This four-session workshop offers a deep dive into the geometry of short fiction. We will look the use of time in narrative prose, for what is the structure of a story, its form, but a way of arranging and rearranging time – of deciding what to divulge and when? You will learn how to give your stories* a strong sense of movement and momentum and explore a wide variety of story structures through diagrams and readings that will demonstrate the delightful and seemingly endless possibilities of short fiction, possibly literature’s most protean form. We will also do a few writing exercises, including one that illuminates the myriad ways a single story can begin.
“Begin at the beginning,” said the King to the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” But it’s never that simple, is it?
Workshop One:
The Geometry of Story: The Classic Short Story & its Variations, and Beginnings
Workshop Two:
The Boomerang: Stories in which there are a series of seemingly unrelated digressions flung out from a linear/straightforward main narrative before returning to it, as a way of creating tension, varying pacing, reader interest, and adding a layer of metaphorical meaning to enrich the story.
The Hermit Crab: Stories adopting existing written forms as their structure (“shell”) that you fill with your own content. For example: an on-line questionnaire, how-to-assemble instructions, obituaries… the possibilities are endless. A break-up related via a recipe card, a story of grieving told through a Tinder profile, etc. (The hermit crab is born without a shell and inhabits empty shells as protection and home.)
Workshop Three:
Epistolary stories in the 21st Century: From the conventional letter and beyond (for example: stories using email and text exchanges, CB radios, blogs, substacks etc). We will look at the tricky nature of the “direct address” POV (which can often take the form of a monologue) and how to avoid its pitfalls to creative believable narratives.
From Z to A: stories told backwards in time, in reverse order – not as a gimmick, but to increase emotional impact.
Workshop Four:
Relay Baton: Stories in which the narrative (whether in first person or third person POV) is passed on to a series of subsequent narrators who carry to story forward. An excellent technique for creating momentum and moving a story through time.
This final workshop will also include the opportunity, for those who wish, to share writing created using some of the forms learned in the workshop through short readings, as well as an open Q & A about all things short story.
Readings:
Readings and links to readings will be sent to participants in advance of the first workshop.
*Although the focus is on short fiction, many of the structures and techniques are applicable to creative non-fiction and the novel
Zsuzsi Gartner is the author of the story collection Better Living through Plastic Explosives, shortlisted for the prestigious Giller Prize, and of the widely acclaimed collection All the Anxious Girls on Earth. The Beguiling, a novel with embedded stories, was a finalist for the Writers Trust Award. She edited the anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow and was the guest editor of Best Canadian Stories 2026. Zsuzsi was the inaugural Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow in 2016 and is thrilled to return to Cork as the 2026 O’Connor Fellow. She lives in Vancouver, Canada, and has just completed her third short story collection.
Email info@munsterlit.ie for enquiries and booking.