it happens to, what matters enough for your characters to fight for, and where the story eventually leads.

In this course, you will become a stronger storyteller by creating stories, not by spending an entire semester studying storytelling before you get to use it. Through most of the semester, you will explore one major storytelling skill for about two weeks and then use it in a complete story of your own. You will discover how character choices create consequences, how goals and motivations drive conflict, how setting can change what is possible, how characters affect one another, how point of view changes the story a reader experiences, and how dialogue can create tension, reveal motives, and move events forward. Each new skill gives you another tool, but it never tells you what kind of story you have to write.

That means you will not spend the semester trying to make one enormous story perfect. You will create a series of complete stories, experimenting with different characters, genres, conflicts, settings, and ideas along the way. Some may be ambitious and complicated. Others may be short and focused. A story does not have to be long to succeed; reaching the ending and completing what you set out to create is an important part of becoming a storyteller. As you move from story to story, you will be able to use what you have already learned while trying something new.

Storytelling also strengthens skills that matter far beyond fiction. Every time you decide what a character should do next, connect one event to another, work out the consequences of a choice, or consider how the same situation looks from another character’s point of view, you are practicing creative problem-solving and critical thinking. Revision adds another skill: learning to look at something you have already created, recognize what is working, and decide what changes would make it stronger without turning it into someone else’s story.

By the end of the semester, you will have created several original stories and gained far more control over how stories work. More importantly, you will have discovered that becoming a better writer does not mean narrowing your imagination. It means having more ways to take an idea that exists only in your head and turn it into a finished story that you—and perhaps your friends and other readers—actually want to experience.

Middle School

Great stories can take you almost anywhere. You can create a mystery that begins with something nobody can explain, send a character into a dangerous competition, invent a strange creature with a problem of its own, or put two characters together who absolutely do not want to cooperate. You decide who your characters are, what they want, what stands in their way, and what finally happens. Every new story gives you another chance to try an idea and see where your imagination takes it.

In this course, you will become a stronger storyteller by writing story after story. Through most of the semester, you will spend about two weeks exploring one important way stories work and then use what you discover in a complete story of your own. You will see how a character’s choices can change what happens next, how goals and motivations create conflict, how the place where a story happens can create new possibilities and problems, how characters can change one another, how point of view changes what the reader experiences, and how dialogue can become part of the action instead of simply passing along information.

Each new storytelling skill gives you another tool to use, but it does not tell you what kind of story you have to write. One student might use the same idea in a science-fiction adventure while another creates a mystery, a Western, an animal story, a strange-world conflict, or something completely different. You can experiment with different kinds of characters, settings, problems, and endings as you discover the kinds of stories you most enjoy creating.

You also will not spend the whole semester trying to make one enormous story perfect. You will create several complete stories instead. Some may become bigger and more complicated, while others may stay short and focused. Both can be successful. Finishing a story matters because every beginning, middle, and ending you create teaches you something that you can carry into the next story.

As you write, you will also be strengthening skills that are useful far beyond fiction. Figuring out what happens next requires problem-solving. Following the results of a character’s decisions helps you think about causes and consequences. Writing from different points of view helps you understand how the same situation can look very different to different people. Revising teaches you to look at something you have already created and decide how to make it stronger while keeping it your own.

By the end of the semester, you will have created a collection of original stories and gained many more ways to turn your ideas into fiction. You will not simply know more about stories. You will have spent the semester actually creating them—and discovering how much more you can do with an idea once you know how to make a story come alive.

High School

These courses are designed to give you regular time to write fiction without adding another full five-day course to your schedule. You will spend about one day each week exploring how stories work, trying new ideas, and creating fiction of your own. These courses fit alongside whatever language arts program you are already using, so you can focus here on something specific: becoming a stronger storyteller.

You will not spend most of your time studying writing terms or analyzing how fiction works from a distance. You will learn by creating stories. Each part of the course explores one important storytelling idea, and then you use that idea in a complete short story. You might discover how a character’s choices change what happens next, how setting creates new problems or possibilities, how point of view changes what the reader experiences, or how dialogue can create tension and move the story forward.

Each new storytelling skill gives you another tool, but it does not tell you what kind of story you have to write. You choose the characters, genre, setting, conflict, tone, and ending. You might write science fiction, mystery, adventure, a Western, a strange-world story, a character-driven story, or something that combines several kinds of fiction. The goal is not to make your stories look like everyone else’s. The goal is to give you more ways to create the stories you want to tell.

Because the course is designed for about one day of work each week, the pace is focused and manageable. You will have time to explore one storytelling idea, put it into practice, develop your story, and bring it to a real ending. Your story does not have to be enormous to succeed. A short, complete story is a real accomplishment, and every story you finish gives you more experience for the next one.

As you write, you will also strengthen skills that matter far beyond fiction. You will make decisions, solve problems, follow causes and consequences, look at situations from different points of view, and learn how to evaluate your own work. But the heart of the course is much simpler: you become a better storyteller by telling stories.

By the end of the course, you will have created several original stories and discovered more of what you can do as a fiction writer. You will have tried new approaches, experimented with different kinds of stories, and gained more control over how your ideas become characters, conflict, action, choices, and endings. Most of all, you will have spent real time creating stories that belong to you.

Middle School

These courses are designed to give you regular time to write fiction without adding another full five-day course to your schedule. You will spend about one day each week exploring how stories work, trying new ideas, and creating fiction of your own. These courses fit alongside whatever language arts program you are already using, so you can focus here on something different: becoming a stronger storyteller.

You will not spend most of your time studying writing terms or memorizing rules. You will learn by creating stories. Each part of the course explores one important way stories work, and then you use that idea in a complete short story of your own. You might discover how a character’s choices change what happens next, how a setting can create new problems or possibilities, how characters affect one another, how point of view changes what the reader knows, or how dialogue can become part of the action.

Each new storytelling skill gives you another tool, but it does not tell you what kind of story you have to write. You choose your characters, your setting, your conflict, your genre, and your ending. You might write a mystery, an adventure, a science-fiction story, a Western, an animal story, a strange-world story, or something that mixes several ideas together. Two students can learn the same storytelling skill and still create completely different stories.

Because the course is designed for about one day of work each week, the pace is focused and manageable. You will have time to try one storytelling idea, build a story around it, and bring that story to a real ending. Your story does not have to be huge or complicated to be successful. A short, complete story is a real accomplishment, and every story you finish gives you more experience for the next one.

As you write, you will also practice skills that are useful far beyond fiction. You will solve problems when your characters get into difficult situations, think about what happens because of their choices, look at events from different points of view, and decide how to make your own work stronger. But the main goal is simple: you become a better storyteller by telling stories.

By the end of the course, you will have created several original stories and discovered more of what you can do as a fiction writer. You will have tried different kinds of stories, experimented with new ideas, and gained more ways to turn something you imagine into characters, conflict, action, choices, and an ending. Most of all, you will have created stories that belong to you.