I’ll be teaching an online course in November! Archetypes, Tropes and Clichés: Make the Ordinary Unique.

What does it mean when someone calls a story “trope-y”? Are clichés always bad? Are archetypes always necessary? If you’re writing any kind of fiction, you’ve probably heard all of these terms at some point. You may have encountered conflicting definitions, or gotten feedback on your writing that has included these terms. How can you take that feedback and make use of it? How can you use these concepts in the early stages of drafting your work? Together we’ll explore these concepts and develop a framework for utilizing these ideas in writing and revision.

This is a program grown out of the MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch LA, my school.