Narrative Thrust: Eight Tools for Pacing, Momentum, and Fixing the Saggy Middle with Erin Kate Ryan

Begins Monday, March 8, 2027

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Mondays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET

(Sessions: March 8, 15, 22, 29, and April 5, 12, 19, 26, and May 3, 10)

Now Enrolling! Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.

Instructor Erin Kate Ryan is a queer writer living in the Hudson Valley and the author of QUANTUM GIRL THEORY (Random House, 2022). Her short fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, VQR, Booth, The Normal School, Glimmer Train, and Copper Nickel, among others. She holds an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars and a JD from Boston University. Her work has been honored with the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, multiple Minneapolis State Arts grants, a Jerome Foundation grant, a McKnight Artist Fellowship, a Pushcart nomination, and scholar/fellowships to MacDowell, Millay, VSC, VCCA, Sewanee, and Breadloaf.

Who is this class for?

This advanced online writing class is built for fiction writers who want actionable tools for keeping their work lively and engaging: structurally, scene by scene, sentence by sentence. It is suited to writers of literary or genre fiction, and to narrative nonfiction writers, who have been working with the basics of story structure and are ready for revision strategies that take a draft to the next level. Writers working on short stories, novels, or long-form nonfiction are all welcome.

What to expect:

Narrative thrust is the momentum that keeps a reader compelled by your prose, your story, your characters. It's the "what happens next" that EM Forster talked about: tension, conflict, suspense, motion. And the absence of narrative thrust is the biggest reason readers, editors, and agents will put down a manuscript after the first five pages, or the first fifty. Our readers have to care, not just be interested, but be invested, be buoyed, sentence to sentence, scene to scene. This fiction writing workshop examines how that is accomplished, and turns that study into an action-ready toolkit of eight narrative thrust propellers. We'll use "The Wizard of Oz" as our Rosetta Stone for these propellers, pulling back the curtain to examine the strategies and craft choices that culminated in a story that has endured for generations.

Over the ten weeks, we'll turn to contemporary writers who excel at managing multiple propellers through their fiction, including NoViolet Bulawayo, Karen Russell, Alice Sola Kim, Alissa Nutting, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Roxane Gay. We'll examine particular strategies for starting the engine in a piece of fiction, such as peril, interruption, change, and contradiction. Notably, plot is not one of our propellers of narrative thrust. Let's talk about why.

Each propeller receives at least one full class session, and nearly every week includes in-class writing time to test that week's tool directly against your own work in progress. You'll leave with revised scenes, a diagnostic map of your project's lines of motion, and a working toolkit you can apply to everything you write next. This online writing class will feature close readings, creative exercises, lively debate, writing prompts, and peer and instructor verbal feedback.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will produce:

• A co-created toolkit of strategies for increasing the momentum of your work in progress, making the fiction more dynamic at the sentence, scene, and story levels
• Initial revision of multiple scenes of your work employing one or more of the eight narrative thrust propellers
• A sophisticated map of your project's lines of motion, identifying opportunities to improve momentum and cohesion of the overall story

Students will receive verbal peer and instructor feedback on writing prompts as well as on their troubleshooting of their works in progress.

Readings

Readings may include NoViolet Bulawayo's "Hitting Budapest"; Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves"; Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's "The Burglar"; Alice Sola Kim's "Now Wait for This Week"; JoAnn Beard's "The Fourth State of Matter"; Aimee Bender's "The Rememberer"; Roxane Gay's "I Am Going to Cook a Quiche in My Easy Bake Oven and You Are Going to Like It"; Tessa Mellas's "Bibi from Jupiter"; Randa Jarrar's "A Sailor"; Heidi Julavits's "Marry the One Who Gets There First"; and Lesley Nneka Arimah's "Who Will Greet You at Home."

Additional works, including Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain" and Alissa Nutting's "Dinner," will be read aloud together in class, along with craft excerpts from EM Forster, Edith Wharton, and Kurt Vonnegut.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Overview of narrative thrust in fiction, including craft excerpts from EM Forster, Edith Wharton, and Kurt Vonnegut, and close readings of excerpts from Vonnegut and others. We will build toward an understanding of the concept by identifying the moments in each selection where we most felt the "what happens next" pull. Overview of The Wizard of Oz as our Rosetta Stone, our communal reference text for the next ten weeks. Writing prompt and in-class readings.

Week 2: Propeller one, separating a character from their desire. Small group work for close reading of homework. Discussion of structural ways to separate a character from desire, and of scene- or sentence-level ways to manage desire. Writing prompts. In-class writing time to examine how desire functions in students' works in progress.

Week 3: Propeller two, physical movement. In-class reading of "Bullet in the Brain." Review of the quest function of The Wizard of Oz. Small group work for close reading of homework. Discussion of non-physical ways movement functions in successful fiction. Writing prompts and sharing. In-class writing time to examine movement in students' works in progress.

Week 4: Propeller three, physical or emotional peril. In-class reading of Alissa Nutting's "Dinner." Class brainstorm on the types of physical and emotional peril available to writers. Writing prompt on emotional peril, followed by a second prompt converting emotional peril to physical peril.

Week 5: Propeller four, interruption. Return to The Wizard of Oz for an initial understanding of interruption as forking roads in a quest; generate examples of how even sentence-level interruption can add dynamism to a scene and create unpredictability. Writing prompt, in which the instructor interrupts writers midway to demand a shift. In-class writing time to review works in progress for interruption opportunities.

Week 6: Propeller five, change. Noting the recent ending of something significant, or the beginning of a new life or world for the character. Deep dive into why recent or impending change creates tension for the reader, and how to maintain it throughout a full work of fiction. Writing prompts. In-class writing time to review works in progress for existing change points and brainstorm opportunities to exploit them more fully.

Week 7: Propeller six, embedding character or setting contradiction to generate tension. Close reading of Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's "The Burglar," with generative prompts. Return to The Wizard of Oz; discussion of science fiction and fantasy, as well as how domestic and literary fiction can exploit contradiction. Writing prompts. In-class writing time to generate possibilities for works in progress.

Week 8: Propeller seven, managing suspense as a necessary aspect of narrative thrust: the degree to which withholding can be gimmicky or distracting, and craft writers' differing perspectives on the issue. Writing prompts and in-class writing time to test withholding against students' works in progress.

Week 9: Propeller eight, putting a clock on the story. Discussion of time, its threat or its absence, as a source of tension. Brainstorm ways to exploit the clock to create urgency or the tension of trap and inertia. Writing prompt asking students to take a scene from their work in progress and put a clock on it. Review of all eight propellers, questions.

Week 10: Lines of motion as the method by which a writer manages the differing propellers of a story, including plot, with each propeller justifying its existence. Close reading of Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" and Heidi Julavits's "Marry the One Who Gets There First" as prime examples of managing varying lines of motion. We will map the lines of motion in The Wizard of Oz before each student maps the lines in their own work in progress and discusses what surfaced. Writing prompts, wrap-up.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• A working command of eight distinct propellers of narrative thrust, each of which operates independently of plot
• Revised scenes from your own work in progress demonstrating one or more propellers in action
• A diagnostic map of your project's lines of motion, showing where momentum builds and where it stalls
• Concrete revision strategies for the saggy middle, the stalled scene, and the fizzling ending
• Close reading skills developed through eleven contemporary short stories and a shared reference text
• Verbal peer and instructor feedback on your prompts and on the momentum problems in your manuscript

TESTIMONIALS:

"This class was perfectly designed and run. Offer it as often as a teaching artist can tolerate." — Former Student

"My fifth class and bar none the best. Everything from reading assignments to critiques, etc. I particularly loved how MUCH material we covered, along with the wonderfully odd short stories we read." — Former Student

"The reading selections were definitely a highlight. They tied in so well with the topics discussed. Erin Kate was SO knowledgeable. Her feedback and insight helped me immeasurably. I've never studied narrative thrust in this context before and it was amazing to look at it this way." — Former Student

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $695 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Erin Kate Ryan
• Begins Monday, March 8, 2027
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Mondays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET
• Tuition is $695 USD.