COURSE DESCRIPTION

The Dark Fantastic: Crafting Unputdownable Fantasy explores how techniques deployed by mystery and thriller, the Gothic, and horror can be used to build suspenseful, atmospheric, and thrilling fantasy. Isabel Cañas breaks down how mysteries and thrillers use pacing, foreshadowing, and red herrings to manipulate reader expectations and create tension and suspense.

Students will learn techniques employed by the Gothic to enrich their settings thematically, deepen atmosphere, and embrace the subversive. Finally, students will study how character is the beating heart of horror and will learn concrete methods for bringing emotion to life on the page in vivid, fresh ways. Throughout the course, Isabel draws on her critically-acclaimed, bestselling novels to demonstrate how stealing the best of what darker genres have to offer can only strengthen your own work, regardless of genre.

COURSE LAYOUT

This course includes three learning modules. Each module is broken into three individual lessons that include video lectures as well as assignments, exercises, and opportunities for self-reflection. Modules are designed to be completed in sequential order as each lesson builds on top of the previous one. Library courses also include recordings from the Live Q&A sessions with the author completed during the live course.

CURRICULUM

  Welcome & Course Guide
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days after you enroll
  Module One: Keeping Your Reader on Tenterhooks: The Art of Manipulating Reader Expectations
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  Module Two: The Alchemy of Atmosphere: Bringing the Power of Gothic Techniques to Fantasy
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  Module Three: The Beating Heart of Horror: Bringing Emotion, Fear, and the Monstrous to Fantasy
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days after you enroll

TUITION

MEET YOUR FACULTY

Isabel Cañas is a Mexican-American speculative fiction writer. After living in Mexico, Turkey, New York City, Scotland, and Egypt, among other places, she has settled in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and writes fiction inspired by her research and heritage. Her work has been nominated for both a Bram Stoker Award and Goodreads Reader Choice Award.

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