CRW 3110-0003 - Fall 2025 - Ezeano

This course explores fiction through Affect Theory. It emphasises how feelings, sensations, emotions, and experiences shape characters, plots, and narrative meanings. By probing how fiction evokes affective responses in characters and readers alike, we will analyse techniques such as tone, images, conflicts, points of view, language, settings, characterisations, and atmosphere to enhance the emotional depth and resonance of storytelling. We will learn how to apply these techniques to the stories we tell. What rhetorical choices are we intentionally making to evoke pathos? 
   
   In this class, we will read a lot besides writing a lot, engaging contemporary and classic fiction as well as the framework of Affect Theory. This is to understand how affect operates in narrative structure, from the subtle evocation of mood to the powerful currents of desire, fear, and joy that drive characters and plots. 
   Writing exercises and workshops will guide students in crafting fiction that not only tells a story but also deeply moves its audience.
   
   Key topics include:
   • Emotions and Storytelling: The conscious creation of feelings in stories. 
  
   • Language Choices: The impacts of rhythm, syntax, and word choices on affective tone
   
   • Plot: How narrative perspective shapes emotional experiences
   
   • Conflict: The tension between affect, rationality, and interpretation in fiction
   
   By the end of the course, students will have a nuanced understanding of how fiction works on an affective level. They will develop their writing practices to include an expansive knowledge of the intentional creation of immersive, emotionally-compelling characters, stories, and dialogues.