The Flash Fiction Series
 
Gayle Drakes

To complete the 3-year MFA certificate, 16 credits should come from Foundation courses. You need 32 credits from Foundation courses to finish the 2-year MFA certificate. Foundation courses are required for the Creative Writing certificate—that is also a 32-credit requirement. It may seem like a lot, but there are more than sufficient Foundation courses in the MFA program to reach these targets. Essentially, any MFA courses that are not MFA110, or that are not among the 700 series, can be counted toward credits for Foundation courses. The flash fiction courses, those in the MFA 150–174 series, are included in this category and can help you reach your targets for credits from Foundation courses.

Flash Fiction seems a daunting writing format to many. Especially if someone tends to be a more expansive writers, the idea of telling a story in 1000 words or less may seem terrifying. But a critical part of learning to write lies in exercising the writing muscle. I have found that few formats work that muscle like flash fiction. In flash fiction, the elements of craft come together and gel in a limited space. Flash fiction forces you to convey the story in crisp images, tight sentences, and deep subtext. The readings and exercises in the flash fiction courses allow you to practice and hone these skills. These improved skills are transferred to longer writing forms.

I was not always such an advocate of flash. I admit to avoiding the Flash Fiction series of MFA courses like the proverbial plague. I tip-toed around these courses, doing everything else I could find. I struggled with the idea of trying write short short fiction. I felt I would not be good at it, that it's a format that is too hard unless the writer has some innate talent for it. And anyway, I want to write a novel, so learning about short-short fiction was not going to be useful, right? I eventually began to take flash fiction courses. My only thought at first was that I wanted to be sure I had sufficient courses in all categories of the MFA requirements. But it turned out that I was quite wrong about everything I imagined and thought about flash fiction. Some of these courses I now count among the most impactful I have taken in the MFA program.

There are several in the series that are foundational, introducing and explaining the concept and ideas behind flash fiction. I found MFA150 Introduction to Flash Fiction was a good place to start. But don't think that you must wait for this course to come up in the calendar to dive into the flash fiction courses. These are free-standing courses—each can stand alone because each tackles a specific aspect of writing flash fiction, or a particular bit of guidance for writing better flash stories. Therefore, you can take any course on the calendar at the point you want to. None of the courses have prerequisites.

Each course focuses on a single chapter of the required text and examines a specific element of writing flash. The courses cover the history and craft of flash fiction including Point of View, imagery, smart surprises, load-bearing sentences, and editing and revising flash stories. Some courses also explore sub-forms within the flash format—one-page fictions, fixed-form narratives- and flash fiction from non-western cultures. There is much to delve into among the 26 flash-fiction courses in the series.

All courses in this series use the same text: The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field. It is available in both print and e-book formats. Once you obtain the text you have the material for taking any of the courses in that series and can even explore a bit on your own (though I strongly recommend taking the courses to benefit from the writing assignments and peer feedback).

There are usually at least one or two flash fiction courses on the calendar each month, so you can dive in at any point. All flash fiction courses are 2 weeks long and therefore worth two credits each. The entire flash fiction series amounts to 52 credits in total, more than enough to supply the required credits for Foundation courses for any of the MFA certificates.

"Dawn is a fisherman, his harpoon of light poised for a throw- so swiftly the morning comes..." Raymond Barrow, Jamaica

Poetry is as old as we have been telling stories. The saga of Sundiata is among the longest surviving works of literature, a tale of the ancient Mali empire that is still recited by griots of West Africa today. It tells the journey of a man who rises above adversity, betrayal and danger to rescue his people and become the empire's first king. When prose fails us, we turn to the poetic, like Prof. Robert Oppenheimer, seeing and finally understanding the real power of the Manhattan Project's creation, foreseeing its legacy, and resorting to the writings of the Bhagavad Gita ('gita" can be translated "song")- "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.".

The poetic form does not have to be epic or literary, but it is universal. Light-hearted verse like limericks, Japanese haiku, hip-hop lyrics and spoken word poetry, that catchy advertising jingle that sticks in your head, exactly where the advertising agency wants it to be. It all shares space in the world of verse with sonnets, narrative poems and modern prose poetry, and it does what writing always does: it says something about the human condition.

If you are interested in writing poetry and learning more about the craft, the WVU has an excellent suite of courses. If you are more interested in fiction or non-fiction prose, taking a couple of the poetry courses can still be helpful. Besides counting towards the MFA or Creative Writing certificates, an understanding of the poetic form can help to improve your work.

Studying how poems use language gives the fiction and non-fiction writer insights into how to bring more sensory detail into their writing. Poems evoke the senses to express meaning. The opening lines of this article are taken from a poem that is quite often used by English teachers in the Caribbean to teach metaphor and personification to hapless twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. But the whole poem itself captures the experience of sunrise through sight, sound, and touch in a manner that resonates with all ages. Epic poems aside, poets often share their observations and feelings in fewer words that longer prose fiction and non-fiction. A well-written limerick tells a whole story in just five lines. Examining how poems can be effective with such brevity can stimulate new ideas for conveying theme and message in your work.

The poetry courses at WVU cover the fundamentals of crafting poetry through to advanced aspects of the art form. If you know nothing about poetry and what distinguishes it from other forms of writing, MFA350: Understanding and Writing Poetry is a great place to begin and will introduce you to the basics. From there, you may wish to try MFA351 which is on revision and requires having taken one of the Core poetry courses—these are in the MFA350's, and include MFA355: Verse Forms, and MFA356: Shaping Forms. Both are based on the classical forms of poetry.

There are eight courses on prose poetry, a form that combines elements of poetic and prose writing. The series, MFA366–369, offers weekly prompts to work with plus each course ends with a workshop. Each week, you'll be sharing a poem, whether newly written or revised, and receive meaningful, focused feedback from your classmates.

Whether you choose to try a few or take more of the courses, you will find that all encourage you to experiment and try new techniques. Many of the poetry courses are on the calendar for this year. Go ahead and take the opportunity to delve into the fascinating world of poetry. You won't regret it, because you are bound to take away something that will help somewhere along your writing journey.

Tips for Completing Your Certificate

Maybe It's Time to Try Some Nonfiction and Poetry Courses

Brigitte Whiting

WVU offers MFA Certificates in Nonfiction and Poetry in addition to several in Fiction. You've probably noticed the courses listed on the calendar. You might have even wondered whether to try one, and then you remembered writing high school essays that had to follow a strict outline form, and studying poetry that seemed to become deader the longer it was parsed, and thought, "No, don't like poetry. Don't like writing essays. No, no, no."

But maybe it's time for another look.

For starters, you could try just one class or two, and you'll still earn credits that can be used toward any of the Certificates. There are also a few Nonfiction Literature courses, L400s, that can give you a better idea of what reading Nonfiction can be like, not that any one of us hasn't read numerous nonfiction pieces, whether from the texts in the courses, blogs, magazines, newspapers, letters, how-tos, memoirs, sales emails, and the list goes on and on. All of these are essays regardless of their shapes and sizes and fall into the category of Nonfiction.

Another type of Nonfiction is Creative Nonfiction. The general categories here are memoir, biography, and personal essays, each using the crafts of fiction, such as scene-setting, dialogue, and narrative arcs to tell a true story. There's one rule that holds for all Nonfiction, whether Creative or not: it has to be factual.

To come back to WVU, we have two series of flash Nonfiction, MFA01–MFA05 and MFA050–MFA054 that fit the Foundation course category and call for writing short personal essays of your experiences in fewer than 750 words. WVU also has longer Core courses, MFA400, MFA403, and MFA404, each with an ongoing project and a workshop. These can be either Nonfiction or Creative Nonfiction. The courses can be taken in any order so you're free to jump in any time.

WVU also has a number of poetry courses (MFA300s), Core that are either 8 or 16 weeks long, and shorter Foundation ones. Again, credits for these can be applied to any of the Certificates. The goal of these is to enjoy playing with words, practicing craft, and coming up with metaphors and similes. A typical week's assignment will be to read craft and a few sample poems, and then practice the techniques in writing a poem.

How, you might ask, can taking nonfiction or poetry courses help you, a fiction writer? Let's look at what you're trying to do in writing fiction: you're using words, those units of swiggles, to create worlds filled with the weight of emotions, hoping that readers will share in those imagined experiences. Nonfiction and poetry ask you to share who you are and how you see the world, to search for what the experiences mean through the writing of them, and to use words to make them come alive on the page. Nonfiction and poetry can also add a few more crafts to your writer's toolbox that might help you in prying your characters open and expanding their views of their worlds.

So, there you have it, a few reasons for considering taking a nonfiction or poetry course. Try a short one and see where it brings you. You might even surprise yourself and find that you enjoy them enough to continue.