ENGW1916: Murder, We Write

In this class, we will investigate the power of the crime story across various mediums (literature, film, and television), paying particular attention to the historical development of the role of the detective. While becoming familiar with various forms of the genre from the cozy mystery to police procedural to noir, we?ll consider how the crime story can often give us insight into the workings of society at a particular moment in time, as well as the genre?s historically limited lens on race, gender, and sexuality. We?ll also encounter writers who?ve turned these limitations on their head to create subversive stories that challenge some of those tropes. With this context in mind, we?ll also use our reading to investigate how the crime story works, how the story unfolds through the development of labyrinthine plots, the planting of clues, and the evocation of setting, all of which is underpinned by the character of the investigator. Learning to "read" a variety of texts in this way will allow us to examine how writers use craft techniques to create a particular effect, to build an unforgettable main character, to explore the world in which the crime occurs, and to consider how stories in this particular genre are designed to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Through regular writing practice exploring these varied aspects of craft, we?ll ready ourselves to create our own detectives who will lead readers through a mystery in the shape of a short story or a teleplay outline that will keep them guessing but which will also offer them an insight into the nature of society, justice, and difficult truths about the world we live in.

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