“The Fiction Fix” Workshop Series

“The Fiction Fix” Workshop Series

This Spring semester, Duke English Professors JP Gritton and Mesha Maren, in conjunction with Duke Arts and the Writers Collective, hosted a series of writer's workshops featuring local writers who provided insight on how to work through elements of one's writing. From January to April, monthly workshops were held to showcase the talents of local writers and discuss a specific aspect of writing.

The series started with Professors Maren and Griffon leading a workshop on "Getting Started." This workshop aimed to help the attending writers overcome their fears of a blank page. The duo spoke on the struggle and excitement of finally getting the first words of a literary piece on paper or computer screen.

Professor Maren spoke about translating what is in your mind into words via language. She discussed the history of the alphabet and how language influences one's writing, looked closely at "Plot vs Theme," and shared some of her ideas on what nurtures "good writing." She noted that one element that always exists in "good writing" is that it makes its readers feel a human connection.

Gritton shared some of his experience as a writer. He has learned during his creative writing career that you "never meet stories on your terms." He noted that "Getting Started" begins with a moment of discovery that might initiate the thought process that turns into the blueprint that leads to what one has written and feels comfortable sharing.

Professor Gritton gave the audience an exercise to complete during the workshop. The exercise required them to write about a situation or moment the author found puzzling or mystifying. The key to this exercise was to encourage the writers in attendance to develop a story that creates a degree of curiosity about where the writer is leading them.

The second installment of the series, "Felony & Fiction," featured author Cynthia Weiner. During the workshop, the author explained how she crafted her novel Preppy Murder and discussed her experiences fictionalizing true crime. She shared some true crime stories, then invited everyone to an open discussion. Weiner also presented the attendees with a writing exercise that addressed how a fictional story could be born from elements of a true story.

“The Felony and Fiction workshop was a fresh way to think about stories and what kinds of narratives appeal to you as a writer. While the true crimes discussed are real people’s stories, fiction can take an idea or situation and use it to connect theme and character in a meaningful way real life doesn’t always provide.” – Shannon Glass, Fiction Editor at The Coachella Review, MFA Candidate at University of California Riverside's Palm Desert Program

Creative Writing students and others in the Duke Community interested in the art of writing attended "The Kitchen" segment of the series featuring essayist and fiction writer M. Randal O'Wain. O'Wain is an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's English and Comparative Literature's Creative Writing Department.

During his workshop, O'Wain spoke of the writer's goal to write so that the reader experiences their words as they do, making the distance between the two small since the reader is approaching the writer's words from outside.

He shared that he often writes in two narrative styles and how to use them most effectively:

• On the Body focuses on details that will paint a vivid picture for the reader. It is almost cinematic, with a show-and-tell, allowing readers to figure it out themselves.
• Above the Shoulders is a style that has the mind working across the page, trying to work through a problem, the unknown, and the challenges of the piece's focal point.

O'Wain read excerpts from pieces that he felt represented each style, followed by some discussion before the attendees began a writing exercise.

“The biggest thing from M. Randal O’Wain’s guest lecture is that really helped me during this assignment was having to write on paper instead of typing on my computer. As I wrote the mini-assignments, I realized I became much more immersed into the writing. When I write on my computer, I spend too much time revising my previous work and searching for the perfect wording. The act of physically writing words down on paper helped me focus on just writing one sentence after the other, and afterwards, I would look over my work and make revisions as I saw fit.” - Rodrigo Amare, ‘27

“In terms of techniques, I took a lot of my approach from the workshop [taught by M. Randal O’Wain], trying to alternate between explicitly articulating emotions or reflections and throwing in some more “on the body” descriptions as well…This process of establishing consistency in characterization was a real challenge for me and consequently stretched me a lot as a writer in ways that I found stimulating and fun!” - Neha Shaw, ‘25

“The Fiction Fix” series concluded with Robert Wallace, two-time winner of the Doris Betts' Fiction Prize, leading a workshop on "Revisions." Wallace shared his take on the key elements to consider when writing, especially when revising. He reminded them that writers never stop revising and editing their work.

In Wallace’s opinion, the three key elements that one should focus on are: point of view, style, and word choice. He stated that a writer's most crucial decision when working on a fiction piece is point of view.

He discussed how, in one of his pieces, which won a Doris Bett's Fiction Prize, he converted it from third-person to first-person because as he worked on revising the original piece, he felt that using the third-person made the focal character too distant.

The workshop attendees participated in a writing exercise in which they revised a piece they had been working on and brought with them. The focus of the exercise was to change the point of view of the narration.

Wallace shared that as a writer, you want the reader to have to work some. Hence, he encouraged the dozens of writers in attendance to aim to be more suggestive in their writing than literal. Like O'Wain's "on the body" style, Wallace pointed out the importance of show and tell to keep the reader focused.

He shared that sentence fragments can have a place in writing, especially fiction, if used to add something to the previous sentence. Elements of word choice, like conjunctions and sentence fragments, can be compelling in writing if used correctly. He also emphasized that the best conjunction is simply the word "and." He praised the way renowned writers like Ernest Hemingway were experts at using conjunctions. 

Attendees of “The Fiction Fix” workshop gained valuable insights in each session on how to improve their own writing. They also had opportunity to practice some of the suggested techniques. The vision for this series that was shared by Professors JP Gritton and Mesha Maren was realized through guest authors generously sharing lessons from their own writing experiences with participants who eagerly tried out some of these lessons in the hope of becoming better writers.