We'll spend this first session getting to know each other and our chosen Narcissuses

Come ready to tell us a little about who you are, what kind of writing you do, and which author(s) (ideally one, maximum two) you want to closely study and learn from over the next 6 weeks.

Pick a Narcissus who had written **a lot.** Someone with a wealth of experience and plenty of material you can analyse.

### Pre-Session Assignment

**Bring 2 writing excerpts from your Narcissus**. These can be short essays, articles, or selections (2-3 pages) from a longer book.

Think about why you like these pieces in particular, and what elements of them you most want to mimic in your own work.

If you haven't already inappropriately stalked them, do a bit of research into your Narcissus. Understand where they're from, who taught them to write, and what social and historical forces influenced their work.

Chapter 1 - Introduction and Orientation

**This week is all about sentences.**

We'll look at how our Narcissuses:
- begin sentences
- decide when to end sentences
- place their subjects, verbs, and objects
- create rhythm and cadence by varying sentences length
- use punctuation

### Pre-Session Assignment

Pick 8-10 sentences from your Narcissus.  
Copy them out and analyse them – why do you like these?  What makes them _good_?  
Turn these sentences into templates - how would you make these structures reusable?  

Write 500 words trying to use the same sentence structures as your Narcissus.  Bring it along.

Chapter 2 - Sentences

**This week we'll look at how our Narcissuses begin a piece and end it. **

What's their opening sentence? How do they set the scene? Do they drop you into the middle of the action, or give layers of context upfront?

How do they bring a story to a close or conclude their argument?

We'll also consider how they **transition** between topics, scenes, and arguments/claims.  How do they signal they're changing from one idea to the next? How do they signpost where they've been, and where the story is headed?

### Pre-session Assignment

Pick 3 pieces of writing from your Narcissus (preferably short stories, articles, or essays – something you can analyse the whole structure of that's shorter than a book).

Analyse how they open and close each of these. Compare and contrast.  
Analyse how they transition between sections of the text. How can you tell when they're changing tone or topic?

Write 500 words using the techniques you've learned this week. Bring it along.

Chapter 3 - Openings, Closings, and Transitions

Chapter 4 - Descriptions and Details

Chapter 5 - Play, Perspective, and Narrative

Chapter 6 - The Finale

A writing club where we learn by imitation. We'll each pick a Narcissus – an author we wish to Echo. We'll closely analyse (and even copy) their work, then write our own pieces using what we learn.

Echo and Narcissus Writing Club

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Getting Started

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Prompt

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Retrospective

## Learning Goals

The goal of this club is to improve your writing skills by copying the work of someone who is far better at it than you (your Narcissus). By paying close attention to the way they construct a sentence, write a title, and set up an argument, you'll learn to make those same moves in your own work.

We'll write a short piece each week to put what we learn into practice. 

It's a good idea to come into the club with a list of ideas, topics, and themes you want to write about. Since we're focusing closely on the mechanics of writing, we won't be explicitly dealing with how to come up with ideas or how to conduct research.

## Structure

We'll meet for an hour each Saturday over 6 weeks.
In between meetings, you should set aside 1-2 hours during the week to study from your Narcissus and complete a short piece of writing. 

We'll write 500 word pieces for the first 4 weeks, and 1000+ words in the final week. These pieces can be on anything on like, as long as they have a point and are trying to communicate an idea to another human mind.

During the sessions, we'll discuss what we've learned from our Narcissuses and share examples of how we've applied it to our own work.

We'll then split into pairs to read each other's work. We'll give each other kind, constructive feedback on what we did well, and what we might improve.


## Who Should Sign Up

This club is for anyone with an active writing practice. It can be any kind - fiction, non-fiction, high fantasy, economic commentary, and political satire are all welcome.

Bonus points if your writing practice is in public on a blog, email newsletter, or digital garden. This isn't required, but it's helpful to put writing somewhere where other people can read it.

Cohort #0