James Hynes
1) Sparrow
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In a brothel on the Spanish coast during the waning years of the Roman Empire, a young enslaved boy of unknown parentage is growing up. His world is a kitchen, then an herb-scented garden, followed by a loud and dangerous tavern, and finally, the mysterious upstairs where the "wolves" do their business. The wolves, named after the muses and coming from across the vast empire, are Sparrow's surrogate family. They are his mothers and his sisters, his...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Combining the wit of David Lodge with Poe's delicious sense of the macabre, these are three witty, spooky novellas of satire set in academia-a world where Derrida rules, love is a "complicated ideological position," and poetic justice is served with an ideological twist.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Paul Trilby is having a bad day. If he were to be honest with himself, Paul Trilby would have to admit that he's having a bad life. His wife left him. Three subsequent girlfriends left him. He's fallen from a top-notch university teaching job, to a textbook publisher, to, eventually, working as a temp writer for the General Services department of the Texas Department of General Services. And, even here, in this world of carpeted partitions and cheap...
Author
Language
English
Description
Nelson Humbolt is a visiting adjunct English lecturer at prestigious Midwest University, until he is unceremoniously fired one autumn morning. Minutes after the axe falls, his right index finger is severed in a freak accident. Doctors manage to reattach the finger, but when the bandages come off, Nelson realizes that he has acquired a strange power-he can force his will onto others with a touch of his finger. And so, he obtains an extension on the...
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 8
Language
English
Description
Turn from the mechanics of dialogue to discover how it can be used to evoke character or advance the story. After surveying how dialect is a powerful tool, if used carefully, Professor Hynes shows you how writers smoothly weave exposition into dialogue, and he considers the significance of what is not said in an exchange.
6) Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques: Fictional Characters, Imagined And Observed
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 4
Language
English
Description
Continue your study of character with a look at several approaches for building a character. Some writers draw from life, whereas others draw from the imagination. Some build characters "inside out," others from the "outside in." Some develop characters by psychology, others by circumstances. Professor Hynes shows you a range of options.
7) Next
Author
Language
English
Description
One of America's most distinctive voices, James Hynes taps his dark humor for this startling novel. In the wake of a terrorist attack, neurotic Kevin Quinn flies to Austin, Texas, for a job interview. But when he lands, he finds himself following the beguiling young woman who sat next to him on the plane.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 10
Language
English
Description
Whether you're writing literary fiction or a potboiler, your story needs a structure. Freytag's Pyramid is the classic structure for moving a story from an initial situation through a series of conflicts to a resolution. Examine every stage of the pyramid with examples ranging from The Wizard of Oz to Middlemarch to Game of Thrones.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 11
Language
English
Description
Now that you've learned the basic elements of storytelling, it's time to go beyond the fundamentals and explore several smaller-scale techniques that can make your plot more subtle and satisfying. Your study includes the elements of suspense, flash-forwards, flashbacks, and foreshadowing.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 21
Language
English
Description
So far, this course has focused on the individual elements of good fiction. Now that you have a complete toolkit of writing techniques, how do you put it all together to create a whole story? Professor Hynes discusses the process of writing an entire draft, and offers some words of wisdom to help you maintain momentum.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 22
Language
English
Description
Revision is a necessary step in most writing projects. Take a case-study approach to see what techniques authors use to revise their stories. To show you the ropes, Professor Hynes walks you through his own process. Although revision can be difficult, you'll come away from this lecture confident in your abilities to get your story where it needs to be.
12) Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques: He, She, It - Third-Person Point Of View
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 17
Language
English
Description
While first-person narration is an effective way to tell a story, third-person narration offers a wonderful range and flexibility, and allows you to dive just as deeply into your characters' heads - if not more deeply - than the first-person perspective. Survey the spectrum of third-person voices, from the objective and external to the interior stream of consciousness.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 20
Language
English
Description
A good scene serves two functions: it advances the larger narrative, and it's interesting in its own right. How do you build compelling scenes? How do you transition from one scene to the next? Learn the fine art of moving from point to point in your narrative so that your story remains smooth and compelling.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 19
Language
English
Description
Every narrative has a tempo. Some stories are short, while others are long. Some move at breakneck speed, while others linger over every detail. Discover how to strike the right balance between length and time (the pacing), between length and detail (the density), and between scene and summary.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 13
Language
English
Description
Revisit beginnings. How do you get started with a story? In this lecture, Professor Hynes shifts from the techniques of plotting to offer several clear strategies for putting these techniques into action. He also provides invaluable advice about making choices on the page - and understanding the implications of those choices.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 7
Language
English
Description
Shift your attention from building characters to figuring out what they should say. This lecture provides an overview of the nuts and bolts of dialogue, from the rules of punctuation to the way writers use dialogue tags to add clarity to a conversation. See how what a character says can create meaning and evoke mood.
17) Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques: Seeing through Other Eyes - Point Of View
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 15
Language
English
Description
What happens in a story depends in large part on who tells it. The three-lecture unit on point of view begins with a quick tour of the major points of view, from the third-person omniscient to the subjective first person. You'll also see how point of view is linked to time. As it turns out, when a story is told matters just as much as who tells it.
18) Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques: How Characters Are Different From People
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 3
Language
English
Description
Characters are illusions, and the illusion often hinges on how much access a writer gives us to a character's thoughts. Begin this unit on character with an examination of how writers choose which moments in a character's life to dramatize, and then consider how knowledge of a character's thoughts affects the story.
19) Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques: Call Me Ishmael - Introducing A Character
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 5
Language
English
Description
Now that you now have a wealth of strategies for developing character, how do you get your character into your story? In this lecture, you'll run through five different ways authors introduce characters. You'll also see two methods for building a story: the exploratory method and the "iceberg theory" of character creation.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 6
Language
English
Description
Books come in all forms and sizes, and so do characters. Learn the hallmarks of different character types, like round vs. flat and major vs. minor. See what purpose each type of character serves, and discover the relationship between a character and his or her desires.